Books
In 1946, Spock published his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which became a bestseller. Its message to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do." By 1998 it had sold more than 50 million copies. It has been translated into 39 languages. Later he wrote three more books about parenting.
Spock advocated ideas about parenting that were, at the time, considered out of the mainstream. Over time, his books helped to bring about major change. Previously, experts had told parents that babies needed to learn to sleep on a regular schedule, and that picking them up and holding them whenever they cried would only teach them to cry more and not to sleep through the night (a notion that borrows from behaviorism). They were told to feed their children on a regular schedule, and that they should not pick them up, kiss them, or hug them, because that would not prepare them to be strong and independent individuals in a harsh world. Spock encouraged parents to see their children as individuals, and not to apply a one-size-fits all philosophy to them.
Later in life Spock wrote a book entitled "Dr. Spock on Vietnam" and co-wrote an autobiography entitled "Spock on Spock" (with Mary Morgan Spock), in which he stated his attitude toward aging: "Delay and Deny".
In the seventh edition of Baby and Child Care, published a few weeks after he died, Spock advocated for a bold change in children's diets, recommending that all children switch to a vegan diet after the age of 2. Spock himself had switched to an all-plant diet in 1991, after a series of illnesses that left him weak and unable to walk unaided. After making the dietary change, he lost 50 pounds, regained his ability to walk and became healthier overall. The revised edition stated children on an all-plant diet will reduce their risk of developing heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain diet-related cancers. Several studies have shown that, in general, vegetarians are leaner and at lower risk of such diseases. The approach to childhood nutrition was criticized by a number of experts, including his co-author, Dr. Steven J. Parker, as too extreme and likely to result in nutritional deficiencies unless it is very carefully planned and executed, something that would be difficult for working parents.
Other writers, such as Lynn Bloom and Thomas Maier, have written biographies of Spock.
Read more about this topic: Benjamin Spock
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“The lessons taught in great books are misleading. The commerce in life is rarely so simple and never so just.”
—Anita Brookner (b. 1938)
“She is foremost of those that I would hear praised.
I will talk no more of books or the long war
But walk by the dry thorn until I have found
Some beggar sheltering from the wind, and there
Manage the talk until her name come round.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I am absent altogether too much to be a suitable instructor for a law-student. When a man has reached the age that Mr. Widner has, and has already been doing for himself, my judgment is, that he reads the books for himself without an instructor. That is precisely the way I came to the law.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)