It's not all about you!

Today I'm griping.  I did some early shopping and stopped at my bank to get cash on my way home, carrying two very heavy packages.  A young woman (early 20's I'd guess) went through the door right before me and let it close directly on me.  She never once looked back, even when I squealed as it hit me in the arm.  Last week returning from Staten Island a young man ran into me (considerable bruises still) and when I gasped in pain, he told me not to make a federal case of it.  These two encounters with the "me" generation are not that unusual.  We recently had many changes in my building with lots of young people moving in.  Only one to date, a woman, has held the door for me, and most of them leave their laundry in the machine (some times for hours) without considering that others in the building might want to use the washers and dryers.

Am I just a curmudgeon?--you know the ones I mean, those who tell their children when they complain about walking to school, that they had to do the same trip, barefoot, walking uphill all the way. I honestly don't think so.  I've noticed an essential rudeness in the 20-30 something generation, at least in Manhattan, that I have never noticed before.  I'm not sure what to blame aside from the who (their parents) but I suspect that the introduction of the ubiquitous cell phone is partly to blame.  You can't walk down a single block in New York without seeing someone totally engrossed in talking on a cell phone and totally oblivious to everyone and everything around them.  I've often thought of how much fun (initially, as jail time later wouldn't be at all fun) it would be to grab the phone out of their hands and throw it into the nearest trash can.

Last year I travelled every weekend with a suitcase, often heavy, and had to drag it up and down subway steps.  On a number of occasions a woman has asked me if she could help, usually middle-aged.  It was obvious at times that I was struggling, yet only once as I remember did a man offer to help.  I've never seen an older woman (or any woman or man) struggling with packages where I was empty-handed without offering to help.  And then there's the buses, and the young men who put their heads down when a pregnant woman gets on the bus to avoid offering their seat.  It's almost always another woman who gets up.

Since this is mainly a political column, I should add that I'm often tempted to ask someone like that woman who let the door close on me what their politics are, hoping of course that he or she will respond "conservative."  But I confess I don't think it has anything to do with politics or values, just young people who've been raised by parents to think it's only about them.  It's not, if any of you are reading.  Please, look behind you and hold the door!  Thanks.