[greymule]

Unfortunately, what most people today know of Dr. Spock comes from critics repeating handed down myths instead of from reading his work.

That's quite true. For some reason, many people think that Dr. Spock advocated a lenient, touchy-feely approach to child-rearing. He did not by any means. It might be that because of his opposition to the Vietnam war, as well as the fact that many kids seemed out of control, people assumed that he was some sort of ultra-liberal airhead. So Dr. Spock has wrongly become symbolic of ideas with which he would certainly disagree.