The pocket book of baby and child care / by Benjamin Spock ; illustrations by Dorothea Fox.

  • Benjamin Spock
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The pocket book of baby and child care / by Benjamin Spock ; illustrations by Dorothea Fox. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    14/516 page 2
    2 A LETTER TO THE MOTHER AND FATHER to the solution of a problem about which the parents would only get more mixed up by reading. ie I want to apologize to half the fathers and mothers who are going to read the book. I mean the parents whose first baby is a _ girl, Everywhere I’ve called the baby “him.” I think girl babies are as wonderful as boy babies. But in every sentence I can't say , _ “her or him” and I can’t say “it” (parents would rather have their baby called by the wrong sex than be called “it”). Why can’t I call the baby “her” in at least half the book? I need “her” to refer to the mother. I hope the parents of girls will under- stand and forgive me. Last of all I want to urge you not to worry or decide that you've made a mistake with your child on the basis of anything that you read in this book (or anywhere else, for that matter). In the first place, we don’t know all the answers yet. Our ideas about how to treat a child have changed a lot in the past and _ will certainly change in the future. This book only tries to give you sensible present-day ideas of the care of a child, taking into account his physical and emotional needs. It’s not infallible. The other reason you mustn’t take too seriously anything that » you read is that books deal in generalities. They can’t go into all the possible variations. If I write that most babies begin to have _ dry diapers around 15 months of age, you mustn’t jump to the conclusion that your child of 18 months is abnormal because he’s always wet. If I mention several kinds of nervousness that . I think help to cause stuttering, I don’t mean for a minute that every child who stutters must be suffering from one of them. The book is meant to be a source of helpful general suggestions, not the final word.
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