June 11, 2002

THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS

Nearly everytime I use the London underground, I am heartened by the unexpected kindness of strangers. The underground is woefully behind the times in terms of wheeled access. In many cases, stairs are the only way to get from one area to another. Even when lifts and escalators have been installed, they more often than not are out of service. What to do when one is pulling a suitcase or pushing a stroller? (Those in wheelchairs know better than to ever venture underground.)

Having lived in London with five children, two of them as babies, I can tell you what to do: just keep going. Don't slow down, and don't block the stairs. At the moment assistance is needed, a strong hand will miraculously appear, reach down, and scoop up the front of the stroller or the back of the suitcase. More often than not, the hand will be attached to a blue-suited arm, its partner holding the Financial Times while its owner continues to read. Without breaking stride, the suit will carry the stroller and gently deposit it at the other end, often without looking up, and stride away with barely a nod to acknowledge the recipient's thanks. (Though I suspect he feels a little like Superman inside.)

This has happened to me dozens of times, and I have done the scooping myself on a number of occasions. My sons, too, have learned to be aware of the sudden needs of others and to lend a hand with a suitcase, a door, or a shopping bag.

Why would normally busy, self-important, uncaring businessmen, the corrupt bad-guy of every Hollywood movie, be so kind to a stranger in the underground? Why doesn't he just walk on, let someone else help, ignore the hapless mother and child?

The answer is not so altruistic as you might imagine: it is genuine self-interest. Without consciously thinking about it, he knows that a bottle-neck will quickly back up if the mother and stroller are stopped in the tide of people pushing toward the escalator or flight of stairs. Like a branch in the stream that collects debris until a dam forms behind it, the unaided stroller will block his way. He will not be able to get by, and his journey will be delayed. Multiply this scenario by hundreds of prams in dozens of stations throughout the day, every day, and his daily commute will become maddeningly impossible. so he sees the obstacle and removes it, before it becomes a dam in the stream.

But why this particular businessman, among the hundred or more people swarming out of the train and up to the station? Because he is the closest, because his arm is free, because cosmically, it is his turn. He knows this in a twinkling, without looking up. No one pays him to do it, and no one taxes anyone else to do it instead of him. In short, the London stroller phenomenon is a wonderful example of the invisible hand at work. In this case it is not the invisible hand of the market (although ultimately it may be market driven) but the invisible hand interconnecting humanity.

Okay, so there are positive externalities to this system. Some people never reach down to lend a hand, yet they take full advantage of the path that someone else has cleared. That's all right with me. It's a much better system than finding a "fair way" to help the plight of the stroller bound, Stroller Marshalls perhaps, posted at the top and bottom of each stairway, ever at the ready (and paid for by a tax on the entire populace--even those who never use the underground.)

No, I'll continue to enjoy my part in the stroller brigade, taking my turn to help when my arm is the closest, accepting help with a grateful "thanks" when I need assistance, and basking in that brief glow of good will that comes from remembering that in the vast sea of humanity, we are not alone after all.

I suppose there is a way to keep these women and their strollers from imposing on others.

-- Jo Ann Skousen

email: jaskousen@mskousen.com

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