Dr. Spock: An American Life Book

Thomas Maier's solidly researched, candid yet compassionate biography of the man who revolutionized child rearing in America could hardly have a more apt subtitle.

Dr. Benjamin Spock was a classic American rebel, a man who rejected conventional wisdom in favor of experiential truth. From his birth on May 2, 1903, to his death on March 15, 1998, Spock embraced many of the 20th century's defining social and intellectual trends, from Freudianism to antiwar protest. Yet all his actions sprang from a deeply ingrained sense of morality not so different from that of his decidedly Victorian mother.

"Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do." With these words in the 1946 first edition of Baby and Child Care, Spock lobbed a gentle bomb into the world of pediatric advice, dominated in the first half of the century by authoritarian scolds. The radicalism of Spock's basic idea--more attention to developing a child's individual nature and less to regulating it by rigid rules--was made palatable by his warm tone. He was a friend providing information, not Moses handing down the law; he bolstered parents' self-confidence.

Investigative journalist Thomas Maier seamlessly interweaves social and medical history with a cogent recap of the text and an examination of Spock's underlying intentions to explain why Baby and Child Care was such an innovative book and what made it so popular with the young couples just settling down to raise the baby-boom generation. He is equally balanced on his subject's personal life.

Maier credits the substantial contributions of Spock's first wife, Jane, to Baby and Child Care but also depicts her mental illness and alcoholism. He acknowledges that America's most trusted baby doctor was a distant and overly critical father but doesn't beat Spock over the head with his personal failings. The author makes sensitive use of interviews with Spock and his second wife, Mary, his two sons, friends, and other family members to give a three- dimensional portrait of an admirable but imperfect human being "[whose] book sometimes seemed better at handling relationships than the author."

Maier's thoughtful coverage of Spock's controversial political activism--from demonstrations against the Vietnam War during the 1960s to protests over cuts in social services during the Reagan Administration--reminds us that it emanated from the same world view consistently expressed in all the editions of Baby and Child Care. Spock was indeed "one of the great liberals of the 20th century," but he was a liberal in the broadest sense, like the young parents who read his book so eagerly:

"These parents wanted to be better than the generation before them, to make their families as happy as possible," Maier writes with typical perceptiveness. "They truly believed, perhaps far too naively, that with a self-help guide like Dr. Spock's baby book they could achieve this goal."

A very American vision: both idealistic and a bit ingenuous--very much like the man portrayed with such affection and insight in this worthy biography. -- Wendy Smith