Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 - March 15, 1998) is an American pediatrician whose book Baby and Child Care (1946) is one of the best sellers of all time. The premise of a book for mothers is that "you know more than you think."
Spock is the first pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children's needs and family dynamics. His ideas about parenting affect a few generations of parents to be more flexible and affectionate with their children, and treat them as individuals. However, his theories are also heavily criticized by his colleagues for relying too much on anecdotal evidence rather than serious academic research.
Spock was an activist in the New Left and anti-Vietnam War movements during the 1960s and early 1970s. At the time, his books were criticized for spreading permissive and instant gratification expectations that allegedly caused young people to join these movements - a charge Spock rejected. Spock also won an Olympic gold medal in a rowing in 1924 while attending Yale University.
Video Benjamin Spock
Biography
Benjamin McLane Spock was born May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Connecticut; his parents are Benjamin Ives Spock, a Yale graduate and a long-term general counselor of New Haven Railroad, and Mildred Louise (Stoughton) Spock. His name comes from the Dutch ancestors; they originally spelled the name Spaak before migrating to the former New Netherland colony.
As his father did before him, Spock attended Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University. Before that he attended Hamden Hall Country Day School. Spock studied literature and history at Yale, and was also active in athletics, becoming part of the Olympic rowing crew (Tights Men) who won a gold medal in 1924 matches in Paris. At Yale, he was inducted into the chapter Eta Zeta Psi and later entered into the senior society, Scroll and Key. He studied at Yale School of Medicine for two years before moving to Columbia University's Doctors and Surgeons College, where he graduated first in his class in 1929. At that time, he married Jane Cheney.
Jane Cheney married Spock in 1927 and helped her in research and writing Dr. Spock's Baby & amp; Child Care , published in 1946 by Duell, Sloan & amp; Pearce as Baby Care and Child Care Books. The book has sold more than 50 million copies in 42 languages.
Jane Cheney Spock is a civil liberties lawyer and mother of two sons. She was born in Manchester, Connecticut, and attended Bryn Mawr College. He is active in America for Democratic Action, the United States Civil Liberties Union and the National Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy. Jane and Benjamin Spock divorced in 1976. After their divorce, she arranged and run support groups for older women who divorced.
In 1976, Spock married Mary Morgan. They built a house in Arkansas, in Beaver Lake, where Spock would line up every day. Mary quickly adapted to travel life and Spock's political activism. He was arrested with him many times due to civil disobedience. After they were arrested in Washington, D.C. to pray on the White House lawn, along with other demonstrators. When arrested, Morgan was searched; Spock is not. He sued Washington jail and mayor, D.C. for sex discrimination. American Civil Liberties Union took the case, and won. Morgan also introduced Spock for massage, yoga, and macrobiotic diet, and meditation, which reportedly improved his health. Mary scheduled the date of the talk and handled the legal treaties for Baby and Child Care for the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th editions. She continued to publish the book with the help of coauthor Robert Needlman. Baby and Child Care are still selling worldwide.
For most of his life, Spock was wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and shirt with a removable collar, but at 75, for the first time in his life, Mary Morgan made him try on blue jeans. She introduces her to a Transactional Analysis (TA) therapist, joins her in two-day meditation, and cooks her macrobiotic diet. "He gave me back my youth," Spock would tell reporters. He adapts to his lifestyle, as he did to him. There is a 40-year difference in their age, but Spock will tell reporters, when asked about their age difference, that they are both 16 years old.
Spock lived for years on his sailboat, Carapace , in the British Virgin Islands, outside of Tortola. At the age of 84, Spock won 3rd place in a rowing contest, crossing 4 miles (6.4 km) from Sir Frances Drake Channel between Tortola and Norman Island in 2.5 hours. He praised his strength and good health for his lifestyle and his love for life.
Spock owns a second sailing boat called Turtle, which he lives in and sailing in Maine in the summer. They only live on ships, without home, for nearly 20 years. At the end of Spock's life, he was advised to come to the beach by his doctor, Steve Pauker, of New England Medical Center, Boston. In 1992, Spock received the Peace Abbey Courage of Conscience Award at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library for his lifelong commitment to peaceful disarmament and parenting.
Spock died in a house he rented in La Jolla, California, on March 15, 1998. His ashes were buried in Camden, Maine.
Maps Benjamin Spock
Books
In 1946, Spock published his book Baby Care and Child Care Book, , which became a bestseller. Her message to mothers was that "you know more than you think." In 1998 it has sold over 50 million copies, and has been translated into 42 languages.
According to the New York Times , Baby and Child Care is, for the first 52 years, the second bestseller, in addition to the Bible. According to other sources, it is among the best sellers, though not the second best.
Spock advocated the idea of ​​parenting which, at the time, was considered outside the mainstream. Over time, his books helped bring about great change. Previously, experts have told parents that babies need to learn to sleep on a regular schedule, and that picking them up and holding them every time they cry will only teach them to cry more and not sleep through the night (ideas that borrow from behaviorism). They are told to feed their children on a regular schedule, and that they should not take them, kiss them, or hug them, because it will not prepare them to be strong and independent individuals in a harsh world. Instead Spock encourages parents to see their children as individuals, and does not apply a one size philosophy suited to them.
