Rigor was therefore the dominant practice for American children until Benjamin Spock changed things in an instant. Spock was, like Locke, a trained physician, with a specialty in pediatrics. With the assistance of his wife, he produced The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, first published in 1946, in time to guide Boomer upbringings. A best seller of tremendous proportions, it sold five hundred thousand copies in its first six months, and in the half century following its printing, was surpassed only by the Bible in sales (or so the story goes).4 A contemporary poll of American mothers
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