First, before we get into today's topic go over to a great site currently showing a clip called The Scalper. This is the same outfit that brought us the Brett Favre Excuse-O-Matic.

Now, onto to today's entry.

I'm going to try something new. Every now and then I'm going to write about
drugs. Yep, drugs, drugs, drugs. Nothing wrong with popping pills, is there? And who better to pontificate on them than a licensed drug dealer, me.

I've been a pharmacist for over twenty long years. I've seen many changes since I first graduated. Some good and some bad. Today, I want to speak to a piece that The Wife® and I have joked about ever since The Boy® entered the picture.

Sanity at home for mom (and dad!).

Before Prozac there was Valium, which consistently ranked among America's best-selling prescription drugs until the 1980s, and before Valium there was Miltown, a "tranquilizer" developed in the 1950s specifically for the anxiety of ordinary life. At the height of its popularity, Miltown was being taken by one American in twenty.

Not that we ever felt especially proud of that statistic. The Miltown boom was widely criticized as yet another symptom of American moral decline. Like Prozac in the 1990s, Miltown was called a "crutch," a "mental laxative," "emotional aspirin," a "prescription for happiness." Beyond these clichés, however, it is not all that easy to say just what is wrong with medicating away our anxiety, our shame, or our fear of death. Crutches, aspirin, and laxatives are very useful if you happen to have a broken leg, a headache, or a stubborn case of constipation. Anxiety about death is deeply unpleasant. Why not medicate it?

Miltown, America's "first psychopharmacological wonder drug." Miltown was being replaced by Valium as Mother's Little Helper by the time I started pouring and counting for real. But it was still in demand. I even dispense it now and then today.

Miltown was also popular in the books written by my favorite science fiction author, Robert Heinlen. In one of those books, Farnhams Freehold, the "heroes" at the beginning of the novel mix booze, Seconal and Miltown. Heinlein doesn't even blink in writing it. In fact, he appears quite enthusiatic. Miltown has been etched into my mind ever since as the first true crutch for people trying to deal with life.

Now comes a book trying to capitalize on the anxiety of modern motherhood. As if mother's throughout history haven't always had a rough go of it! The book is Perfect Madness. And it is a stitch. And is the reason for this entry today.

For an antidote to the perfect madness of perfectly neurotic überparents, we need only look back to the childhood days of baby boomers. There we find a very different model of parenting, which I believe has been unfairly trashed.

I'm talking about the mothers you read about in novels set in the '50s like the one in the aforementioned Heinlen novel, who sat around drinking and smoking while the kids ran wild. I call them "Cocktail Moms."

Here's my favorite real-life "Cocktail Mom" story. A friend who grew up in a family of six kids said every time they embarked on a long car trip, his mother doled out spoonfuls of a mysterious green liquid to each child. It made the kids sleep, allowing mom and dad to enjoy a peaceful ride. (My friend does this hilarious imitation of himself as a child, trying to fight the green stuff's effects, but he always succumbs.) Today's parents don't do stuff like that anymore - ply children with some potentially addictive narcotic!

Nooooooo. They dose them with Ritalin and Adderall. But that's for another day.

Mary Jacobs of the The Dallas Morning News also has been having a good time with the book Perfect Madness and wrote this recently:

Let's see how the mom of yesterday operated, compared with some mommy models of today.

Child: Mom, I'm bored.

Entertainment Mom: I'll take you to Chuck E. Cheese's.

Cocktail Mom: Bored? I wish I had time to be bored, but I need to clean the house. I don't want to see your face around here before dinnertime. Now, go on out and play.

Child: Mom, Billy hit me!

Therapist Mom: (mirroring) Billy hit you? (probing) How does that make you feel?

Cocktail Mom: Tell Billy to cut it out or else. Now, you two go turn on the TV and be quiet.

Child: Mom, I'm thirsty.

Nutrition Mom: Here, let me fix you a glass of organic soymilk.

Cocktail Mom: Fix yourself a glass of sugar water.

Child: Mom, could you help me with my math homework?

Übermom: Better yet, I'll hire a tutor.

Cocktail Mom: You know better than to ask for anything while General Hospital's on.

Cocktail Mom didn't mistake herself for her child's friend or his therapist or his personal-success coach. She might drive the kids to the park, but she'd never climb on the monkey bars with them. She might run her home like a tight ship, but never a Disney cruise ship. She might hug a child with hurt feelings, but she'd never meddle in playground politics to protect his fragile self-esteem.

Before you get any ideas, The Wife® has no plans to become a Cocktail Mom. She will not take up smoking, and she'll still spend way too much time auditing The Boy's® time.

But once in a while, she and I will pay homage to the Cocktail Mom and all the decent human beings she managed to raise, in spite of herself. We'll fix ourselves an adult beverage, put our feet up, and tell The Boy® to go on outside and play.

And we'll be better parents for it.

Your Cocktail for the Weekend

So, I can't run off and leave you without a cocktail to try. So here's two, one of which was previously posted and a new one I stole from a bar in Salem, Massachusetts.

The Dry Toast
Ice cubes
3 tablespoons vodka
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 teaspoon Cointreau
1 teaspoon apricot jam

Fill a cocktail shaker with ice. Add the vodka, lemon juice, Cointreau and apricot jam and shake for at least 1 minute to break up the jam. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and serve.

The Wharf Rat
3/4 oz. Light Puerto Rican Rum
1/2 oz. Apricot Brandy
6oz. Orange Juice
3 3/4 oz. Sour Mix
1/2 oz. Grenadine

Blend and pour over ice in 22 oz. Snifter. Float 1/2 oz. 151 Proof rum. Garnish with Lime Wheel and 8" straw.

Posted by maasx003 at March 24, 2005 02:11 PM | TrackBack