Dr. Spock's The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care is published - July 14th, 1946

On this day in 1946, Dr. Benjamin Spock’s seminal book about child care was published for the first time.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of I
Heart Radio. Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class,
a show that flips through the pages of history to
deliver old news in a new way. I'm Gay Bluesier
and in this episode, we're talking about a landmark book

(00:23):
that's helped raised generations of Americans, from the Baby Boomers
to Gen Z and beyond. The day was July. Dr

(00:43):
Benjamin spox seminal book about childcare was published for the
first time. That book, titled The Common Sense Book of
Baby and Childcare, opposed conventional wisdom that claimed kids needed
strict schedules, harsh discipline, and little affection from their parents. Instead,

(01:03):
Doctor Spock encouraged parents to trust their own instincts about
what's best for their child. While other experts on child
rearing warned parents to follow their lead or suffer the consequences,
Doctor Spock struck a much more assuring tone. His message
to parents was a simple one. You know more than

(01:23):
you think you do. Benjamin McLane Spock was born on
May second, nineteen o three, in New Haven, Connecticut. His
first experience with childcare came when he was a child himself.
As he often helped look after his five younger siblings.
Born to a wealthy and well connected family, Spock later

(01:45):
attended elite schools such as Phillips and Over Academy and
Yale University. Just as his father had done. Spock studied
literature and history at Yale and also joined the college
crew team. His lanky six ft four or frame made
him an ideal oarsman, so much so that in nineteen
twenty four, he and his team actually represented the United

(02:07):
States at the Olympic Games in Paris. He won a
gold medal in the men's eight event and continued rowing
for the rest of his life. After graduating college, Spok
attended the Yale School of Medicine for two years, then
transferred to Columbia University's College of Physicians. There, he earned
his m d and graduated first in his class in

(02:30):
nineteen twenty nine. Later that year, he moved to New
York City with his first wife, Jane Cheney, and began
practicing pediatric medicine. Spock was a skilled and knowledgeable physician,
but he still felt something had been missing from his
pediatric training. He had learned all about the physical and
mental development of children, but the emotional aspects of their

(02:53):
lives had been glossed over as an incidental part of
his profession. However, Spock believed he could better serve his
young patients if he had a firmer understanding of their psychology.
To that end, he enrolled at the New York Psychoanalytic
Institute and spent six years studying the subject. He continued

(03:13):
to work as a pediatrician throughout the nineteen thirties and
early forties, but had to step away from his private
practice when he joined the medical core of the U. S.
Navy Reserves during World War Two. After the war, doctor
Spock decided to try his hand at teaching, and in
his spare time, he and his wife Jane worked on
what ultimately became the Common Sense Book of Baby and Childcare.

(03:38):
Beginning in the early nineteen hundreds, many child psychologists advised
a tough love approach to raising children. This included letting
kids cry themselves to sleep and avoiding overt displays of
parental affection. For example, John B. Watson, one of the
founders of behaviorism, urged parents to quote never never hug

(04:01):
and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap.
If you must kiss them once on the forehead when
they say good night, shake hands with them in the morning.
One of Spock's goals was to provide an alternative to
this detached approach to child rearing and start contrast. His
book encouraged more interaction between parents and children. He also

(04:24):
counseled parents to be more flexible about meeting their child's needs.
If a child was hungry before the scheduled meal time,
feed them early. If they expressed fear or sadness, give
them comfort instead of withholding affection, offer it consistently. Pick
them up, hold them, kiss them, Let the child know
their loved. This advice might sound obvious or even trite today,

(04:49):
but it was downright revolutionary in NY six. These fresh
ideas couldn't have come in a better time either. The
Great Depression and World War Two delivered a one two
punch to America's birthrate, but with the war's end in
nineteen forty five, the country was free to make up
for lost time. The result was the so called baby Boom,

(05:12):
a period stretching from nineteen forty six to nineteen sixty
four in which more than seventy six million babies were
born in the US. The first edition of spos book
was released right at the start of the boom, and
many post war parents eagerly embraced its new, more nurturing
approach to childcare. The paperback version of The Common Sense

(05:33):
Book of Baby and Childcare was sold for a mere
twenty five cents and became a best seller shortly after
its release. Since then, the book has been revised and
reissued numerous times. It's been translated into forty nine different languages,
and has sold well over fifty million copies worldwide. Doctor
Spock went on to ride five more books on childcare,

(05:56):
though none were anywhere near as successful or influence show
as his first. In the nineteen sixties, he returned to
national prominence as an activist, taking a stand against nuclear
proliferation and the military escalation in Vietnam. Spock retired from
medicine in nineteen sixty eight, but continued writing and lecturing
at universities for another three decades. His final book on

(06:20):
pediatrics was released in ninet, three years before his death
at the age of ninety four. It's no exaggeration to
say that doctor spos ideas changed the way children were
raised in the United States, but not everyone agreed that
change was for the better. Many conservatives bristled at his softer,

(06:42):
more permissive style of parenting and later blamed spos book
for the defiant generation of the nineteen sixties. It's worth noting, though,
that the first edition of the book wasn't progressive across
the board. Most of its advice was directed solely and
mother's reinforcing the traditional idea that fathers would and should

(07:03):
play a secondary role in raising their children. That restrictive
view was amended in later editions, along with several recommendations
that were eventually discredited. Chief among those was the advice
to put babies to sleep on their stomachs. That practice
was later connected with a greater incidence of sudden infant
death syndrome or SIDS, and was subsequently warned against by

(07:27):
Dr Spock and many others that said, the need for
occasional revision doesn't undo the significance of the Common Sense
Book of Baby and Childcare. Anyone lucky enough to have
never doubted their parents love for them will know exactly
what I mean. I'm gay, bluesier, and hopefully you now

(07:50):
know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.
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I heeart media dot com. Thanks to Chandler Mays for

(08:12):
producing the show, and thank you for listening. I'll see
you back here again tomorrow for another day in history class.