Benjamin Spock

Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), American pediatrician, author, and political activist. His best-selling book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), sharply redefined the course of child care during the baby boom after World War II.

Benjamin McLane Spock was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He studied at Yale University in New Haven and received his medical degree from Columbia University in New York City in 1929. After practicing and teaching pediatrics at New York Hospital and Cornell Medical College, he set up his own practice in 1933.

In 1943 Spock began writing The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, which was published in 1946. Spock’s guidebook on child rearing broke dramatically from accepted practices that favored rigid feeding habits and considered hugging children inappropriate. Spock encouraged parents to be flexible with their children and to show them greater affection. The book was enormously popular, selling more than one million copies a year initially. By 1998 it had sold more than 50 million copies and been translated into nearly 40 languages.

Spock’s approach to child care also prompted controversy. During the political and social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, conservative critics blamed Spock’s advice for a breakdown in conventional morality. Some argued that the revolutionary attitudes of that time were a result of his advocacy of a “permissive” approach to child rearing.

Spock became a leading figure in demonstrations against U.S. participation in the Vietnam War (1959-1975). In 1968 he was sentenced to two years in prison for conspiring to aid resistance to the draft (military conscription), but a federal appeals court overruled his conviction. In 1972 he ran for president as the candidate of the left-wing People's Party, and four years later he was the party's vice-presidential nominee. He remained active in politics well into his 80s, giving lectures opposing nuclear weapons.

Spock’s later books included Feeding Your Baby and Child (coauthored in 1955), A Teenager's Guide to Life and Love (1971), and Raising Children in a Difficult Time (1974). His autobiography Spock on Spock was published in 1989.