Spock, Dr. Benjamin (1903-1998)
By introducing new child-rearing techniques that contradicted those practiced for hundreds of years, pediatrician Dr. Benjamin McLane Spock changed the way several generations of parents raised their children. Through his practice, his books, and his articles in numerous child-rearing magazines, he taught parents that their own common sense, their own instincts, their unique bond with their children, were to be trusted more than any theories. He told them tolisten to their children and to respect their unique individual abilities. Dr. Spock gave parents flexible tools to use for child rearing, which he called "a long, hard job." Without being an idealogue or professing to be a guru, Dr. Spock and his liberal views on child rearing also opened or reinforced new directions in education. From the 1950s education moved away from the force-fed teaching of pre-digested materials toward a nurturing of children's natural desires for knowledge.
As North America's foremost pediatrician and parenting authority for over fifty years, Dr. Spock had the privilege of witnessing firsthand the results of his earlier recommendations to parents. His best-known book, Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (later re-titled Baby and Child Care), was published in June 1946 and became the predominant how-to guide for parents in the post-World War II baby boom.
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