Meanings
plural mother's little helpers
- euphemisticslangA tranquilizer taken to reduce anxiety; meprobamate, diazepam.
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.
2013, Kate Bowler, Blessed: A History of the American Prosperity Gospel, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 58
Cite this entry
mother's little helper. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mother's%20little%20helper
“mother's little helper.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mother's%20little%20helper. Accessed November 5, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mother's little helper,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mother's%20little%20helper.
Source: mother's little helper on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.