NAMES IN THE NEWS : Spock Diagnosis: U.S. Ailing
Dr. Benjamin Spock says American society is sick and getting sicker, and one of its worst ailments is “excessive competitiveness.”
Most children are brought up to believe “you’re in this world to get ahead, kid,” Spock said in a commencement speech Monday at Yale University’s School of Epidemiology and Public Health.
Little League baseball should be abolished, he said, because it “takes the fun out of athletics at an early age.”
“We ought to raise our children with quite a different spirit--not primarily to get ahead,” said Spock, whose landmark 1946 book “Baby and Child Care” has sold 32 million copies.
He also recommended that teen-agers take part in volunteer activities, from working in hospitals to tutoring children.
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