Benjamin Spock was an American pediatrician and influential child care expert. His book, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best-selling books in history. By 1998, it had sold more than 50 million copies, and had been translated into 42 languages. Spock was also the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children’s needs and family dynamics. His theories inspired parents to treat their children as individuals and not apply a one-size-fits-all care philosophy. In addition to his medical work, Spock was an activist in the New Left and anti-Vietnam War movements in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1968, the American Humanist Association named his Humanist of the Year. In 1972, he was the presidential candidate for the People’s Party, with a platform that called for free medical care, the end of “victimless crime” laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality, and marijuana, a universal basic income, and an end to American military intervention abroad. After retiring from medicine, Spock spoke widely at universities and other venues about the need for radical political action, peace, and the welfare of children. He died in 1998.
In his lecture, Dr. Spock discussed what he saw as a fundamental change in the way children were being raised, and thus the kind of people they grew up to be. He gave two principle examples: the first to do with toilet training, and the second to do with the attitude of the young medical students he taught. The university-educated parents of today’s children were too timid and easily backed out when their children showed resistance to their parenting. As a result, he said, parenting became more of a chore than it needed to be, as children became argumentative and parents submissive. Looking forward in time, this produced young adults like his medical students, who lacked any fear of adult disapproval. Spock attributed this to parents following his advice to trust their children and treat them with respect. This precociousness was, he claimed, characteristic of modern youth. He advocated for parents to bring children up in a free, not endlessly permissive, way by treating them like with the respect they would grant to a peer.
Spock spent a week on campus in November, delivering two lectures to mark the International Year of the Child. He also met with students and faculty to discuss not only child care and children’s rights, but women’s rights, American politics, and his stance as an anti-nuclear activist.
Listen to his lecture below.