An Eli Lilly commercial currently airing presents a montage of classic childhood scenes: tranquil, neatly dressed kids playing ball, hanging out with grandpa, doing a science experiment. This could be your child, the images say -- once you get him on Strattera, the latest ADHD treatment.

Today's kids seem to need a lot of pharmaceuticals. A recent study by Medco Health Solutions, quoted in the |New York Times||, found that sales of behavioral drugs to children and adolescents are rising faster than any other type of drug. Kids under the age of five are taking nearly 50 percent more attention disorder drugs than they did just four years ago, and the number taking antidepressants rose 15 percent in the first quarter of this year over the same period last year. (Of course, in the latter case, this increase is offset by the tendency of such users to kill themselves).

Ritalin is old news; pediatricians now draw from the full spectrum of uppers, downers, and anti-depressants to nudge their patients to the norm. In New York City public schools, it has become common to send misbehaving children to the hospital for emergency psychiatric treatment, paddling no longer being an option. Whatever mischief or moodiness the little ones come up with, there's surely a magic potion to make it go away.

No one would deny the toll hyperactivity and other disorders take on kids and their families. If the pendulum has swung to the side of over-diagnosis, well, couldn't we all use a mother's little helper now and then? As adults, we're encouraged to pop a pill for everything from shyness to limpness, and don't forget the dog's separation anxiety prescription. Talking things through takes time few parents can spare, either for themselves or their children, and the kids in those commercials just seem so contented.

It would be simplistic to assume that the rise in kiddie pharma is purely marketing-driven (though the pastures are green indeed for Lilly and friends). Today's youth are under a lot of pressure, what with high-stakes testing, premature sexualization, and hyper-competitive club sports leagues to deal with. With college tuition skyrocketing and the gap between haves and have-nots widening, there's little margin for error on that Permanent Record.

Not only is the pressure on, the bandwidth is up. Everything is X-treme, super-sized, and high-speed, instant messages pinging all the while. With a dozen devices vying for airtime, is it any wonder the attention span is a thing of the past?

And don't forget that these young Americans are coming of age in a world that's dangerous beyond their capacity to process -- or anyone's. Cold War kids had to worry about nightmares that never did arrive; today's enemies have already made contact and drawn rivers of blood. Daycare kids draw pictures of burning buildings and falling planes, or they're blown into other kids' nightmares by domestic terrorists. Institutions like religion, baseball, and the American way of life don't offer the clear-cut truths and assurances they once did; lacking moral guidance, it's all to easy to slip into despair.

So sure, give the little guy a break, just like you slip him some grape-flavored Tylenol when he's teething. Paper over his neuroses with doctor's scrip, and maybe throw in some Humatrope if he's coming up on the short side -- no one should be sent into battle if he can't see over the trenches. Maybe years from now this will all be taken for granted, a sign of progress like robot dogs and Phonics. People whose kids aren't on the drugs will seem weird, like the Luddites or Diggers of earlier eras.

But maybe it's worth pausing, in that last lucid moment before the Xanax kicks in, and considering what's really going on. Shouldn't it bother us that we're living in a world that our kids have to be medicated to bear? Is there really nothing else we can do about it, before we're all too doped up to care anymore?