Baby Boom Influence.

Benjamin Spock exerted enormous influence on the baby-boom generation (people born in 1946-1965) who came of age in the 1970s. Dr. Spock was a pediatrician, author, and social reformer who published The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care (1946), an immediate best-seller and quickly one of the most influential books in postwar America. Retitled and republished as Baby and Child Care (1968, 1976, and 1985), it was an ideal guide for a country preoccupied with children and just the kind of gentle, warm, and thoughtful expert advice young parents needed in the baby-boom years. In contrast to prevailing child-rearing customs and advice, Spock emphasized affectionate and loving parenting, which was dubbed by his critics as permissiveness.

Against Vietnam.

Reassuring parents that "You know more than you think you know," Dr. Spock became a household name as maternity hospitals and diaper services gave...