Margaret Halsey Quotes about Children

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

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Play, Black

Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Business, People

Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Business, Groups

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Business, Maturity

Margaret Halsey (1952). “The Folks at Home”

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Men, Justice

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.

Margaret Halsey

Children, Boys, White

Margaret Halsey (1944). “...Some of My Best Friends are Soldiers: A Kind of Novel”