[lbo-talk] RE: The opium of children

[joanna bujes]

"In another Parliamentary report, a seamstress named Mary Colton was 
able to drug her child for two days a week on 1/96 of her weekly 
paycheck, which made administering such a cordial economically 
feasible. For example, a working mother making $20,000 in 1998 
dollars would be paying roughly twelve bucks a week to keep her child 
quiet. The sedated toddler allowed Mary to work her normal job and 
put food on the table, and he was too zonked to get himself into 
trouble. As Chepaitis puts it,"

For the kids, it was a choice between opium or starvation (if the mother couldn't work). Today we do it with Ritalin.

Joanna