mother's little helper

English

Noun

mother's little helper (plural mother's little helpers)

1. (slang, euphemistic) A tranquilizer taken to reduce anxiety; meprobamate, diazepam.
   • 2013, Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 58:

     Bored with the emptiness of her life, she was said to be increasingly turning to the consolations of “mother's little helper”—new lines of tranquilizing drugs, such as Librium and Miltown, meant to soothe the female anxieties that Betty Friedan decried in her bestselling The Feminine Mystique.

Further reading

• Eric Partridge (2013) “mother's little helper”, in Tom Dalzell and Terry Victor, editors, The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd edition, volumes I–II, Abingdon, Oxon., New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN, page 1529.