Spock, Benjamin

▪ 1999

      American pediatrician (b. May 2, 1903, New Haven, Conn.—d. March 15, 1998, La Jolla, Calif.), was the most influential child-care authority of the 20th century. His book Baby and Child Care sold over 50 million copies worldwide and was translated into 42 languages. Spock attended Yale University, where he rowed on a crew team that won an Olympic gold medal in 1924. He graduated from medical school at Columbia University, New York City, in 1929, and following his internship and residency, he entered (1933) private practice in New York City and taught pediatrics at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y. After service in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Spock accepted a teaching post at the University of Minnesota; he also taught at the University of Pittsburgh, Pa., and at Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio. The first edition of his most famous work, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, was published in 1946. In his work Spock eschewed the strict discipline and emotional reserve promoted by other child-care experts, advising instead that parents allow their children to develop in an atmosphere of understanding and love. Although Spock was accused by some of having fostered the permissiveness and self-indulgence of the 1960s and '70s, his views were nevertheless regarded as mainstream by the time of his death. In addition to his status as a pediatrician, Spock became a leading figure in the anti-Vietnam War movement and was arrested several times for his participation in demonstrations. In 1972 he ran for the U.S. presidency as a candidate of the People's Party, a coalition of left-wing groups. Spock continued to engage in leftist activism in the 1980s, mainly protesting against nuclear weapons.

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▪ American pediatrician

in full  Benjamin McLane Spock,  byname  Dr. Spock  

born May 2, 1903, New Haven, Conn., U.S.

died March 15, 1998, La Jolla, Calif.

      American pediatrician whose books on child rearing, especially his Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946; 6th ed., 1992), influenced generations of parents and made his name a household word.

      Spock received his medical degree in 1929 from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons and trained for six years at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute. He practiced pediatrics in New York City while teaching the subject at the Cornell University Medical College from 1933 to 1947. Spock wrote Baby and Child Care partly to counteract the rigid pediatric doctrines of his day, which emphasized strict feeding schedules for infants and discouraged open displays of affection between parent and child. Spock, by contrast, encouraged understanding and flexibility on the part of parents, and he stressed the importance of listening to children and appreciating their individual differences. From its first appearance in 1946, Baby and Child Care served as the definitive child-rearing manual for millions of American parents in the “baby boom” that followed World War II. Spock's approach was criticized as overly permissive by a minority of physicians, and he was even blamed for having helped form the generation of young Americans that protested the Vietnam War and launched the youth counterculture movement of the 1960s.

      Spock taught child development at Western Reserve University (now Case Western Reserve University) in Cleveland, Ohio, from 1955 to 1967, when he resigned in order to devote himself more fully to the antiwar movement. Spock's bitter opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War during the 1960s led to his trial and conviction (1968) for counseling draft evasion—a conviction overturned on appeal. In 1972 he was the presidential candidate of the pacifist People's Party.

      Spock's many other books on child care include Dr. Spock Talks with Mothers (1961), Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974), and Dr. Spock on Parenting (1988). He also wrote Decent and Indecent: Our Personal and Political Behavior (1970). In 1989 Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up with the Century, edited by Spock's second wife, Mary Morgan, was published. By the time Spock died in 1998, his Baby and Child Care had sold nearly 50 million copies worldwide and been translated into 39 languages.

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