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The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

A best-selling manual that encouraged parents to trust their instincts.

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The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is a best-selling book by American pediatrician Benjamin Spock that sold 500,000 copies in its first six months and 50 million by 1998.[1][2] Spock's manual encouraged parents to trust their own instincts and common sense, rejecting rigid feeding schedules and excessive affection restrictions.[2] The book's famous opening line reads "Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do".[3][2]

Making and release

Spock tried out his advice on patients and their mothers, seeking their responses continuously.[4] After several more years of giving advice, he felt more convinced and published a paperback copy in 1946 with Pocket Books.[5] The book was sold at just twenty-five cents so that any mother could afford it.[6] During the 1930s, while working as a pediatrician, Spock observed that the standard approaches to child care at that time seemed harsh and overlooked children's emotional requirements.[4]

Rather than following the strict norms of his era, Spock promoted adaptability and urged parents to show warmth toward their children.[4] In 1938, Doubleday asked Spock to write a child-care manual, but he turned them down because he lacked confidence in his professional expertise.[5] Spock aimed to provide a manual that covered both the physical and psychological dimensions of raising children.[5] Twelve months after its release, the book had moved 750,000 copies, with most sales driven by recommendations from other parents.[7]

What the cited sources add

The BBC account notes that Spock's book challenged the orthodoxy that babies should be fed on tight schedules and that too much affection made them weak.[2] Spock himself said he urged parents not to be intimidated by the rule that babies must never be fed off schedule.[2] The BBC reports that Spock's mother punished children by putting them in a dark closet.[2] Spock explained his political activism by saying "It isn't enough to bring up children happy and secure, you need to provide a decent world for them".[2]

He received death threats and his book was attacked by war supporters who blamed his liberal advice for breeding a permissive generation.[2] Sixty-five years after first publication, Dr Spock's Baby and Child Care remained in print and continued to influence generations of parents.[2] During a BBC phone-in program, Spock responded to criticism by saying, "I am not a permissivist, that I never talked about instant gratification."[2]

References

  1. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Thomas Maier, Dr. Spock: An American Life (New York: Basic Books, 2003), 462.; Louise Hidalgo, "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care at 65," BBC World Service, 23 August 2011. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
  2. Louise Hidalgo, "Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care at 65," BBC World Service, 23 August 2011.. facts only, no text reused. bbc.co.uk
  3. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Benjamin Spock, The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (New York: Duell, Sloan, and Pearce, 1946). (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  4. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Maier, 123.; Spock, "How My Ideas Have Changed." (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  5. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Benjamin Spock and Mary Morgan, Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing up With the Century (New York: Pantheon Books, 1989), 133. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  6. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Maier, 128. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
  7. Wikipedia, "The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Spock and Morgan, 137.; Maier, 142.; Spock and Morgan, 135.; International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, 2nd ed.., s.v. "Spock, Benjamin 1903–1998." (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org

Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.

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Sources

Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.

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