Individuality: It Could Affect Someone In Your Family!

by Jason C. Ditz

Scary, isn't it? Somewhere deep within the human genome, where no one dares to look, probably hiding behind the compassion gene or something, lies what may well be the most dangerous disease humanity has ever faced: free will. Relax, fortunately, we can cure that now. 

Today in my hometown newspaper (which was the only thing in the bathroom at the time) the major story (indeed top two stories) was clear. We are introduced to little Hunter (last name was in the story, but withheld here). The first thing we learn about little Hunter is that, from the schools he attends and the area in which he lives, his parents are at the very least upper-middle class. Hunter apparently isn’t (at the time) very attentive in school, and in fact rides his bicycle quite recklessly. Hunter is all of 7 years old, and already branded as reckless and inattentive (they don’t come out and say insolent or anything, but I guess that’s the implication). 

Thank God somebody caught this in time. Hunter’s teacher (at the school he was attending at the time) noticed that something wasn’t quite right. Amongst his/her 7 year old suburbanite charges, a little lamb had strayed. He apparently didn’t pay as much attention as he should, and so the teacher came up with the on-the-spot diagnosis, little Hunter has ADHD. Later this is apparently confirmed by some behavioral specialist, and Hunter’s parents are offered the choice to drug him into conformity. For Hunter’s long-suffering mother, the choice was obvious, drug him up, lest he fall behind his classmates. 

Apparently it worked. At age 13 little Hunter is now flourishing in school. Better still it would seem, the drug has solved that recklessness problem. Hunter is now less apt to speak his mind, indeed less apt to say much at all, and prefers sitting quietly (and perfectly still the article for some reason reminds us) and watching television.

One shudders to think of all the damage a rambunctious little rich kid named Hunter who rides his bike around could do. By now he’d have undoubtedly taken to breaking his neighbors’ priceless vases with a slingshot, not to mention digging up the roses in Mrs. Wilson’s prize rose bed. My God, he might even have dipped his classmate’s pigtails into the inkwell. Oh the foibles he could cause (or whatever people started saying when they stopped saying foibles)! 

The decision to dope him into submission was not an easy one. While for his mother the decision was “immediate”, and grandfather grudgingly gave his consent, his father was more skeptical. “Most of my fears were what people were going to think” his father is quoted as saying.

Oh, by all means Mr. Hunter’s dad. I know if I had a child and was presented with the choice of having him spend the rest of his life strung out on mind altering drugs and quietly watching television instead of being a marginally misbehaved child, my first goddamn concern would be “What will the neighbors say?”.

Of course his parents aren’t quite blind to what’s happening. Little Hunter is only given the drug before school, on weekends he is drug free. Or at least as drug free as one can get going cold turkey on a mind altering drug for 2 days. His parents say they don’t want him to view the drug as a crutch, just as something to help him stay controlled and help him do well in school.

Wherever would he get that idea? 

crutch (n) 

  A device used for assistance or support; a prop (Source, Am. Heritage dictionary 4th  ed.) 

Then we get to the real meat of this article (in fact the real meat of virtual any article printed in a newspaper in this heavily UAW run town) good-natured bashing of the Republicans.

Apparently the State Legislature wants to make a law that will prohibit public school teachers from suggesting to parents that a child be drugged. Rather they are expected to merely point out the child’s problem and recommend they see a behavioral specialist with an actual medical degree who can more readily prescribe pills. Needless to say, the teacher’s union is pitching a fit. 

Why this is should be obvious. If a teacher (re: state employee) with a marginal degree from a more or less accredited university that required them to take one or two basic general ed. psychology classes can’t have full control over all minutia of the lives of every last one of their students, democracy has probably failed us yet again.

And those fear-mongering representatives with all their talk about the use of behavior modifying drugs increasing eightfold in the last 13 years? Well that’s misleading, it may sound like a lot, but only somewhere around 3.6% of children are currently using it. Besides, it works! 

Is it just me or is it troubling that 3.6% of the population of the state of Michigan will, at some point, be drugged up to keep them docile? And which is more troubling, that or the fact that State Representatives can’t get away with complaining about teachers (state employees) who tell parents that the choice is either drug up your kid or he’ll be doomed to a life of underachievement without being labeled as teacher hating? 

Far be it for me to defend a politician (especially one passing new laws), but isn’t telling state employees what to do theoretically their job? And when they’re telling them to stop coercing private citizens into do things to their children that will be with them their whole lives just so the employees will have a little bit easier time of it, what’s wrong with that?

January 17, 2002