Being considerate in an uncaring world

I'd like to think the brat has his manners down pat. It may not be the Ps and Qs of the norm, but things which are more important than these mechanical reactions to me, his mother. Like sharing, like helping, like being concerned if a friend falls and gets hurt. Like seeing mamma overburdened with parcels and offering to carry a few, albeit end up dragging them over bumpy gravel and ruining them completely. Going apne aap to the water filter when people come over and fill the steel glasses (the only glasses apart from the plastic ones he's allowed to touch unsupervised) and bring them one by one to the guests. Offer them a choice of a cola or a juice, and act on the request, climb up on the sofa to make the fan faster for them if its a particularly humid day. He's that kind of a boy. A sensitive boy. Maybe not a gentle boy. Like his father. Who is the kind to never let a lady travel in the city late at night, and will always ensure that she is dropped home, no matter how inconvenient and how tired he is. And who offers lifts to any random hitchhikers on the highway, much to my terror of highway robbery gangs waylaying him.
The purpose of this rambling incoherent paragraph? This. The brat was a wee bit unwell over the weekend with a cold and so mamma decided he needed to be checked up by the pediatrician. And so we found ourselves in the clinic on a busy Monday morning, with truckloads of sniffling kids and harassed moms cramped in the closed confines. And the clinic has a heavy glass swing door that most moms with small infants found difficult to negotiate. Mamma asked the staff whether the door could be kept open, but was told it had been installed to keep the cool airconditioned air in and therefore keeping it open was not an option. The brat stood a while near the door while a lady struggled to open the door and manage her barely month old child, mamma stood up and held the door open. The brat then took on the onus of wrestling the door open everytime a mother with a baby in her arms came through, adding for good measure, chirpily, "Welcome, welcome," getting a smile and a thankyou and a what is your name from most, delighting him.
A mother and her perhaps eight year old daughter were sitting next to mamma, carrying the latest LV Graffitti, manicured and pedicured to perfection, hair blow dried and the picture of chicness. And the mother sniggered at the daughter, who sat in bovine contemplation, "Look at him, behaving like a watchman." And then the duo tittered much like the Wicked Sisters from the Fairy Tale of yore, and Mamma wished she had a glass slipper to throw at their heads. And to add insult to injury, said loud enough for the brat to hear. Mamma saw his face crumple. He left the door, walked upto them and gave them his equivalent of the middle finger. His little pinky held up to them in trembling anger. "Katti, katti," he said and came silently and sat next to Mamma. Mamma patted him, and said in a neutral tone, loud enough for the entire clinic to hear, "Its alright brat, you were very polite and helpful to all the other mammas. Some people here dont know how to be polite and helpful and so they cant recognise it when others are being polite. They can only recognise being mean and nasty because thats what they are."
A couple of other mammas with the small babies, who had been the recepients of the open door service called the brat across to them and made him play with their babies much to his delight. We went in for our check up. Mamma thought he had forgotten it all. As we left he turned pointedly to the tittering duo who were now looking at brat and Mamma sullenly, and said, "Bye, bye." In a painstakingly polite manner. Like he said to the rest of the crowd in the clinic.
Mamma's wondered if her ribcage would burst occasioned by heart swelling to obscene levels with pride at her little gentleman.