Wordsmith - Student Submissions

Got Faith? by Amalia Handler

Already fifteen minutes late, I walked into the restaurant where I was meeting my family. I located my table and made a bee-line for it, eager to sit down. “Happy birthday mom!” I cried as I plopped into my chair. There were six there at dinner that evening; my father, mother, sister, brother, aunt and me.

“How was work?” My mother asked immediately.

I had come straight from my part time job at an indoor rock climbing gym, where I mostly belay children as the climbed the rock walls. “Tiring as usual,” I responded, recalling the child that day that had refused to climb because he wanted to go home and play on his X-Box®. After moaning incessantly to his mother she eventually convinced him to try climbing on the terms that he could stay up an hour later that night. The boy proceeded to barely climb three feet off the ground before he demanded to be lowered. Once this process repeated several times with more bargaining between the boy and mother, they had run out of paid climbs and left the gym in a huff.
Upon completing this thought I added, “I’m that much closer,” holding up my thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart, “to swearing off children forever.”

“That bad, huh?” said my father. The conversation drifted to other subjects but my mind was still occupied by my ever reducing patients with children. I am still amazed on a daily basis about children’s selfish abilities. I acknowledge that in the Westchester culture, emphasis is placed on the individual first and the community second, but where does individualism become down-right selfishness? In the children I work with responsibility and respect for others, even family, is vanishing quickly. Children speak to their parents and me, a complete stranger, in demanding and defensive tones. Perhaps parents are not stern enough. In a consumer oriented environment, children may be forming the interdependent relationships with their parents and with their ever-more-stimulating toys and electronics.

Hopefully, it is a habit that most children will grow out of and mature normally. But until then, I’ll be at the climbing gym, listening to a kid make callous remarks at their parents.

Later, I was driving home from dinner with my sister, Katya. While coming to a stop at a red light, Katya pointed to a car in the lane next to me. I had been so focused on driving and talking to Katya about the happenings at dinner, that I hadn’t noticed that a man about my age (seventeen or eighteen) had his entire upper body hanging out one of the rear windows of the car and was signaling for me to pull up next to him. I drove my car parallel to his. “Fabulous,” I thought to myself, “Here comes the snarky remark of the year.”

I rolled down my window and the half-out half-in the car teenager pointed to the hood of my car and said, “Your head lights aren’t on!”

I was so taken aback by this friendly gesture, for a moment I simply sat there utterly surprised as the light turned green and traffic started moving. Finally, I turned on my lights and I said, “Thank you so much!” Without missing a beat the boy assured me, “Yeah, sure no problem. Drive safely.”

I rolled up my window and marveled to Katya, “That was such a kind thing for him to do.”

We drove in silence for a few minutes, still shocked by what had just happened. Eventually, Katya turned to me and said sincerely, “It really is those little things that people do that restore your faith in humanity.”

Amalia Handler is a life-long unschooler who is enrolled in Royal Academy for her senior year. She lives and studies in New York.