However, towards the end of the 1960s, Spock's public opposition to the Vietnam War would prove to have a damaging effect in his career. It was reported that the 1968 revision of Baby and Child Care had sold half of the sales of the previous edition. Later, Spock wrote a book called Dr. Spock in Vietnam and co-wrote an autobiography entitled Spock on Spock (with Mary Morgan Spock), in which he expressed his attitude towards aging: Delay and Repel .
In the seventh edition of Baby and Child Care, published several weeks after her death, Spock recommends to change the children's diet boldly, recommending that all children switch to a vegan diet after 2 years of age. Spock itself has switched to an all-plant diet in 1991, after a series of illnesses that made it weak and unable to walk without help. After making dietary changes, he lost 50 pounds, regained his ability to walk and become more healthy overall. The revised edition states children on a diet of all plants will reduce their risk of developing heart disease, obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes and certain dietary cancers. Studies show that vegetarian children are leaner, and adult vegetarians are known to be at lower risk of the disease.
Spock's approach to childhood nutrition was criticized by a number of experts, including his co-authors, the Boston pediatrician, Dr. Steven J. Parker, for being too extreme and likely to produce nutritional deficiencies unless planned and executed with extreme caution, something that will be difficult for working parents.
Other authors, such as Lynn Bloom and Thomas Maier, have written a biography of Spock.
Views
Sudden infant death syndrome
Spock recommends that infants should not be placed on their backs while sleeping, commenting in the 1958 edition that "if [the baby] vomits, he is more likely to choke on vomit." This advice was very influential on health care providers, with almost unanimous support until the 1990s. However, recent empirical studies have found that there is an increased risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) associated with babies who sleep in their stomachs. Proponents of evidence-based medicine have used this as an example of the importance of basing health care recommendations on statistical evidence, with one researcher estimating that as many as 50,000 infant deaths in Europe, Australia and the US can be prevented from having this. suggestions were changed in 1970, when such evidence was available.
Male circumcision
In the 1940s, Spock initially liked male circumcision performed within a few days after birth. However, in 1989, in an article for Redbook magazine, he stated that "male circumcision is traumatic, painful, and questionable value." He received the first Human Rights Award from the International Symposium on Circumcision (ISC) in 1991 and was quoted as saying, "My own preference, if I have the good fortune to have another son, will leave his own little penis."
Social and political activism
In 1962, Spock joined the Sane Nuclear Policy Committee, otherwise known as SANE. Spock was politically overt and active in the movement to end the Vietnam War. In 1968, he and four others (including William Sloane Coffin, Marcus Raskin, Mitchell Goodman, and Michael Ferber) were elected to stand trial by Attorney General Ramsey Clark on charges of conspiracy, advice, assistance and rejection of the draft. Spock and three of his co-conspirators who were allegedly convicted, even though the five were never in the same room. His two-year prison sentence was never lived; the case was appealed and in 1969 the federal court ruled out his conviction.
In 1967, Spock was nominated as vice presidential candidate Martin Luther King, Jr. at the National Conference for New Politics over Labor Day weekend in Chicago.
In 1968, Spock signed the "Writers and Editors War Tax Protest", pledging to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War. He was also arrested for his involvement in anti-war protests resulting from the signing of the anti-war manifesto "Call to Reject the Unlawful Authority" circulated by RESIST members of radical intellectual collective. The people who were arrested during this incident became known as the Boston Five.
In 1968, the American Humanist Association called the Spock Humanist of the Year.
In 1970, Dr. Benjamin Spock active in New Party served as Honorary co-chairman with Gore Vidal. In the 1972 presidential election of the United States, Spock was a candidate for the People's Party with a platform calling for free medical care; revocation of "victimless crimes" laws, including the legalization of abortion, homosexuality and marijuana; minimum income guaranteed to the family; and the immediate withdrawal of all American troops from abroad. In the 1970s and 1980s, Spock demonstrated and lectured on nuclear weapons and cuts in social welfare programs.
In 1972, Spock, Julius Hobson (candidate for Vice President), Linda Jenness (Socialist Presidential Workers Party candidate), and Socialist Workers' Representative Vice President Andrew Pulley wrote to Major General Bert A. David, commander of Fort Dix, asking permission to distributing campaign literature and holding election-related campaign meetings. Under the rules of Fort Dix 210-26 and 210-27, General David rejected the request. Spock, Hobson, Jenness, Pulley, and others then filed a case that eventually led to the United States Supreme Court (424 US 828 - Greer, Commander, Fort Dix Military Reservation, et al., V. Spock et al. ), which decides against the plaintiff.
Spock is a 1976 party nomination for the Vice President.
Conservative backlash
Norman Vincent Peale was a popular preacher who supported the Vietnam War. During the late 1960s, Peale criticized the anti-Vietnam War movement and the perceived weakness of the era, putting the blame on Dr.'s books. Spock: "The US is paying the price of two generations that follow Dr. Spock baby's instant gratification plan needs."
