23. Dr. Benjamin Spock
Benjamin Spock was a pediatrician whose influence on mothers for several decades was such that his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, published in 1946, sold half a million copies in six months and over 50 million copies before his death in 1998. Spock’s advice to mothers could be encapsulated in his often quoted dictum, “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do”, the first line of the book. Later in his life he was widely criticized by colleagues and others including Norman Vincent Peale, but for several decades he was America’s most influential leader on the subject of child care, and for many his practices and teachings are still germane.