Benjamin Spock biography at QuotationFun

A Short Biography of Dr. Benjamin Spock

Author Name:

Dr. Benjamin Spock

Born As:

Benjamin McLane Spock

Other Names:

Born:

02 May 1903

Died:

15 Mar 1998




author picture
Pediatrician, activist, and pacifist                          
Selected Works:

Baby and Child Care - 1946, with revisions up to eighth edition, 2004
A Baby's First Year - 1954
Feeding Your Baby and Child - 1955
Dr. Spock Talks With Mothers - 1961
Problems of Parents - 1962
Caring for Your Disabled Child - 1965
Dr. Spock on Vietnam - 1968
Decent and Indecent - 1970
A Teenager's Guide to Life and Love - 1970
Raising Children in a Difficult Time - 1974
Spock on Parenting - 1988
Spock on Spock: a Memoir of Growing Up With the Century - 1989
A Better World for Our Children - 1994.
                          
Mother Mildred Stoughton
Father Benjamin Ives Spock, Ben being the eldest of six children.
First wife Jane Cheney, married 1927, divorced 1976.
Second wife Mary Morgan, married 1976.
Two children, Michael and John. 

Spock's grandson Peter committed suicide on December 25, 1983 at the age of 22 by jumping from the roof of the Boston Children's Museum. He suffered from schizophrenia.                          
                          
First pediatrician to study psychoanalysis to try to understand children's needs and family dynamics. 

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 by Vietnam War supporters for allegedly propagating permissiveness and an expectation of instant gratifications that led young people to join these movements, a charge Spock denied. Spock also won an Olympic gold medal in rowing in 1924 while attending Yale University.