Eminentoes/Baby Doc
Queenan, Joe
EMINENTOES BABY DOC by Joe Queenan 7 discovered Dr. Benjamin Spock too late in my childhood for him to be much use against my parents. Spock's books, setting forth cogent scientific reasons why...
...People on the right thought he was a jerk for taking public stands against nuclear arms, the war in Vietnam, and segregation, partly because they thought he was wrong but also because they thought baby doctors should mind their own business...
...By the time I discovered Benjamin Spock in the middle 1960s, he was already a figure of mirth...
...Spock is betrayed in this book as precisely what he always was: an affable old geezer with a third-rate intellect...
...T hese thoughts are occasioned by 1. the publication of Spock on Spock,' a vapid autobiography co-written with Spock's current wife, Mary Morgan, who is about forty years his junior...
...Don't ever be afraid to run as a socialist candidate for the White House...
...Those of us who did not go to Andover and Yale, as Spock did, always imagine that the lads get together at age thirteen and divvy up society: "You fellows in the corner, Treasury...
...40?—maybe we do...
...Just make sure the photographers are near...
...you usually don't have to worry about getting gang-raped or pistol-whipped down in the holding tank...
...Well, here it is, twenty years later and he's still getting hauled off to the pokey while sensible folks scratch their heads...
...Meanwhile, back in the housing projects, people are still whipping on their kids with car aerials...
...Spock's philosophy doesn't seem hard to swallow now, but for a while there people thought the guy was on Mars...
...All that said, it would be unfair to overlook the immense contributions Spock has made to American society...
...Read it to the kids if you want them to nod off early...
...Pantheon, $19.95...
...Spock was important for one final reason: because he was true to his class...
...pock, who is now eighty-six, has Li been a gawky old fussbudget for so long that few Americans alive today can recall when he wasn't a publicity-hogging old gasbag...
...Sorry, Mary, but this ain't Socrates or Oliver Cromwell we're talking about here...
...But Rosemary Woods must have busted into the room at some point, because we never do find out why this seeker of truth, this dreamer of dreams, this doctor of babies ditched his wife of fifty years for a woman forty years his junior...
...Spock's books, setting forth cogent scientific reasons why you should not whip on your kids with two-by-fours or car aerials never achieved much market penetration in the forlorn North Philadelphia housing project where I grew up...
...This is where pedigree pays off: if you can,flash that Andover or Yale I.D...
...They love baby doctor pictures...
...Morgan's third-rate intellect makes a nice fit...
...But back in the psychedelic days of yore he really stood out with those Brooks Brothers overcoats and that king-sized beak...
...Unlike Bertrand Russell or Jean-Paul Sartre, left-wing titans who could still bring the fastball in their waning years, Dr...
...Yes, it's a dull book, but it sure was a fun life...
...No, Spock simply didn't have the duds Joe Oueenan is a senior editor for Forbes...
...Morgan, who writes for Redbook and Parade, has organized this overly cutesy affair by letting the Spocker ramble as the tape recorder runs...
...For Spock's message is clear: Don't ever be afraid to make a fool of yourself...
...Long before the age of superkids, Spock warned that if you teach kids to read at age three they'll grow up maladjusted—particularly if they waste the four years' headstart on a subscription to Vanity Fair...
...But people on the left, particularly hip young college kids like me, also felt embarrassed by his presence because he looked like a baby doctor: a big goofy mushmouth wearing a pair of oversized Clark Kent glasses...
...Morgan says that she wanted to get this book out because she feared that her hubby's "courageous political life would be overshadowed by his more benign pediatric career...
...It's so . . . traditional, so . . . decent...
...the first time I ever heard of the old coot he was getting hauled off to the pokey as a result of some civilly disobedient action, while sensible onlookers scratched their heads and said, "What's a nice old baby doctor like that getting mixed up in this political stuff for...
...or the attitude to be a hard-line leftist...
...I used to think that Allen Ginsberg bribed Spock to join the New Left because otherwise he would have been the goofiest-looking guy in the movement...
...And Ben and William Sloane over there, you chaps get arrested climbing over barbed-wire fences at nuclear power plants...
...Show up with a degree from Jackson State and you're on your own...
...And it is the life, particularly the last third, that will abide as Spock's finest gift to the society he clearly loves...
...No, wait a minute there-86...
...Spock is also to be congratulated for his firm stand against teaching children to read before the age of seven...
...THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR JANUARY 1990 31...
...Don't ever be afraid to get your 86-year-old body snared in barbed wire at a nuclear power plant...
...Early to bed, go easy on the sweets, and don't turn the toilet into an electric chair were his basic tenets, and that was pretty scary stuff for folks who believe in Jacobin pediatrics: that a child without lesions is a child without love...
...The book is as banal and uninspiring as the family photos that accompany it...
...Yes, Benjamin Spock is a towering example of that distinctly American phenomenon: the preppy beat-off who goes around making a fool of himself, offering opinions that are not sought, wielding a moral authority he does not possess, clasping arms with titans dozens of times his stature (Jack Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Charlie Chaplin), and, of course, getting hauled off to the clink...
...Then the boys gather in the Vineyard every summer, compare notes, and go boating...
...Averell and Biff, State...
...Don't ever be afraid to shake hands with Daniel Ortega...
...he kicked out few jams...
...Harry, Robert, and Guy, IMF...
...In fact, Spock will be remembered by future generations for two very different reasons: because he wrote a very influential book about raising babies without turning them into sociopaths or neurotics, and because his clownish antics paved the way for Ronald Reagan's presidency...
...rare was the pig who feared being offed by him...
...Most of all, don't ever be afraid to leave your wife of fifty years for a woman forty years younger...
Vol. 23 • January 1990 • No. 1
