Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, is one of the biggest best-sellers of all time. Throughout its first 52 years, Baby and Child Care was the second-best-selling book, next to the Bible. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do."
Spock was the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children's needs and family dynamics. His ideas about childcare influenced several generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and to treat them as individuals. In addition to his pediatric work, Spock was an activist in the New Left and anti Vietnam War movements during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the time his books were criticized by Vietnam War supporters for allegedly propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratifications that led young people to join these movements, a charge Spock denied. Spock also won an Olympic gold medal in rowing in 1924 while attending Yale University.
Read more about Benjamin Spock: Biography, Books, Public Misconceptions, Books By Benjamin Spock
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“In our country today, very few children are raised to believe that their principal destiny is to serve their family, their country, or God.”
—Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)
“Opinions are to the vast apparatus of social existence what oil is to machines: one does not go up to a turbine and pour machine oil over it; one applies a little to hidden spindles and joints that one has to know.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“There are only two things a child will share willingly—communicable diseases and his mother’s age.”
—Benjamin Spock (b. 1903)