We don’t call it altruism when a mother stays awake all night by her child’s bedside. We don’t even call it altruism when a home care worker stays way beyond overtime, until the hurricane has blown over, to ensure the safety of her elderly charge. We expect certain kinds of people to make sacrifices. Apparently we reserve the term altruism for the privileged, fortunate, entitled people for whom self-sacrifice is a stretch, is unexpected.
