The Atom Station by Halldór Laxness

Although up-to-date writers say that it has a bad effect on children to rock them, I had all at once begun to take notice if there were something in the paper about cradles, even if it were only a cradle for sale. And now it was reported that the Town Council had defeated a Communist proposal to build a day-nursery. "Women" wrote to the papers and said that it would increase immorality in the country if such projects were subsidized from the public purse; the proper nurseries were the homes of true Christians and others of decent morals. But, I asked, why should there be nurseries only for the children of true Christians and those of decent morals? Why should there not be nurseries for the children of non-true Christians with wicked morals, such as me?

"We live in a society of people who have only one wish dearer than to care for rich children, and that is to kill poor children," said the Communist. "A few generations ago the rich were so powerful, even though they were still lice-ridden, that about half of all the children born in Iceland died. If the masses had no solidarity, the children of the poor would still be dying; and if we did not continue to strengthen this solidarity the rich would still be persecuting the poor and their children with direct measures taken in the name of Jesus, with scourgings and drownings, just as before. The opposition to a day nursery for the children of penniless mothers reveals clearly their way of thinking; they only need the lice to be precisely the same as in the days of the Fornication Act. "*