Margaret Halsey Children Quotations

It is impossible to betray another man's child - for whatever reason - without also betraying one's own. To do less than justice to another man's child, no matter who that man is, is to impair by that much the chances one's own children have for a life of meaning and purpose.

the position of children as a group, in a commercial society, is not wholly advantageous. A commercial society urges its citizens to be responsible for things, but not for people. It is the unquestioned assumption of a mercantile culture that things need and deserve attention, but that people can take care of themselves ...

children are an embarrassment to a business civilization. A business society needs children for the same reason that a nomadic or a pastoral society needs them - to perpetuate itself. Unfortunately, however, children are of no use to a business society until they have almost reached physical maturity.

A business society, therefore, always has in its children a large group of individuals who cannot make money and who do not understand (or want to understand) the profit motive. In short, they are subversives ...

There are dozens of ways of failing to make money. It is one thing to fail to make money because your single talent happens to be a flair amounting to genius for translating the plays of Aristophanes. It is quite another thing to fail to make money because you are black, or a child, or a woman.

Working with children is the easiest part of educating for democracy, because children are still undefeated and have no stake in being prejudiced.

you have to realize the white-supremacy boys are spoiled children. 'I want my way,' they scream, and like all spoiled children, they advance no justification for it except that it is their way.