Woman; 018; Teenagers Today with Dr. Benjamin Spock

Right. And then with. A nod we're going to be talking about teenagers and our guest is the internationally famous baby doctor and also of a number of books on child care amongst them a Teenager's Guide to Life and Love and of course the bestseller to end all bestsellers Baby and Child Care gives me great pleasure to welcome Dr. Benjamin Spock as Dr. Spock before we go any further. I absolutely have to thank you very very much for being my personal security. I don't know how I could have got on

without it really well and in many cases it replaced a pediatrician I shouldn't say that it really did. It's tremendous. Some people I think it's the ones who use the book corrupt and corrupt trolldom truck turns children into brats love every every time anybody says that it's been a help to the mother that the children will feel reassured. When I was a tremendous help to me I just wish you'd had more on twins. This is your latest book is and that's just Guide to Life and Love. I'm always a little defensive when I see it because it's an extraordinarily conservative book. People think because I'm a radical political A that everything I do should be equally radical. And this is I think to many teenagers a very old fashioned seeming rock. And it shocks some of my more radical friends that I was responsible for. I try to defend myself by saying. Barely teenagers don't

need a book to find out about life for themselves they're not particularly troubled by life. It's the ones who've been brought up very stripped of all the inhibitions. The way I was brought up who are troubled by adolescence the conflicting feelings what's going on in me. Is it bad or is all right. The book was really written for a strictly brought up teenagers to try to explain why they have these contradictions and anxieties. Do you feel a special sort of responsibility as a baby to towards this generation that you help care for by you. Oh I do and I think that's part of what got me into the opposition in the war in Vietnam the fact that these really were the children who'd been brought up according to my book at least according to their parents. I think that the people who approved of my opposition to the war in Vietnam and other political. Crusades they saw that. They said I can see that you're still interested in those young people and don't want them to be killed in a horrible brutal unjust

war. But the people who disagree with my politics of COS didn't see it that way at all. What do you think the Abbie Hoffman said today are typical byproduct of your Demond feeding type permissiveness. No I don't think that the kind of philosophy that I advocated has made that much difference in the character of young people. I think Abby Hoffman and Jerry Rubin are they are a very special unusual type of person. I think that a lot of people especially those who don't like the more liberal and radical youths assume that I created them with the advice and my baby and childcare but they forget that all the conservative young people of nowadays were raised by my book too. I mean would any parent who used a book for practical purposes was using my book so that obviously the book if it has anything to do with producing types it produces conservatives moderates and radicals. You've been so much of your time closely connected with the youth of today I think it's 300

campuses in two years you tell me you you through on campuses and five you sigh of you as well. What do you feel you've learnt from your proximity with the youth of today. I think the first one is that there's no age gap no generation gap. If the older person is willing to be friendly. In other words I think the gap was mainly made by young older people recoiling from changes in the beliefs and habits of young people that they bristled and pulled back and the young people of COS felt that and felt the gap but everywhere I've gone in the last five years since I've opposed the war in Vietnam young people have welcomed me with open arms and implied that they not only felt generally friendly but that they welcomed support from older people in ACC and that caused the opposition to the war. What do young people say to you today what are their problems what it what are their concerns and how do these contrast with the concerns of their parents.

I think the main difference it seems to me is at least the ones that I see and you have to admit that I see a selected group because when I go into a university the more conservative students and the middle of the road ones who are indifferent to the problems of America they don't bother to come so I'm talking about the more liberal and a few radical students and I think. Seems to me they're concerned with several things One is why do we have to have such a high competitive society. Dog eat dog. Why not live by cooperation and brotherly love. And I think it's wonderful that they ask this question. We weren't smart enough perceptive enough and their parents generation of whom almost their grandparents generation we weren't smart enough to ask that very simple question. But I think another another one is Why not live simply instead of ostentatiously instead of spending your whole life finding how much money you can earn

and how many things you can buy with it to impress yourself and others why not live simply. I think that this is wonderful. This is actually getting both of these are getting back to some of the ideas of the early Christians. So I think lots of church going people don't recognize that. The that her essence of Christianity was in this how how are things different in your days what was your adolescent life. Oh it was entirely different. When I went to college I'm not contrast in college as when I was in college although I can remember thinking about was athletics and we said girls in those days you'd say you have women now and clothes and buy clothes you meant not in formal clothes. Clothes were generally very formal most students at a university wore a suit that one minority wore flannel slacks and a tweed jacket and everybody wore on that and everybody wore a white shirt that had to have buttoned down collar as usual at the college I

