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Friday, November 02, 2007

That damned pill

What's Mallard raving about today?

I have no freaking idea.

Isn't the whole over-medicating-kids-with-Ritalin thing from, like, the late-90's? Where's my asterisk so I know why this rant now?

8 comments:

BillyWitchDoctor said...

The good news is: your kid doesn't need medication (unless he does, of course, but those kids never seem to come up in these arguments), he just needs your love and good parenting (that's the ultimate "nanny state," but whatever).

The bad news is: you can't be around enough because if one of you quits his or her job, he'll be living like a dog. And if he gets seriously sick? Hah. That would've been covered under S-CHIP, but now it's covered under TS-GFY (Tough S*** - Go F*** Yourself). You should have thought about that before you had a kid!

The good news is: he'll be given free medical care in the military. It's substandard, but whattaya want for nothin'?

Drugs are bad!! Thank God there are so many upstanding citizens (like Rush Limbaugh) to set a good example for your kids.

Hey, Tinny, what's the deal? Big Pharma needs new junki--I mean, customers--to keep those profits growing! Why do you hate big business? Why do you hate America?

Matt Ramone said...

Much like Gil Thorp, Mallard is ripped from the headlines ten years ago!

Anonymous said...

As hesitant as I am to defend Tinsley... I think you're misreading this one. He's not saying
that the child has some form of attention disorder; he's saying that the child suffers because
the PARENTS won't give the kid enough attention (, time, discipline, and affection). Whatever
the kid's unspecified problems are, they are the result of the parents' lack of care for their
children.

Absolutely, developmental problems occur due to causes not related to parenting methods,
and most parents do everything they can to help their children.


Tinsley is addressing the parents who wanted children but not enough to adjust their busy
lifestyles - the "Cat's in the Cradle" parents, if you will. And you have to admit that there are
some folks who popped out babies but are too self-absorbed to actually spend time with
their offspring. (I suspect Tinsley believes that such poor parenting is more widespread
than it really is, but whatever...)


The joke, such as it is, is that rather than chewing the parents out and making them take
responsibility for their poor parenting, the doctor has a quick fix in the form of a pill.


So the second social commentary, in addition to a diatribe against inactive parenting, is an
accusation of relying too heavily on medication to solve all problems. And I'm not sure I
entirely disagree with that. I think there's a huge grey area between healthy but overactive
behavior and behavior that is a danger to the child and others, and far too often people
respond to normal childhood enthusiasm by sedating with Ritalin. Schools in particular are
guilty of *requiring* that loud, active children be doped up to maintain peace and quiet... and
I think that's wrong.

BillyWitchDoctor said...

Thanks, Anonymous, for that step-by-step explanation of the "joke" which everyone else already fully understood.

Absolutely, developmental problems occur due to causes not related to parenting methods, and most parents do everything they can to help their children.

Tell this to the anti-S-CHIP crowd who attacked the parents of Graeme Frost: Mother quit her job to raise the kid; kid got terribly ill; regular insurance wouldn't cover it; S-CHIP saved family from destitution. George W. Bush sees that as a horrible injustice...and the politicians and pundits against S-CHIP (you know, the "we're the Family Values Crowd" crowd) publicly badgered Mrs. Frost and painted her as a neglectful parent--for quitting her job to raise her child.

(head explodes)

Of course, her real sin was using her kid to promote S-CHIP.

Tinsley's lazy-ass strip is a mish-mash of assorted imaginary crises and watered-down tough-guy solutions ("kids get too many pills these days--I read that somewhere sometime, I dunno--when all they need is a good whuppin' once in a while. That's good parentin'!"). As I've said before, even when there's a tiny booger of truth in what Tinny's trying to say, he completely destroys it with his lazy ass and ham fists.

This is how things work here. When Tinny's wrong, we'll rip him. When Tinny's having his "even a broken clock is right twice a day" moments, we're still going to rip him, because he's a smug bigoted hypocritical jerk who is a lousy cartoonist and a worse propagandist.

Michael Foley said...

anonymous, was that post for a school writing assignment that had a min. word requirement? Remember to double-space. Also, I recommend starting out with, "Webster's Dictionary defines 'Discipline' as..."

Michael Foley said...

Or maybe anonymous is really John Galt, trying to recapture the magic of his glorious radio address.

Anonymous said...

Oh if only they had that pill for unruly children when Brucey was a boy...

Anonymous said...

The guy is lying. It's not a pill. It's liquid! It's BEER!

Works 10, 20, 50 years after the fact!