[lbo-talk] RE: The opium of children

joanna bujes jbujes at covad.net
Fri Dec 12 08:12:22 PST 2003


"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



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