“NBD, able-bodied riders who won’t give your seat to a GIANT preggo. I’ll just stand riiiiight next to your head and pray I go into labor.”
This tweet went out from 32-year-old actress Olivia Wilde, who is currently pregnant with baby #2 with her fiancé, Jason Sudeikis.
Wilde, mom of two-year-old son Otis, was traveling on the NYC subway the second week of September when she realized other passengers would not give her a seat, despite her “delicate” condition.
As a NY working mom who has ventured through public transportation also while pregnant, I can sympathize with Ms. Wilde. One particularly tough day was when I was bringing luggage for a three-day-stay in NYC on the Long Island Railroad because I was headed to a global conference for my corporation. I was luckily able to find a seat on the train, but at one station a man actually tried to sit ON.MY.LAP because there were no other seats on the train. I was a solid seven months pregnant – and I had no lap for someone to sit on. I believe the man’s intention was to compel me to stand so he could take my seat. I was appalled!
Still, the riders and other commuters near me barely batted an eye. To me, it seemed that consideration and courtesy for a pregnant woman were hard to come by.
We at Moms Pump Here are with you, Ms. Wilde. We’d like to remind people that each and every one of us have been carried in a woman’s belly. That’s right – someone was pregnant with each rider on the subway in NYC, on a flight to LAX or on the LIRR. Hopefully people were pleasant and polite to your moms – so let’s keep being friendly and helpful to pregnant ladies on mass transit.
