Foreign News: War-Baby

“You stupid War-baby!” shout many elder British school children when they wish to taunt younger playmates, born during the War. This insult, which now widely supplants the onetime, “Crybaby! Cry-baby!” became last week the subject of learned discourse, in London, by George Verity, Chairman of Charing Cross Hospital.

Said he: “Many mothers complain that their children come sobbing home from school, after being called ‘War-Baby,’ a term supposed to denote that children born during the World War are subnormal or stupid. . . . No statement could be further from the truth. . . . Children born during periods of mental stress have, if anything, a shade more chance of being mentally alert. . . .”