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Why Are Children Being Sedated With Prescription Drugs?

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JOHN NASH

Of Cabbages and Kings

Published: April 1, 2009

Once again the crusading St. Pete Pravda strikes out boldly, with a front page story (March 29) about how "young patients" are being denied mind-numbing drugs (paid for by you and me), which places a terrible burden on "loving" mothers, "caring" teachers, and society in general. Baloney!

It is clearly fair to wonder: What is it about today's children that makes so many of them violent, antisocial, and even dangerous to the rest of us? Why, if this is not a new phenomenon, is there no significant record of its existence 50 to 60 years ago? There must be a cause; shouldn't that be what we are treating, rather than the symptoms?

My more formative and influential years were spent in New York's famous Westchester County. It was there where resided most of the movers and shakers that made daily commutes to Manhattan, from three-floor homes on shaded streets, in places such as Bronxville, Pelham Manor and Scarsdale. Our parents, in general, consisted of a father that worked in "the city," and a mom that worked twice that hard, maintaining a happy, clean, comfortable, and economical home in the suburbs. In my village (population about 15,000) everyone knew most everything about everyone, yet there were no reports of psychotic children - none what-so-ever! We walked to school, packed a bag lunch, or else paid for it with cash. If we seriously misbehaved, we got thrown out of class, which was a major source of discomfort to our families. The nearest thing we had to mood-enhancing and controlling drugs was Coca Cola, or a richly deserved spanking. Somehow, all of us (to the best of my knowledge) made it through to graduation from high school, without the help of any unusual chemical additives to our diets. Something is obviously different today; what is it? That is where we need to be looking for an answer to the perceived problem - not to more drugs!

Well, there certainly is the major influence of the boob tube, which doubles as baby sitter for far too many careless and incompetent parents. Look at what the children watch: blood, gore, gratuitous sex, rampant materialism, and "if it feels good, do it." This is hardly trivial: I believe that, were the boob tube unavailable to children in the average home, much of the current, amateurishly-perceived problem with children would vanish overnight.

But dangerously influential television is not the only, nor even the major culprit: you and I are the villains in this play. We have abdicated our traditional and natural responsibilities as parents, allowing our offspring to be raised by child-care businesses, by street gangs, and by that mindless boob tube. We have wrongly convinced ourselves that every family needs two incomes, and that it is more important for women to "find themselves," than to attempt to function in mankind's most important job - a full-time, loving and dedicated, mother and housewife. We attempt to salve nagging consciences by throwing gifts, toys, and money at our inconvenient children, with which we spend "quality time" (e.g., asking them about their day, as we drive them home from day-care, or out to soccer practice).

Back in the mid-1940s, mother was home to greet her children as they returned from school. She knew, and approved of, whatever her children did after school; and the family ate a home-cooked dinner together, before gathering around the radio to listen to Lowell Thomas read the news, or perhaps to laugh at a popular show called "Life Begins at 40." Mother also ensured the children had quiet time, in which to study their homework assignments. Finally, she saw to it that her freshly scrubbed angels were tucked into bed at a reasonable hour. Without in-room television, or other modern marvels of instant communication with whomever, the children usually fell quickly into restful sleep, which prepared them to cope with another day studying geometry or geography.

When a child became ill, mother was there with the chicken soup and love: today, she routinely sends them off to school, where they infect others, while learning nothing in class. Is it any wonder that children treated with such disregard sometimes explode emotionally - obviously not!

Parents compound their crimes of omission by shoving mind-altering chemicals down their child's gullet. How Orwellian! Are we to become a nation of zombies, mindlessly plodding through a meaningless life, controlled by drugs, rather than by love and the human spirit? No, we don't need more antipsychotic drugs and additional psychiatrists: Instead we need loving, caring, dedicated, informed and intelligent parents, along with far less access to television, cell phones, and other electronic toys. We've created the inaccurately perceived problem with our children's antisocial behavior. We're the only ones that can correct that untenable situation. But we likely won't, because to do that we'd have to give up our accustomed life of materialism and pleasure. We'd have to return to time-tested and proven ways of life, where the mother was the heart and soul of the home; where love and genuine concern for one's children filled the house - however modest that may be - and where doing one's homework well was far more important than watching another "reality" show on television, or twittering electronic "friends," which are a poor - even dangerous - substitute for a real family.

The choice is ours, and the time is now: We either make significant changes to our hedonistic lifestyles, and place family first, or we agree to ever increasing amounts of mind-numbing drugs, which might well eventually become a routine additive to infants' formula and strained pears.

Of Cabbages and Kings is a regular feature of this paper. The author welcomes rational, pertinent comment, which may be sent to him at john@have-eye.com

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