The Irresistible Henry House by Lisa Grunwald

all, if it wasn’t a testament to the belief that women could replace the mysteries of child rearing with mastery?
    For a moment, Henry became not the child she had always wanted, or even the one she was trying so hard not to love, but rather the tenth of ten children whom she had started on their way. She conjured a mental picture of the baby journals on her shelves, and the children they represented, raised according to time-tested methods. Methods that women had trusted, long before they’d been set loose by Benjamin Spock to trust themselves.
    RUMORS AND UPDATES of Dr. Spock’s whereabouts preceded his movements around the Matson campus. Wilton had had its share of famous visitors too, but Martha could not remember any who’d been received with such giddy enthusiasm. She did not get to see Spock’s face until late the last afternoon, when, along with the approximately forty heads of child-care programs, she attended the most selective seminar of the weekend.
    Sitting at an enormous conference table just a half dozen seats from the famous doctor, she found it hard to look at him. There was an intense kind of solicitousness about him, as if he was so used to listening to people’s symptoms that he viewed all statements made to him as clues to something else. Martha didn’t want to be analyzed. She didn’t want to be diagnosed.
    “Has that been your experience?” he kept asking when people made their opinions known. There was nothing even slightly nasty in the way he asked the question, but somehow it still seemed to be an accusation.
    Spock was disarmingly modest. He appeared to be almost shyly surprised by the success of his book, whose very “Trust Yourself” message seemed so self-effacing. He was the anti-expert: Some Midwest common sense, some reasonable rules, some sensible behavior, and children would be just fine.
    “So what do you say to Holt and Watson about baby’s schedule of feedings and eliminations?” one woman asked.
    “Well, different things may work for different types of children,” the doctor answered congenially. “In my experience, it causes more harm than good to try to keep children to strict schedules.”
    “Is there anything, then, that you disapprove of in an infant?” another woman asked.
    Spock smiled benignly. “Well, let me ask you this,” he said. “What infant behaviors do you find objectionable?”
    “Thumb sucking,” Martha said. She hadn’t realized she was going to speak until the words were out of her mouth. The women at the table all turned in her direction, like the members of a choir looking for their cue.
    “It’s a dreadful habit,” Martha continued, “and apart from the fact that it’s unsightly and unsanitary, it can do permanent damage to the teeth and the jawline.”
    “Is it safe to assume, then, that you subscribe to traditional methods to deter this?” Dr. Spock asked.
    “Yes,” Martha said.
    “And may I ask which of them you have found to be most effective?”
    “Well, it varies from child to child,” Martha said, aware that several of the women were now looking at her exactly as they would if she had just stepped onto a train track at the commuter hour. Her hand moved nervously to adjust her scarf and necklace, but she overcame the impulse. “Sometimes,” she continued, “I’ve found it effective to be vigilant about offering a toy as a distraction. Sometimes I’ll combine that with bandaging the thumb, or putting on a scratchy mitten. In the most extreme cases, I’ve employed a celluloid cuff.”
    She watched some of the participants look down, as if in pity.
    “And please don’t all of you pretend you haven’t done the same,” Martha said. “This has been the accepted practice among educated child-care providers for the last forty years. Surely you’ll acknowledge that, Dr. Spock,” Martha said.
    “Of course,” he answered quickly, with a twinkly, avuncular smile that made Martha cringe. “But in my experience,