Dr Benjamin Spock

Baby and childcare is not a child’s play: it necessitates deeper understanding of the child’s various needs and the wider dynamics of family. Dr Benjamin Spock (1903-1998), world-renowned American paediatrician, understood this way back in 1946 when he published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Childcare. A pioneering work on parenting, the book, subsequently published as Dr Spock’s Baby and Childcare, was lapped up world over and sold 500,000 copies in its first six months. According to the Wikipedia, the tome —- that bore the stamp of Dr Spock’s insights (he was the first to bring psychoanalysis to paediatrics and urged parents to treat each child like an individual) into the different aspects of raising a child — was the second-best-selling book, next to the Bible, throughout its first 52 years.
For the last 66 years, the definitive book has been a bible for parents across the globe. Since its publication in 1946, it has sold over 50 million copies and has been translated into 49 languages, with each of its editions beginning with Dr Spock’s famous line for mothers: “Trust yourself: You know more than you think you do.”
Now, Dr Spock’s Baby and Childcare has been updated and adapted for India as well as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Titled Dr Spock’s Baby and Childcare in India (Simon & Schuster India), it was released in New Delhi on November 1. Co-authored by paediatricians Dr Abdulla Ghori and Dr Robert Needlman of MetroHealth Medical Centre (Case Western Reserve University at Cleveland in Ohio), the book, which has an additional section on pregnancy and prenatal care by Dr Sheila Balakrishnan, aims to combine the best and time-tested practices of childcare from the East and the West.
Dr Ghori, Dr Needlman, Dr Balakrishnan were present at the launch alongwith Mary Morgan, Dr Spock’s widow. Morgan said it was the right time to bring the book to India as there was a huge demand, spurred by economic and educational growth, from the growing tribe of young, urban parents of nuclear families. Building on Dr Spock’s “enduring insights”, Dr Ghori , Dr Needlman and Dr Balakrishnan together make the book a compendium of medical and parenting advice that includes tips on raising children in today’s “high-stress, hugh-tech” world, making your children relate with grandparents (a largely Indian phenomenon), getting your children to eat healthy food, nurturing their creativity and fostering “competitiveness and compassion”.
Dr Spock’s comments, that remain relevant to this day, are weaved in throughout the book. Sample this one: “In my experience, parents sometimes have problems with their children because they don’t really understand how fundamentally differently they and their children see the world. Consequently they think their child is capable of more understanding than he really is.”
The culture-specific (it’s culturally correct with an Indian baby on the cover) book — which includes everything from feeding disciplines to sleep issues, nappying to nutrition — has been written to meet the “needs of Indian culture”. “It’s not a translation, but an adaptation,” underscored Morgan.
Talking about Dr Spock’s philosophy of children, Morgan said: “He felt that children had certain grace. It was his belief that every child counts. He wanted to go out to all children. He wanted to give back to the world what he had. We continue in his spirit.”
Everything that is there in the book, she said, comes from wisdom and truth that has been handed down. “Let the baby be your guide, teach you,” said Morgan.
Dr Needlman said that the different editions of the book incorporate change according to the socio-economic conditions of the particular country. He said that in today’s changing times, “economic stress” has risen and that puts a lot of pressure on parents. This has also impacted the children’s behaviour.
Dr Ghori said that India had a tradition of child’s family functioning as one unit. But Indian parents need to give more autonomy to their children and inculcate healthy sleeping and proper eating habits. They must avoid “embedded criticism” and negative comments on their children. He emphasised on healthy parents-child relationship. While rearing a child, he said, “We must make the child in us go to sleep”.
Dr Sheila said that the slow crumbling of joint families and the emergence of nuclear families has created the need for information to be made available to such parents. The section on pregnancy, among other things, busts some myths surrounding it and talks about post-partum blues. “With more and more cases of late marriages and postponing pregnancies, infertility is a growing problem, creating the need for things like IVF” she said, adding that pregnancies should be a joyous and wonderful experience. “Babies should happen by choice and not chance,” she said.
Morgan said, “India has the tradition of a tremendous spiritual history that we have long admired. Realisation of one’s own truth – not something that can be taught – comes natural to Indians.”
Children should, Morgan said, live the life that they want to live. The objective of Dr Spock’s Baby and Childcare in India, like its other editions across the globe, was not “information”, but “transformation” to realise your “truth”.
The author of three other books on parenting, Dr Spock also wrote Dr Spock on Vietnam during the war with Vietnam. Morgan, who co-wrote his memoir Spock on Spock: A Memoir of Growing Up With the Century, said: “It was one of the five books on the desk of Ho Chi Minh when Dr Spock visited his place after the war.”