What’s With All the Hostility Toward Pregnant Women?

Today, I was intrigued by a headline on nymag.com that caught my eye: Are New York’s Pregnant Shoppers Feeling a Little Too Entitled Lately? Interesting, I thought, so I read the short article that basically recounted two stories of pregnant women trying to get to the front of long lines in stores. What starts as a fairly objective article, then gets a bit snarky when the author writes, “Seems if they want pregnancy charity they should stick to booting people out of subway seats.”

Ouch. The commenters get even more hostile, which as a mom, in NYC no less, of course ruffled my feathers a bit. While I agree it isn’t courteous to try to skip other customers in a line, I also don’t think it’s unreasonable for a woman carrying a child to expect to be offered a seat on a crowded train. One commenter remarks “No one made them get pregnant and have children.” Well, yes that is true, but if women didn’t get pregnant and have children there would be no people here.

Being pregnant is a natural part of life. Just because you are carrying a child doesn’t mean your sense of common courtesy disappears, but it does mean that your body is in a very fragile state because of the developing life growing inside you and you shouldn’t be made to feel bad for expecting others to be sensitive to that. And as woman who’s had to stand on a crowded subway train when I was eight months pregnant while other able-bodied men and women sat comfortably in their seats, I am not ashamed to call it what it is: rude.

My advice to all you expectant mamas: do your shopping online. You can get the same great deals (if not better ones) on the Web without all the sass and attitude of people who don’t yet understand what it means to be carrying a child. Here are some great finds to get you started:

This stylish tie waist dress is only $18.

These maternity jeans were originally $163, but are now marked down to $65.

Score this trendy denim tunic for just $20.

Shop more of the best maternity clothes in our buying guides.

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