D R A M A++Q U E E N

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T A B L E++T A L K

Cutting the chord: Parents debate when, where, how and why of letting their kids become adults in Table Talk

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R E C E N T L Y

Worse than it oughta be
By Sara Nelson
"As Good As It Gets" is just one more pathetic male rescue fantasy
(03/20/98)

The Willey of our discontent
By Katie Roiphe
American women are as weary of the sexual policing of the '90s as they are skeptical of the president's latest accuser
(03/19/98)

Does President Clinton feel
women's pain -- or cause it?
By Lori Leibovich
Feminist author Barbara Ehrenreich lashes out at a sexualized White House workplace
(03/19/98)

Second Thoughts
By Sallie Tisdale
For years, I longed to love my father and be loved by him in return. But I don't, and am not
(03/18/98)

A feel for a good story
By Carol Lloyd
Thank God for those notorious womanizers at "60 Minutes," who make it safe for women like Kathleen Willey to speak out about sexual harassment
(03/17/98)

ARCHIVES

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Mamafesto
By Camille Peri
Why it's time
for Mothers Who Think

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THE SPOCK TOUCH | PAGE 2 OF 2

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Spock was further politicized by the Vietnam War, which he opposed as early as 1962. By the late '60s, he was a familiar presence at anti-war marches and rallies, and with his genially noble bearing and his familiar blue Brooks Brothers suits, Spock brought a measure of moral gravity to literally hundreds of protests. Rebellious teens could placate their parents, Maier writes, with the line: "But Mom, I was with Dr. Spock!"

Jessica Mitford called Spock, who was himself in his mid-60s by the time he became politically active, "a political Rip van Winkle." This Rip van Winkle had a bit of the prankster in him. He ran for president himself in 1968, and he tapped Gore Vidal as his potential secretary of state. At one rally, as Pete Seeger sang John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance," Spock played the Allen Ginsberg role, chanting, "Are you listening, Nixon?" between the verses. Spock was trying to protect what he saw as his generation. As he liked to formulate it, pediatrics is politics.

It was that notion of his generation that put him under an often uncomfortable spotlight. As the '60s spun out of control, Spock became a convenient punching bag for critics on both sides of the political spectrum. The right loathed what Nixon called the "fog of permissiveness" and lashed Spock for it. A Newsweek cover story on hippie culture asked, "Is Spock to Blame?" William Safire, then a speechwriter for Spiro Agnew, complained about a "Spock-marked generation." As Maier writes, "the nation's right wing had found its bogeyman, the Alger Hiss of childcare."

Spock was troubled by these attacks, and he addressed (and firmly denied) the "permissiveness" charge in later editions of his book. But he was even more distressed by criticism from high-profile feminists such as Gloria Steinem and Betty Friedan. Early editions of Spock's books had been praised for stressing the father's role in child rearing, but as Steinem and Friedan made clear, he didn't go nearly far enough. Spock's books not only used the pronoun "he" when referring to a child, but the caregiver was always "she." Worse, he counseled that girls be prepared for motherhood, not careers, and he pushed Freud's insights too far. "My prime concern is that, back at the childhood stage, parents and schools not encourage girls to be competitive with males if that is going to make them dissatisfied with raising children, their most creative job in adulthood," Spock wrote. "The little girl's envy of the boy's penis and the boy's envy of the little girl's ability to grow babies create rivalries that persist into adulthood."

Maier, a reporter at Newsday and the author of a biography of S.I. Newhouse, does an admirable job of digging into these controversies, even if he never dwells long on the deeper issues involved. This is a journalist's lucid and transparently written account, not an intellectual exercise. While Maier clearly admires Spock, this book also makes it very plain that its author disapproves of Spock's own child-rearing abilities. "Benjamin Spock: An American Life" is loaded with quotes from Spock's own children, who found him "detached and distant." (One of his two sons called him "a scary person.") Maier also suggests that Spock's aloofness and his obsession with work -- and later politics -- may have helped drive his first wife to alcoholism. Like so many American heroes, Spock rarely seemed able to listen to his own counsel.

The left, for the most part, made its peace with the apologetic Dr. Spock. Later editions of his books corrected much of the gender bias inherent in the earlier works, and sections have been added on such American realities as AIDS and single parenting. (Steinem eventually included Spock, in Ms. magazine's 10th anniversary edition, as one of the heroes of the women's movement.) The right has been less charitable. In the '70s, he was blamed for sparking the "Me Decade"; in the '80s, yuppies were his fault. And the permissiveness issue lives on. Given the current climate in Washington, it's surprising that no conservative pundit has singled out Bill Clinton as the ultimate self-absorbed Spock baby.

While Spock basked in almost unanimous adulation after his death last week, he continues to have many trenchant critics. Among the most notable is the academic Sharon Hays, who flings some occasionally expert darts at the Big Three child-care gurus -- Spock, of course, and Terry Brazelton and Penelope Leach, a pair of writers he has influenced -- in her 1996 book "The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood" (Yale University Press). Hays takes Spock to task not only for continuing to place the bulk of the child-rearing responsibility on women (men are viewed as supplementary assistance), but for ignoring the realities of women's lives. Hays finds Spock's advice to be overly "intensive," reducing women to virtual child-care machines. Further, she argues that writers like Spock and Leach are so exacting in their counsel about day care that they either guilt-tripped mothers into staying home or reduce them to paupers in order to pay for a ridiculously high level of care.

As long as child rearing remains an art, and not a science, the debate over Benjamin Spock and his ubiquitous books will rage on unabated. Spock, the inveterate protester, wouldn't have wanted it any other way. Pediatrics, he knew, will always be politics.
SALON | March 23, 1998