Word: spock
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Exposure to violence is one of the primary causes of tension in American families, noted author and political activist Dr. Benjamin Spock told a subdued Law School Forum crowd yesterday...
...Spock said we live in the most violent country in the world, and noted the average child watches approximately 18,000 murders on television...
Along the way, Spock became the first of the anti-expert experts. His own best seller on child care cautions mothers to take even his tips with several grains of salt. In all editions, the first paragraph of the book begins, "You know more than you think you do," and the next paragraph says, "Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense." A friendly and homey prose style, at once humble and authoritative, has convinced millions of mothers that he is an author who can be trusted...
Everywhere he goes, Spock is asked about "the permissiveness issue," the charge that the doctor encouraged several generations of parents to ease up on discipline and give their children more free rein. "For 22 years, nobody said the book was permissive," he says. "That all started with Norman Vincent Peale." In 1968 Spock, a leader in the anti-Viet Nam protests, was indicted for conspiracy to counsel draft resistance. (He was found guilty, but the conviction was overturned in 1969.) Peale, an author and politically conservative minister, denounced Spock from his pulpit and charged that the student uprisings...
...Spock thinks his contribution has not been lax discipline, but more relaxed parents. "The main effect of the book is to give parents confidence, and I think I succeeded better than I ever thought I could...