Comments on: Bad Mommy!

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 22:55:47 +0000

Wow. I guess I'm not the only one who was scarred by the laxative as a child deal. My mom used to force me to take cod liver capsules every morning. I hated those things because it would hurt to swallow them.

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:56:31 +0000

@Wordy- I think so... My dad was born in 1932 and he and his sister have told me about having to take "fishy" (Cod liver oil) every day. They actually kind of liked it, though. But besides the lubricating features, I think the cod liver oil was also given to tykes to provide vitamins A @ D. The D was probably the main issue in a day when it wasn't added to milk. I'm not sure if castor oil or senna based elixirs offered any additional "benefits"....

By: WordyGrrl

WordyGrrl — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:21:33 +0000

Apparently forcing children to sh*t was a popular pasttime in the 40s? I'll have to ask my mom about that. P.S. A guy named "Brownkid" wants to start a band called "Laxative Tantrum". Brilliant!

By: Juliana

Juliana — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 22:12:45 +0000

Tim, I did have Fletcher's. Check your facts before you attempt to correct someone. Castor Oil was not an ingredient in Fletcher's Castoria. Castor oil is vegetable oil - you might be thinking of Cod-liver oil. I got that stuff on my hands once and I couldn't get the smell out for days. I'd rather be constipated than take that stuff.

Castor Oil is a good laxative. My dad gave me that once & I barely made it to the toilet, but it tastes like drinking pure cooking oil.

Maleia I'll agree it was more of a root beer flavor than flat coke.

By: Neatoramawontsendmeapassword

Neatoramawontsendmeapassword — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 20:32:34 +0000

This stuff never had any castor oil in it. I don't know why they called it Castoria. The original formula (according to Wikipedia) was: senna, sodium bicarbonate, essence of wintergreen, taraxicum, sugar, and water. The current formula is: senna, citric acid, flavor, glycerin, methylparaben, propylparaben, purified water, sodium benzoate, and sucrose.

Personally, I'd rather take the original. It has less crap in it (and probably makes you crap more!).

By: Sid Morrison

Sid Morrison — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 18:57:17 +0000

Mussolini's blackshirts (paramilitary thugs) used to forcefeed large quantities of castor oil to their enemies as a means of causing them a lot of intestinal distress, embarassment (from crapping themselves), and in some cases death from dehydration. The saying of the day was something along the lines of Mussolini's power being enforced by the "club and castor oil"

By: Patrick Nice

Patrick Nice — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 17:16:33 +0000

It just good to know it is thorough.... nothing worse than those laxatives that just go half way.

That's what the young people of America need today, a good laxative.... then maybe they wouldn't be so damn cranky all the time.

By: TwoDragons

TwoDragons — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:31:26 +0000

Tim--Castor oil comes from castor beans, not fish livers. That would be Cod Liver Oil, which makes me sick just writing about it...eeuugh...

Ironically enough, castor beans are the same source of one of the most deadly neurotoxins in the natural world: ricin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricin

Sure makes those childhood memories of being dosed up with castor oil seem a bit more ominous, eh...?

--TwoDragons

By: Maleia

Maleia — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 15:54:00 +0000

My mom used to give me Fletcher's, and it really was tasty! like root beer, sort of. I still use it for my kids today when they have those kinds of "issues."

By: brownkidd

brownkidd — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:43:01 +0000

I officially wanna' start a band called LAXATIVE TANTRUM. Who wants to join?

By: Miss Cellania

Miss Cellania — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:41:46 +0000

My goodness. I guess my parents weren't susceptible to advertising, because they never gave me a laxative the whole time I was growing up. Nor an enema. And I was never slapped in the face, although a lot of other kids my age were.

I guess with all the parenting hangups we have now, they are just different hangups from earlier generations.

By: Carolina

Carolina — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:36:21 +0000

I WISH my mother had only given me a laxative. It was enemas for us, and each and EVERY day we didn't have a BM!!! I really WAS traumatised by those. I always swore my mother was a sadist. As to the 'fishy spoonfuls', that would have been cod liver oil, which I, perversely, loved. (I've always loved fishy stuff...anchovies, sardines, pickled herrings, etc.) Still, I wish my mother had given us the Fletcher's. I would probably have turned out better. BTW...with my own children I NEVER obsessed over their BMs. I knew they would let me know if they had tummy aches, and then I would give them a children's laxative. It seldom happened that they needed one though. They also got Flinstone's vitamins in lieu of cod liver oil.

By: Gail Pink

Gail Pink — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 13:51:50 +0000

Gee wiz, give the kid some prunes or fresh fruit. Problem solved.

By: MoonCake

MoonCake — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:23:52 +0000

i like that it was a regular thing to give your kids a laxative. maybe they should eat more fresh vegetables?

i remember when i was little i was a slight hypochondriac (sp?) and always thought i was going to throw up. i would spend hours in the bathroom just making myself miserable for no good reason, so one time my parents decided to feed me ipicac (sp?) so i would get it over with. my dad came home with the stuff and i remember he wrestled me to the ground and held my nose shut so he could force it down my throat. 15 minutes later, i got it over with and my night was better. i know their intentions were good NOW, but man that scarred me! it's hilarious (and terrible at the same time) that they would commercialize child abuse:

"so i slapped her and said she was a bad girl"

good parenting, mommy.

By: Tim Giachetti

Tim Giachetti — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:40:17 +0000

Julianna, couldn't have been fletchers then. Castoria is Castor oil. Made from squeezing the oil out fish livers.

By: Tim Giachetti

Tim Giachetti — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 10:39:04 +0000

God I'm old.
I remember my mom giving us a spoon full of this fish flavored dosage of "I hate you kid" every morning.

By: L.C.

L.C. — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 08:19:08 +0000

@ Verity---Absolutely! Loved them as a teen!

By: ted

ted — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:41:11 +0000

With the kid on the floor, I thought maybe she was inserting it wrong - it's not an enema, mommy!

By: Juliana

Juliana — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 04:22:58 +0000

My mother made me take Fletcher's Castoria back in the mid 80's. Wow, I haven't thought of that stuff in years. It did taste good - like flat coke.

By: Verity

Verity — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 03:31:56 +0000

Read the last panel and laughed...

Senna from Everworld.

Yeah, I hope someone else in the universe read those books.

By: Jake D.

Jake D. — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:16:27 +0000

I remember this was posted here a while ago.

But it's still funny.

By: lynne

lynne — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:47:36 +0000

Mommy misread the label.She thought it was to get rid of an annoying little turd.

By: Al_

Al_ — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:45:58 +0000

0_o

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:43:59 +0000

Funny how the children needed regular doses of laxatives. Maybe all that red meat 3 times a day.

By: CelticCatEyes

CelticCatEyes — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 01:37:30 +0000

"So I slapped her and said she was a bad girl"
rofl, my favorite part of the whole advertisement.

I love how bad tasting laxative can be a 'shock to her delicate nervous system' but a slap wasn't.