Survival of the fittest? No, not here.

On my way to work one morning, something happened that made me shake my head at the general attitude we have as a society and a nation. I got to the bus stop as two fully loaded minivans drove off. There were no other vehicles available, so I had to wait. At the bus stop a group of school children sat on a bench waiting for the next minivan. I sat with them and waited. Soon other people joined us, adults on their way to work like I was.

The first van came into sight, but was rushed while it was still on the opposite side of the road. The driver only turned to pay the bus stop official and then he drove off with his minivan full of adult passengers.

The second one came by, and was still turning to get to us when men rushed the minivan from all directions, pushing over themselves to get in. The school children had tried to get in, but they were no match for the men on a mission: enter or be pushed. I was still sitting at the bench some distance away, wondering why it didn’t seem natural for adults to let the school children go first. What broke my heart was seeing a child, the littlest one, hit the van on the driver’s side with her tiny fists, wondering why the men pushed them away. The bigger children had to hold her away from the van that was about to move. The reaction from the driver and the other men in the van was a bit confusing to me: they smiled affectionately to the children. Seriously?

It was at that point that I started to mentally shake my head at this non-chalant attitude from the adults. Even if the passengers were blind to the fact that children needed to get in and couldn’t push and struggle with them, the driver could have stopped the men from entering and told the children to get in first. But they preferred to do a “survival of the fittest” rush and then smile condescending at the helpless children.

The children were finally able to get into the next vehicle that came, in spite of some adults who still wanted to rush in. At this point I had to speak up. I knew I was ranting, but at this point I just didn’t care. While still trying to keep my cool, I just made a statement about adults who would rather rush for space with school children than wait for them to get into the vehicle first. As the van drove off, another one came in and I got in. I brought out my phone and started to type this post. This incident got to me. This just goes to show how callous we have let ourselves become as adults. If we can’t care for our future generation now that they need the help, now that we can do something, however little it may seem, to make life easier for them, what do we think they’ll become when they grow, when they have become hardened and grown past all feeling? It is easy for incidents like this to be ingrained in a child’s memory, and form part of his/her mindset about people. I pray these children don’t grow thinking that every adult is selfish. I pray they don’t turn out as selfish as the men I saw that morning. Just saying.