My younger brother Philip, at the age of fourteen, has never gone down to the subway by himself, has never ridden alone on shuttles, and he knows the city very badly. Even if you draw him a diagram or send him a Google Map, he is always stopping somewhere, crying, and everyone has to stop what they are doing and follow him.
His mother, father, and grandmother are all very worried about him. They take him by the hand to all sorts of places, but I remember how I got there myself by trial and error when I was a kid, and I would have been punished if I had distracted one of my parents from their work by going to the wrong place.
I’d been taking the bus to the other side for vocal lessons since I was ten myself. And somehow it turned out that the bus had changed routes and there was no way to get there by one transport. I, a little girl, called my mother in tears. Do you think she came to get me? Yeah, sure she did! She said to get off at the nearest metro station and go down, and there you have to change trains to get there, ask someone, they’ll tell you.
Or I used to drive from a concert by myself around 9 p.m. I had a huge bag and a box of shoes and a rucksack without a school bag. I thought I would take the bus, but I got on at the wrong stop and went not to my house, but from my house. I only had money for one shuttle bus, and I was in tears again at the subway, and also without a student card. I was begging my dad on the phone that they wouldn’t let me on the subway, but he said they would, so stop whining and that was it. And I was just a girl.
So it annoys me that they’re so worried about Philip, who’s a big boy. What kind of unfairness is that? Even now, when I’m twenty and I go up to my dad to find out how I can get to some place, he sends me to the Internet, or tells me that I will ask someone on the bus. Why can’t Philip do that?