In the 1960s and 1970s, mistakes were placed on Spock for the behavior of young people, many of whom had become devotees of Baby and Child Care. Vice President Spiro Agnew also blamed Spock for being "permissive". This accusation was enthusiastically embraced by conservative adults, who viewed the rebellious youth of the time with disagreement, calling them "the Spock generation."
Spock proponents argue that these critics betrayed ignorance about what Spock had actually written, and/or political bias against Spock's left-wing political activities. Spock himself, in his autobiography, points out that he has never advocated a permissive attitude; also, that the attacks and claims that he had destroyed the American youth only emerged after his public opposition to the Vietnam war. He regards this claim as an ad hominem attack, whose political and natural motivations are clear.
Spock overcame this accusation in the first chapter of his 1994 book, Rebuilding American Family Values: a Better World for Our Children.
Permissive Labels: A few weeks after my indictment [for "conspiracy for counseling, help and rejection of military design"], I was accused by Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, a famous pastor and writer who supported the Vietnam War, ravaged the whole generation. In a sermon widely reported in the media, Reverend Peale blames me for all the lack of patriotism, the lack of responsibility, and the lack of discipline of young people opposed to war. All of these failures, he says, are because I told their parents to give them "instant gratification" as babies. I was bombarded with errors in editorials and columns of conservative newspapers across the country who wholeheartedly agreed with Peale's statement.
Many parents have stopped me on the streets or at the airport to thank me for helping them raise good kids, and they often add, "I do not see any instant gratification in Infant and Child Care
Because I received the first accusation twenty-two years after Infant and Child Care originally published - and because of those who wrote about how dangerous my book always assures me they never use it - I think it is clear that hostilities are my politics than my pediatric advice. And although I have denied the charge for twenty-five years, one of the first questions I get from many journalists and interviewers is, "Doctor Spock, are you still permissive?" You can not catch up with false accusations.
The allegations he made in Rebuilding American Family Value differed from his claim to Associate Press journalist David Beard in June 1992, in which he claimed to have a relationship between pediatrics and political activism:
People say, "You have turned the pediatrics." I said, "No. It took until I was in my 60s to realize that politics is part of pediatrics."
His New York Times obituary also admits that he is fascinated by the ideas of Sigmund Freud and John Dewey and that he wrote his book in hopes of integrating their philosophy into the general population. Spock also noted in 1972:
John Dewey and Freud say that children do not have to be disciplined into adulthood but can direct themselves to maturity by following their own will
Public misunderstanding
Contrary to popular rumors, Spock's son did not commit suicide. Spock has two children: Michael and John. Michael was formerly director of the Boston Children's Museum and has since retired from the museum profession. John is the owner of a construction company. However, Spock's grandson, Peter, committed suicide on December 25, 1983 at the age of 22 by jumping from the roof of the Children's Museum of Boston where Michael, his father, served as director. He has been hired in the museum part-time and has long suffered from schizophrenia.
Olympic success
In 1924, while in Yale, Spock was part of the all-Yale Men's eighth rali at the Paris Olympics, captain by James Rockefeller, then president of what would become Citigroup. Compete in Seine, the big river in France that stretches through Paris, they won the gold medal.
Books by Benjamin Spock
- Baby and Child Care (1946, with revision to the ninth edition, 2012)
- Baby First Year (1954)
- Feeding Your Baby and Your Kids (1955)
- Dr. Spock Talks With Mothers (1961)
- Parenting Issues (1962)
- Caring for Your Disabled (1965)
- Dr. Spock in Vietnam (1968)
- Eligible and Profitable (1970)
- Teenage Guides for Life and Love (1970)
- Raising Children in Difficult Time (1974)
- Spock on Parenting (1988)
- Spock on Spock: Memoirs Grow With This Century (1989)
- A Better World for Our Kids (1994)
- Dr. Spock's the School Years: Emotional and Social Development of Children 01 Editions (2001)
Also see
- List of peace activists
- Fred Rogers (Mr. Rogers)
Reference
Further reading
- Bloom, Lynn Z. Spock Doctor: A Radical Conservative Biography . The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis: 1972.
- Maier, Thomas. Spock Doctor: American Life . Harcourt Brace, New York: 1998.
- Interviews in The Libertarian Forum 4, no. 12 (December 1972; mislabelled no 10). The Libertarian Forum largely profits Spock's view as a pro-libertarian.
External links
- Benjamin Spock on IMDb
- Benjamin Spock Papers at Syracuse University
- Photos of the first edition Baby Nursery and Baby's Book That Sense
- Details around the 1968 case
- Photography portraits are taken in old age
- The movie "Open Mind - American Values ​​and Generation of Colleges (1974)" film is available on the Internet Archive
- Audio: Benjamin Spock speaks at UC Berkeley Vietnam Teach-In, 1965 (in RealAudio and via UC Berkeley Media Resources Center)
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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