Spock-marked

English

Etymology

Blend of Spock +‎ pockmarked, in reference to the influential approach of Benjamin Spock (1903–1998), American pediatrician.

Adjective

Spock-marked (comparative more Spock-marked, superlative most Spock-marked)

1. (derogatory) Spoiled by an overly permissive upbringing.
   • 1970, Raymond Apthorpe, University of Sussex. Institute of Development Studies, People Planning and Development Studies: Some Reflections on Social Planning

     Governments might, like those of America and Canada, produce cheap brochures explaining to parents how to bring up honest, unanxious, kindly, non-bed-wetting, co-operative children. And that in rich countries with high literacy levels such advice has its effect can hardly be doubted by anyone who has had recent contact in universities with the first Spock-marked generation of middle-class children trained in habits of autonomy from an early age. ('No, darling, it's up to you. At two and a half you are old enough to choose yourself whether to wear trousers or a skirt.')

   • 1971, Elizabeth Manners, The Vulnerable Generation, page 58:

     Yet the fact remains that half-baked and half-digested ideas about the absolute necessity of leaving a child 'free' and 'happy' have produced what has come to be known as the 'Spock-marked child', […]

   • 2003, Ann Hulbert, Raising America: Experts, Parents, and a Century of Advice about Children:

     […] flood of child-rearing guides that had by now inundated Spock-marked middle-class parents […]