Standing Up

An obviously pregnant woman gets on a crowded subway and the only people to offer her a seat are a couple in their senior years even though she feels the eyes of many other seated people flicker briefly in her direction before eclipsing into feigned sleep or ignorance.

She's young, stable on her feet and doesn't mind standing. She doesn't demand to be treated like a delicate flower and have everyone jump up to "rescue" her but she was taught to offer her seat to those who might need it. She thought it was a common courtesy everyone knew of and practiced at least from time to time. She was wrong.

She would never, no matter how heavy and tired she was with child, make her grandparents stand while she enjoyed the comforts of sitting and for that reason among others, refused the generous offer by the couple who really had no business standing in a crowded train in the first place. It's not because she thinks she's better than them, there is no self-righteousness in standing but they needed to sit more than she did and she couldn't pretend away that need.

A loud, inward sigh resonates within her body when a nearby seat finally becomes vacant only to be filled immediately by a younger female who then looks directly at her and smiles sweetly. How does one interpret that?

It's not herself whom she pities but the depths into which a large portion society appears to have fallen. How can things change so much from when she was younger and things were different... or at least seemed to be so. In a few short months she'll bring a child into such a world and she doesn't know if instilling the lessons of morality, etiquette and the virtues of wearing a white hat will bear meaning in the "Me first" matrix we live in. She realizes it's maternal anxiety, the mother hen instinct wanting to protect and hopefully not smother, but if we are to lead by example and the world is full of walking examples which ones will our future progeny follow?