went to it all had to come from Brooks Brothers or conventional. One of the things that made me realize you can't take surface manifestations like this too seriously is that a lot of these people a few years after we graduated we graduated 20 a few years after we graduated came they took the Depression of 1929 in the 30s. A lot of people so but up and took a serious interest in the affairs of the world. In a way the silliness of college students then was a reaction to the end of World War One where people thought they'd been Ernest long enough by the end of the war and everybody thought now we can really be totally materialistic just as after World War 2 in the late 40s and the 50s where everybody turned to materialism. Do you think society today has failed teenagers in the U.S Perhaps I should qualify that a little bit. Hypocrisy is an intrinsic part of today's society

at least in a fraction of today's society we pay lip service to a lot of courses that we don't treat any genuinely a spot as such as the war I hope I can speak in the past tense of the war. And I am of course excluding the Dr. Benjamin Spock. Generation your time more than anybody else despised because it's. But we talk a lot about ecology and preservation of the land and we don't do an awful lot. Now do you think teenagers seeing this this contributes their feelings of unrest. You know it certainly does and I think that there's more a contrast now between what could be in America the richest country in the world as of them with all the technical technical knowledge medical knowledge educational knowledge to give a good life and good preparation for life to everybody and certainly by far the richest country in the world but richer than it has ever been in the past. The contrast between this and what is actually People's the condition of a majority of people has never been greater. I think that that has stirred up protest and you know

I think that the war in Vietnam itself which from their point of view in my point of view was a particularly pointless unjustified unjust war that gave them a feeling of extreme and patients. So I think that the provocation the excuse for being critical of the older generation is greater today than it's ever been. Do you think I think that young people have always been critical to some degree of the older generation. I think nature intends us to be that way so that each person growing up will have a chance to review what the situation is in the world and inside whether he wants to attach himself or whether he wants to remain a protest. What do you think it's helpful if we as parents acknowledge our part in the hypocrisy because we are all a part of society and if it fails it is our failure to do you think this helps the credibility gap between the parents and the teenagers. Yeah I think so. I think actually parents can have more influence on their children if they are on the net and a lot of their standards are hypocritical of them not living up to

them themselves. I think that what frees children to be adolescents and youths to be completely critical of their parents is for their parents to pretend that they are hypocritical at all that they are not. I think that when parents admit this to their children though I don't mean they should rival because I think that many parents have the idea either you have to be enough power to hate a person saying I know you do what I say. Or they become apologetic and say no we've failed Jew or a rotten generation. I think one should strike something in between. I think it's very important for parents to communicate as freely as they have with their children especially on the adolescent and the youth period. You've talked a lot of that deep customization of love by to early dating before teenagers are ready to understand the human needs the emotional needs of each other. What do you think the results of these could be defined too early dating or why they should stay.

I don't I don't want to be thought of as too arbitrary about that I think that especially back in the 50s and early 60s there were a lot of teenagers who felt you must have a regular girlfriend and boyfriend and must have regular dates and I think a lot of this was based on not only not love but it wasn't even really based on affection or even common interest or rather a desperate feeling that to be respectable you've got to have a you know regular And I think regular dates also lead across to gradual sexual familiarity and I think one of the things I was stressing there. Don't get into it and don't try to go very far in dating until you really feel drawn to somebody and drawn them not just in a physical sense drawn in the affectional sense a commonality of of interest. Do you think any parallels could be drawn between American teenagers and teenagers in other countries is there any lessons to be learned.

I don't know enough about other countries and perhaps I don't know enough about teenagers now certainly my own teenage hood. This sounds like millions of years ago I guess I learned something from college students and from time to time I speak to high school to high school student groups but I think there are more and more even high school students who are drawn into very close meaningful relationships on a really affectional basis. Now the words I think the trend is away from that desperate feeling you've got to have the dates whether you like the person or instead the person or not. I was only really making the point in the book. Better not to get drawn deeper and deeper into physical sexuality unless there as a real respect and love in them that keeps things in. REPORTER What do you think the sexual freedom that is a part of today is a result of the changing values. DENI it's the other way around. Well I think it's I think values are I was changing into the values of certainly changed and I

