Benjamin Spock Quotes

Benjamin Spock provides gentle, consoling advice on family and children, urging confidence and deeper values.

49 quotes

1. I really learned it all from mothers.

2. I've come to the realization that a lot of our problems are because of a dearth of spiritual values.

3. People have said, 'You've turned your back on pediatrics.' I said, 'No. It took me until I was in my 60s to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics.'

4. I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.

5. You know more than you think you do.

6. Don't take too seriously all that the neighbors say. Don't be overawed by what the experts say. Don't be afraid to trust your own common sense.

7. The more people have studied different methods of bringing up children the more they have come to the conclusion that what good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is the best after all. All parents do their best job when they have a natural, easy confidence in themselves. Better to make a few mistakes from being natural than to try to do everything letter-perfect out of a feeling of worry.

8. The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children.

9. There are only two things a child will share willingly- communicable diseases and his mother's age.

10. In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

11. All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent. After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

12. Biologically and temperamentally, I believe women were made to be concerned first and foremost with child care, husband care and home care.

13. Every child senses, with all the horse sense that's in him, that any parent is angry inside when children misbehave and they dread more the anger that is rarely or never expressed openly, wondering how awful it might be.

14. Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.

15. Having a good time together is the essence of lovingness and the best means of increasing it.

16. I wanted to be supportive of parents rather than to scold them. The book set out very deliberately to counteract some of the rigidities of pediatric tradition, particularly in infant feeding. It emphasized the importance of great differences between individual babies, of the need for flexibility and of the lack of necessity to worry constantly about spoiling.

17. I'm not a pacifist. I was very much for the war against Hitler and I also supported the intervention in Korea, but in this war we went in there to steal Vietnam.

18. If I could make only one wish for a child, I'd wish him the quality of lovingness.

19. Most middle-class whites have no idea what it feels like to be subjected to police who are routinely suspicious, rude, belligerent, and brutal.

20. Perhaps a child who is fussed over gets a feeling of destiny; he thinks he is the world for something important, and it gives him drive and confidence.

21. Respect children because they're human beings and they deserve respect, and they'll grow up to be better people. But I've always said ask for respect from your children, ask for cooperation, ask for politeness. Give your children firm leadership.

22. The loving person makes other people feel good, and he is usually a happy person himself. He is able to form strong, long-lasting friendships.

23. Well, at least nobody could accuse me of having brought up Spiro Agnew.

24. 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?

25. When women are encouraged to be competitive, too many of them become disagreeable.

26. An entire generation grew up unacquainted with the thwack of paddle against bottom. ~ Jonathan Yardley American Heritage (April 1985)

27. Some physicians who have called him excessively permissive just didn't understand and gave his understanding approach to child rearing a negative label. He was blamed for the radical behavior of the youth in the '60s. But that didn't emerge from Spock's teachings. It was far more a reflection of the social and political climate. ~ Dr. Marvin Drellich, professor of psychiatry at New York Medical College.

28. The strongest rebellion may be expressed in quiet, undramatic behavior.

29. On the average, older parents are more flexible, tolerant, understanding, and happy in child care.

30. I was so afraid of being bad and being caught at it.

31. Can we make a better world for our children? I believe we can, if enough people are concerned and get involved in changing what is wrong with society.

32. Like my parents, I have never been a regular church member or churchgoer. It doesn't seem plausible to me that there is the kind of God who watches over human affairs, listens to prayers, and tries to guide people to follow His precepts - there is just too much misery and cruelty for that.

33. Without freedom of choice, there is no creativity. Without creativity, there is no life.

34. This present system by which industry is motivated exclusively by the quest for maximal profits - though it may have helped a great deal to develop, to industrialize our country so rapidly and so successfully - now it's clearly passed its usefulness. It is keeping us from achieving the ideal society that we should have. We say industry must produce to improve the quality of life for all our people.

35. When I was 88 years old, I gave up meat entirely and switched to a plant foods diet following a slight stroke. During the following months, I not only lost 50 pounds, but gained strength in my legs and picked up stamina. Now, at age 93, I'm on the same plant-based diet, and I still don't eat any meat or dairy products. I either swim, walk, or paddle a canoe daily and I feel the best I've felt since my heart problems began.

36. It's an ideal existence. Out in the open. Berating the president of he United States... I'm free to thwart and torment the authorities - that is to say, I can get out my hostilities - because I'm protected in my conscience by the knowledge that what I'm doing is morally right. I've never been so relaxed. I've never been so happy.

37. Grandparents have the freedom to see their grandchildren uncritically.

38. A surprising number of scientific advances have been made and masterpieces of art created by individuals just on the threshold of adulthood.

39. How to fold a diaper depends on the size of the baby and the diaper.

40. The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidence in themselves and happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they do have and of all the opportunities that come their way.

41. A human being is happiest and most successful when dedicated to a cause outside his own individual, selfish satisfaction.

42. In our country today, very few children are raised to believe that their principal destiny is to serve their family, their country, or God.

43. Our greatest hope is to bring up children inspired by their opportunities for being helpful and loving.

44. I agree today that a man has no business trying to tell women what their characteristics are, which ones are inborn, which are more admirable, which will be best utilized by what occupations.

45. Humans can be the most affectionate and altruistic of creatures, yet they're potentially more vicious than any other. They are the only ones who can be persuaded to hate millions of their own kind whom they have never seen and to kill as many as they can lay their hands on in the name of their tribe or their God.

46. Boys and girls need chances to be around their father, to be enjoyed by him and if possible to do things with him. Better to play fifteen minutes enjoyably and then say, 'Now I'm going to read my paper' than to spend all day at the zoo crossly.

47. It's up to each of us to help create a better world for our children.

48. The children who are appreciated for what they are, even if they are homely, or clumsy, or slow, will grow up with confidences in themselves - happy. They will have a spirit that will make the best of all the capacities that they have, and of all the opportunities that come their way. They will make light of any handicaps.

49. I think we should bring up our children with much less pressure to compete and get ahead: no comparing one child with another, at home or in school; no grades. Let athletics be primarily for fun, and let them be organized by children and youths themselves.