Last week, I headed out to an event at Nate's school with Willa. We left the house with her lovely grey knit hat securely on her curly head, but it was missing when we arrived at school. "Where is my hat?" she asked. I had no clue. I asked her if she took it off and she said yes. I asked her if she threw it out of the stroller, and she again said yes. Great. Her only good winter hat, gone.
After a fun event, we left the school for home with Willa's two fleecy leopard mittens on her hands. When we arrived home, she asked innocently, "Where is my other mitten?" I looked and saw one of her hands was bare. "Willa, did you throw it out of the stroller?" "Yes". Erg.
I have other mittens and hats for Willa at home, but her pickiness about what to wear means risking a meltdown to put her into any of these cold weather alternatives. Ignoring the problem, I decided to simply send her out hatless and mittenless for a couple days since it rained anyway and her only outdoor excursions occurred under the rain cover of the stroller. On our way home from school the first day of sunshine after her unfortunate hat and mitten loss, we saw a strange sight. Perched on top of a fence next to the school was her lovely grey hat. Muddy, but otherwise perfectly fine. Someone had clearly found the hat on the ground and kindly put it in a dry, obvious location. I tucked it into the stroller, happy that I would not need to buy a new one. We continued our stroll home, only to find a few blocks later Willa's leopard mitten draped over another fence. Again someone (most likely a different someone since they were separated by several blocks) had found a tiny, muddy mitten on the ground and put it in a safe spot so that it might be possibly be found.
I felt happiness not only that I'd been spared the trouble of purchasing something new, but also that two individuals had reinforced my long-held belief that most people are basically good. Yes, we are all selfish to some degree. Having focused my Masters studies on Darwinism, I know that as living organisms we almost have an obligation to follow our own self-interest (which of course includes what is best for our children). I acknowledge that some people take this selfishness to a disgusting degree and totally disregard how their behavior affects the world around them. I recently saw a man throw a bunch of tissues out of his car window and when I called to him that he had "dropped something", he called me an "f-ing skank", not a term I often hear applied to myself, and said I was welcome to his dirty tissues. Not a very nice person. And of course bad people exist who do terrible things, even to the detriment of their own selves. But these people are rare and often mentally ill. My belief, as cock-eyed optimistic as it sounds, is that most people will do the right thing, so long as it's not too inconvenient.
I hear the opposite sentiment quite often. "People these days", "Morality is at all time low", parents more afraid for their kids of stranger danger than the far more likely possibility of a car crash. I disagree with this way of thinking. I think people have more or less always been the same. If anything, morality is at an all time high. I love MLK's quote that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but I believe it bends towards justice". What a great, and hopefully accurate, image! When I hear nostalgic talk of "the good old days", I wonder exactly what are people referring to? The recent past in this country of segregation and prejudice? The turn of the century when half of the population was denied the vote? Slavery? Witch trials? The Spanish Inquisition? How can it possibly be argued that life in the past was better when almost every element of society has improved over time?
Picking up a child's abandoned hat and mitten may not have required extreme moral courage or physical effort, but it was a simple act of kindness. And it sure saved me the unnecessary effort and money needed to purchase new ones. So thanks, whoever you are! And thanks for encouraging a positive world view of humanity.
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