think that parents and school have gone in the frankest sex education and I think parents even those who are embarrassed about sex have felt that you have to act so your children sexual questions beginning from Two and a half or three years of age and I think that no question about it the young people today are much less inhibited much less scared of sexuality than their parents. But I don't think that that necessarily means that any expects sexual experimentation as a wise my own feeling this may be just because I'm older because in this respect I'm cautious and you ought to tread lightly because. I think one of my main protests against too much focus on the mechanics of the anatomy of the physiology of sex is that it leaves out the fact that in a human being it's a part of very intense relationships that have to do with your future marriage and your whole attitude toward life and children and I think that it's better not to tamper with that too much and not encourage yourself too

especially if you've been brought up with a lot of high ideals because then you become disappointed and so you've also criticised the American image of marriage as being over glamorized and over the mountain sized and not concentrating enough on on human relationships. How would you how would you suggest that parents train a program that teenagers from marriage. But I think that parents what I was thinking about explicitly as in movies and novels and romances and magazines this blinding love of people get married and the implication is that they live happily ever after and I think Americans are way up at one end of the scale in this than in other countries. Parents tell kids this is serious business getting married and I think that in the United States we ought to tell them that not only serious business but it has a horrible rate of just a failure of marriage. It isn't a blinding flash that will guarantee you live in your world living happily ever after. I don't want to

preach too much about this I only think that since there are so many influences that give young people the idea that justice will it's long as you feel smitten that that's a guarantee. I think parents should be always remind them. I don't mean giving them lectures. But when talking about the fact that Ellen is getting divorced and somebody down the block is getting divorced I think it's good for young people to hear their parents talking frankly about marriage has a difficult relationship but if you're going to come out and work you've got to work at it. It's like they know something like that. Flowers don't just throw those seeds in me. I mean do you know of all the statistics and particularly as they pertain to teenage marriages what do you think of trial marriage. But I think that by the time somebody has gotten a team and is not going to a universe I'm saying dangerous things now they're in a universe but not ready to get married. My own

feeling is that from that that the person who is not going to the universe who thinks they know somebody well enough to get married to them that 18 is a possible age. But that if they want to live together I think a society should not on on that. I'm not talking about I should quickly say I'm not talking about 14 15 16 year old because I know you've got to have experience with the world and are right in the feelings. So the really is a fair certainty that you're talking about a feeling for a person rather than excitement about something physical anyway. I approve of the fact that quite a few. College students after they really become less loving toward a person will live together for a while. I think myself that this is a safe. What about children born in the trial marriage.

Well I think they should try very hard not to have children that this is part of the responsibility as not to have a child you would not want to have a child if you're going to have a child you should get married beforehand. Some some solidity into which the child is born it's a tough life for a child born really out of wedlock. When two people are not anywhere near ready to take care of them what do you think the psychological implications are to a teenager born and nurtured in a family where one parent or perhaps both parents are on the sex room. I don't have enough experience to know it's one of the things that homosexuals in the demanding of rights to be considered human beings like everybody else is one of the things they finally come around to and in discussions with a person like me should two homosexuals be allowed to adopt a child. I'm 5 find myself very divided on that particular question. I think homosexuals are people they didn't choose to be homosexuals but since they are

homosexuals they got to be respected as homosexuals. I'd say very probably delay that if a woman first had a marriage had a child and then discovered that really she was homosexual and wanted a lot of divorce and lived with another woman. Seems to me she has every right to keep her own child but whether two homosexual women are two homosexual men really entitled to adopt a child. That to me is difficult in terms of being human beings they should have the same rights as other human beings but in a sense taking on a child is not just your own right it's one of the rights of the child. I was brought up I was trained long ago before such questions were asked and I would say that I've always assumed as I've been taught and experienced in pediatric practice. Children really need a mother and a father that is good fun and become intimate late. Knowledgeable about both sexes and to see the relationship of the sexes. Obviously some of that will be left out but it

would be certainly foolish to say you can't bring up a child normal with two homosexuals once because a child that is two homosexuals women a child will be seen men presumably will be relatives will be teachers at school and so on and we know that a child can make a father out of bits and pieces you might say from the end of the day that he sees at least on occasion. Certainly all children brought up in regular marriages don't turn out all right so people who are heterosexual can't say this is the sure way of making a normal child. I'm sure that children brought up by homosexuals that many of them will turn out quite normal. But I think I suppose in a way what I'd have to say yes we'd have to wait another 50 years to homosexuality has been more recognized and see what the statistics are. I've got a question I'd like to ask you completely off that tack about criticism. Most parents feel that it is necessary to criticize from time to

