著名儿科医师本杰明·麦克林·斯波克语录

武夷山 辑译

    今天是美国著名儿科医师Benjamin Mclane Spock（本杰明·麦克林·斯波克（1903年5月2日-1998年3月15日）的诞辰。我编译几条他的语录与大家共享。

    据百度百科，斯波克自哥伦比亚大学取得医学博士学位之后，就一直致力于儿科研究，并教授精神病学和儿童发展学。斯波克于1946年出版的的《婴幼儿保健常识》(亦译作《斯波克育儿经》)在很长一段时间内都是畅销书，影响了几代父母。斯波克是第一个积极研究并运用精神分析的儿科医师。他主张父母在婴幼儿教育中应该运用理解和灵活的方式，而不是肉体惩罚。除了在儿科学方面的积极工作之外，斯波克还积极从事反越战活动。于耶鲁大学就读期间，他参加了1924年巴黎奥运会的赛艇比赛，荣获金牌。

Trust yourself, you know more than you think you do.

    相信你自己，你懂得的东西比你以为懂得的东西要多。

Perhaps a child who is fussed over gets a feeling of destiny;

he thinks he is in the world for something important, and it gives him drive and confidence.

    或许焦躁不安的孩子就是有目的感的孩子；他觉得自己来到世间是为了做重要的事的，从而有了动力和信心。

There are only two things a child will share willingly; communicable diseases and its mother's age.

    孩子心甘情愿与人分享的只有两样：传染病和母亲的年龄。

What is the use of physicians like myself trying to help parents to bring up children healthy and happy, to have them killed in such numbers for a cause that is ignoble?

    我努力帮助家长们让孩子健康幸福地成长，可是那么多的孩子长大后却在一场不光彩的事业（博主：指越战）中丧生，像我这样的医生有什么用啊？

The fact is that child rearing is a long, hard job, the rewards are not always immediately obvious, the work is undervalued, and parents are just as human and almost as vulnerable as their children.

    事实是，养育孩子是一项长期艰巨的工作，其报偿并不总是能即刻显现的。家长其实像孩子一样会犯错，几乎像孩子一样脆弱。

All the time a person is a child he is both a child and learning to be a parent.

After he becomes a parent he becomes predominantly a parent reliving childhood.

    在整个童年阶段，人既是孩子，又在学习做父母。

    到成为家长后，这个家长基本上是在重温童年。

In automobile terms, the child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.

    用汽车术语来说，孩子提供了动力，但家长得把握好方向盘。

I would say that the surest measure of a man's or a woman's maturity is the harmony, style, joy, and dignity he creates in his marriage, and the pleasure and inspiration he provides for his spouse.

    我想说，一个男人或女人是否成熟的最可靠的测度，是看其能否在婚姻生活中创造和谐、优雅、快乐和尊严，能否为配偶提供愉悦与鼓舞。

What good mothers and fathers instinctively feel like doing for their babies is usually best after all.

    说到底，好母亲和好父亲出于本能想为其宝宝做的事，通常都是极好的。

It's not the words but the music that counts.

    重要的是音乐而不是言语。

（博主注：音乐需要数拍子，故count是一语双关的。）

People have said, "You've turned your back on pediatrics." I said, "No. It took me until I was in my 60s to realize that politics was a part of pediatrics."

    人们说，“你背弃了儿科学”。我说，“不对。我直到过了60岁才认识到，政治本来就是儿科学的一部分。”