Benjamin Spock dies in California at 94> Famed baby doctor had Camden home

SAN DIEGO — When a whole generation of kids started growing their hair, having sex, protesting the war and questioning authority back in the ’60s, one man alone was held accountable by some: Dr. Benjamin Spock.

Practically the entire baby boom generation was raised according to Spock’s compassionate, common-sense approach to bringing up baby.

Spock died of respiratory failure Sunday at age 94 at his home in La Jolla. He had suffered a heart attack, a stroke and several bouts of pneumonia in recent years.

The pediatrician’s first book, “Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care,” was published in 1946 at the very start of the post-World War II baby boom and became the bible to millions of parents.

In it, Spock encouraged parents to trust and respect themselves and listen to their children. For example, he told them it is better to feed babies when they want to eat instead of adhering to a strict feeding schedule.

His seemingly simple advice was a revelation for many, and “Baby and Child Care,” as it was called in later editions, went on to become the biggest-selling book in the United States after the Bible. It has been translated into 39 languages and sold nearly 50 million copies worldwide.

During the turbulent ’60s, though, some doctors criticized Spock’s approach in the 1960s as excessively permissive. Critics branded him the “father of permissiveness” and said he was responsible for a “Spock-marked” generation of hippies.

Spock joined those youths in protests against nuclear technology and the Vietnam War, even leading a march on the Pentagon in 1967. Vice President Spiro Agnew accused him of corrupting the youth of America; Spock claimed only a “mild influence.”

He argued, “What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?”

In 1968, Spock was convicted in Boston and sentenced to two years in prison for conspiracy to aid, abet and counsel young men to avoid the draft. The verdict was reversed on appeal. He ran for president in 1972 as a candidate of the Peoples Party, getting more than 75,000 votes.

Dr. Marvin Drellich, professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College, said the radical behavior of youth in that era “didn’t emerge from Spock’s teachings. It was far more a reflection of the social and political climate.”

Parents turned to Spock because they were inclined to raise their children in a less authoritarian way, said Todd Gitlin, a New York University professor who wrote “The Sixties, Years of Hope, Days of Rage.”

“Was he responsible for the youth rebellion? This is a ridiculous claim,” Gitlin said. “What is true is that the family patterns were changing, partly but not strictly because of the popularity of his book.”

The big-boned, 6-foot-4 Spock said he never meant that children should be allowed to be uncooperative or impolite. He said his basic philosophy was this: “Respect children because they’re human beings and they deserve respect, and they’ll grow up to be better people.”

“He was really the first person to talk about listening to children, which is such a catch phrase now,” British psychologist Penelope Leach, author of the best-selling “Baby and Child,” said from her London office.

Arlene Eisenberg, who co-wrote the best-selling “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” said Spock was the first child care expert who said to parents: “Trust your instincts. Do what you’re comfortable with.”

“He really made child care focus more on the needs of children rather than conveniences of parents,” she said.

Born May 2, 1903, in New Haven, Conn., the oldest of six children, Spock attended Yale University, where he joined the crew team and helped win a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. He earned his medical degree at Columbia University and studied at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.

After working in private practice in New York City and teaching pediatrics at Cornell University, Spock spent two years as a psychiatrist in the U.S. Naval Reserve Medical Corps.

At night, he worked on “Baby and Child Care,” which was published the year he was discharged. The exhaustively indexed book disputed the bringing-up-baby manuals that advised parents not to kiss and hold their children.

Spock also taught psychiatry and child development at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh and Case Western Reserve University. He wrote a column for nearly 30 years, first for Ladies Home Journal and later for Redbook.

Despite the millions in book royalties he earned, he and his wife, Mary Morgan, recently experienced financial problems because of his deteriorating health. Just 2 1/2 weeks ago, she pleaded for help in paying Spock’s $10,000-a-month medical bills.

Last fall, the couple sold their six-room oceanside home in Camden, Maine, for $480,000 and moved to La Jolla.

Spock’s first marriage, in 1927 to the former Jane Cheney, ended in divorce after 48 years. They had two sons — Michael, a University of Chicago research associate and museum consultant, and John, who owns a construction company in Los Angeles.

Spock married Morgan, almost 40 years his junior, in 1976.

A public service for Spock was scheduled for Friday at St. James By the Sea Episcopal Church in La Jolla. His body was to be cremated.