time. However with criticism comes resentment antagonism and sometimes a breakdown of communications. Now where should your priorities lie. Should you get into things like the length of your teenagers have the fact that your daughter plays rock all night long. How should you go about this whole question. Criticism so as not to offend the ego or the individuality of the person. Well I don't think it's a question of being a magic of coding criticism with sugar or something sweet just so it goes down well I think I'd put it the other way that the should be as free communication as possible between teenagers and their parents and that the parent should be very clear about what they think is right it's right and wrong and what their rights are. But I think they also have the obligation to listen to their teenagers. And let them and the teenagers have the obligation to express their views to their parents. So I think it's really like older

people getting along together you know if you've got a friend under what circumstances can I criticize her I think you can say the commu lines of communication should possible be open enough so that you can discuss things without her feeling that you're suddenly jumping on her and then she can at Sabbat and made you see that the position she's taken all the clothes she wears are her own business although she has a very good reason for them. I think I think would be foolish to put that communication is easy between teenagers and the parents I think that the very nature of our species says there are going to be tensions and differences. If everything were easy and beautiful between parents and teenagers teenagers would never leave home it would be much better to stay there with Mumsie and dads and earn the money and provide the security. Part of why you grow up and get impatient and go off to live your own life is because

underneath you don't want to stay under their domination so I think biological it's bound to be difficult. Difficult at times I think in some families it's difficult to look tough wrangling and in others it's surprisingly. But yes even in those families what's very calm I'm sure there are tensions underneath. This brings me to another question that of independents this is a problematical one too sometimes because most teenage teenagers seem to crave autonomy now. Where should you draw the line here without abdicating parental responsibility but I think that teenagers want to hear what their parents view is even though they don't really. They're not willing to admit it. No teenager says. I'm very glad to have heard your opinion to you which numbers when you're fighting to be grown up and to be independent you can't concede too much but I think that underneath they want to hear what their parents say so I think parents should be very frank in expressing their views and that with the idea these are better views because I buy a

pair of them because I have an old. I'm older but because as a person this has been my experience in life and I care about you and what you do. But I've gotten off the track. New lead a new you know that's that's basically down the track. Do you think parents overreact sometimes because their teenagers are getting away with things that they didn't get away with and that not only that they're getting away with things that the parents did and did get away with but even if the customs were just the same all the people are envious of you. Exactly. Everybody would like to be young again and starting over and I think about some of the grittiness of planets what would your advice be to parents who discover that their son or daughter is smoking marijuana. I would assume I would tell them to assume that children are normal. It's not that I advocate the smoking amount but certainly this is the custom. I've read very Catholic reports for three government commissions since 1936 none of which have been able to come up with any evidence that marijuana smoking is permanently

harmful in any way. That certainly isn't nearly as harmful as tobacco. Aw alcohol alcoholic drinks we know that those kill hundreds of thousands of people so it's a relatively harmless drug and it is the custom. When I was in college the custom was to get drunk among a certain number of my pals and I would I wouldn't advocate that I wouldn't. I think if we had a really good society and everybody had a good life people won't need to knock themselves out with a run of the Getz. I think it's just their wish but parents to get the authorities to become hysterical about marijuana that's really a surprisingly dangerous drug. Got a small burned pic right here in the Teenager's Guide to Life and Love you say the more spiritual qualities of love are almost exclusively the monopoly of goals who are admonish to resist the advances of males in whom physical sexuality is generally more insistent less tightly tied to tender and romantic spiritual side of love.

Now how are we to get rid of the double standard so long as boys are given advice like that by such enlightened doctors as you and you weren't calling me word for word now that's what happened last summer because it sounded a little a little more pompous than I was so I think this is an example of perhaps where I'm a little old fashioned because I think in previous decades it has been assumed that men were more aggressive sexually. I'm willing to concede now that. And I'm noble to do so. And I just admit that that could have been a preconception because. It was accepted that that was the way men were to be more aggressive. Certainly what's happened in the last 10 to 15 years that girls and women have become a lot more aggressive sexually. One of the places that I got that from was the Kinsey reports which of course were and. The material was gathered 25 30 years ago. And they said one of the

the most startling conclusions that they came to when they came to write the book on sexuality and women is how women seem to be able to accept it. Women who had been maiden ladies or women who had been women who had been seen with great attention to be able to get along with the rest of their life. It's always been 25 years ago told people that they were doing nothing but they were thinking about sex a great deal of the time. So I think I got it from such sources which was not just opinion but my preconceptions. Time is absolutely with thank you very much.