Any similarity between Spock’s and Flesch’s views on mothers’ role in their children’s literacy ended there. As questionable as the reading methods Flesch promoted were, the social malaise he tapped into suggests once again that advice to mothers about their children’s reading was rarely just about reading. For example, Korda (2001) in his review of American best-sellers in the Twentieth Century, suggested that Flesch’s book rocketed to commercial success because Why Johnny Can’t Read was the first book to really question the values and results of the comfortable suburban life and to suggest that behind the glossy, calm surface, whole areas — in this case, schools — "were hardly functioning at all” (Korda, 2000, p. 103). Certainly, Cold War competition and in particular the USSR’s launch of Sputnik also played a factor in focusing the lens upon young children’s reading abilities as a barometer for North America’s ambitions to economically outstrip the Eastern Bloc (Pearson, 2000). Indeed, Flesch’s “reading crisis” in North America was couched within a larger concern for US global economic competition.

Generally speaking, students in our schools are about two years behind students of the same age in other countries…I know of innumerable cases of young Austrians and Germans who applied for admission to college in this country. The standard practice is to give those students credit for two years of college if they have finished what corresponds to our high school abroad. (Flesch, 1955, p. 77)

The “reading culture crisis” was transforming into a “reading crisis.” The distinction is important. Educators were becoming less concerned with the cultural practices of reading the classics in cozy homes lined with book shelves, and instead worried about the children who couldn’t read at all. In attributing the “reading crisis” to incompetent teachers, administrators, and academics, Flesch gave mothers a way out of the blame that was often placed upon them if their children had difficulty reading. Yet, in Flesch’s regime, mothers were still held responsible for “Johnny’s” reading abilities, and indeed their responsibilities in this area were all the more daunting than merely setting up a nice bookshelf: “My advice is, teach your child to read yourself — before the age of five or before he learns bad habits from the school” (Flesch, 1955, p. 110).

There were many who challenged Flesch’s “cure-all” approach to the perceived inadequacies of the school system. Writing in the Atlantic Monthly, Virgil Rogers (1955) observed that in every industrialized country there were about 10–15% of children, who, regardless of the method by which they were taught, had difficulties learning to read (Rogers, 1955). The solution he proposed was sufficient extra tutoring and support within the school — mothers did not come up for blame, nor did teachers, or children’s socio-economic status — and indeed Rogers hoped that little Johnny would through his own cunning and fleetfootedness, avoid the pain of Flesch’s “guaranteed method” by running the other way (Rogers, 1955, p. 71).