LISTEN: Daughter of Legendary Pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton Remembers Her Father

Barbara Howard: To scores of nervous and sleep-deprived new parents nationwide, the name T. Berry Brazelton has been a source of comfort. The Cambridge-based pediatrician’s dogeared child-rearing books have graced many a nightstand through the years. And it's not a stretch to say that Dr. Brazelton is the best-known pediatrician in the United States, maybe next to Dr. Spock. Dr. Brazelton died on Tuesday, in Barnstable. He was 99 years old, and he left behind four children and five grandchildren. Stina Brazelton is Dr. Brazelton’s youngest daughter, and she's with us on the line. Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Stina.

Brazelton: Sure.

Howard: Must be hard to grow up in a shadow of somebody who is so well-known. And here's your dad — he’s a pediatrician, he's beloved by so many parents around the country. But how did you view him, as his daughter?

Brazelton: Dad. He was charming, and charismatic, and lovely, and just so much fun. And then he was also demanding, and we weren’t allowed to watch TV. And if we were to watch TV, it was only an hour a week. So he ran a pretty tight ship that way.

Howard: One of the things he taught parents a lot was we all make mistakes and to be forgiving of ourselves. Are you forgiving of your dad when he was tough sometimes?

Brazelton: Absolutely.

Howard: Was he as patient as he came across?

Brazelton: You know, about the important things, absolutely. When the fur really started to fly, he was who you'd want on your team.

Howard: So he was quoted as saying that, and this is the quote, “Fighting is how siblings learn about each other.” And I know you have two sisters and a brother. Was it so with your siblings?

Brazelton: Yeah, I think we do learn. We still fight, and we do learn about each other from it, absolutely.

Howard: Well, you know your father, I just want to say, he evolved over time. He was once a proponent of mothers staying home with young children, but he later credited his daughters with bringing him around. He says his daughters told him, and I quote, “Dad, you are out of this century.” And were you one of the children who he credits with his change of heart? He ended up, after all, a champion for mandated maternity leave.

Brazelton: Yes. Two of us sat him down, we tried to encourage him to understand that the nuclear family was really the minority. I was in a feminist history course at Sarah Lawrence, and I just raked him right over the coals.

Howard: Did that work? Did he come around?

Brazelton: Totally.

Howard: I know you've been with your siblings all week. There must've been some family stories flying. What can you tell us more about your dad?

Brazelton: He never offered advice. He had good boundaries with that. My sister Polly actually did ask Dad for advice. Her son was getting up three times a night and wouldn’t sleep through the night. And Dad said, "Take a chair and put it in his room, and promise him that you'll stay there until he gets to sleep. And every night, you move the chair further out until you're out in the hall."

So she did it, and she finally got the chair out of the room. And a week later, he was on his own and slept right through the night, no problem.

Howard: So your dad, he was known as a, I think it was called a "baby whisperer." Was he a "baby whisperer" with your own son?

Brazelton: Yes, he was, and he helped me profoundly understand my son and preemies.

Howard: He was a preemie, your son?

Brazelton: He was a preemie.

Howard: How did your father help with that?

Brazelton: He helped me learn to read the signs of things being too much for the baby. It used to be that when we would look at him when he was an infant and talk to him at the same time, it was too much stimuli. So Dad helped us learn to do things like hold him in front of a mirror so you can look at him, but you're not looking at him, and then you can talk to him. Basically, Dad was helping us cut down on the stimuli coming at the baby, and Dad knew what he was looking at.

Howard: It sounds like you miss him a bit.

Brazelton: Terribly. I mean, you just felt like if Dad could be there, it would be OK.

Howard: Doesn't seem to matter how old we are when you lose a parent, it's still — a big hole is left. I’m sorry for your loss.

Brazelton: Thank you.

Howard: And that's Stina Brazelton, the youngest daughter of the world-renowned author and pediatrician T. Berry Brazelton, who died on Tuesday in Barnstable at age 99.