LOL! Katelyn's mom, I actually would love to be this person! The fact is, our vacuum looks surprisingly new even though it's 8 years old, DH does much of the cooking and all of the bartending, and I shower oh once a week. (My idea of perfume these day is Soft-n-Dry deodorant and my idea of make up is chap stick.) DD has a bath before bed, so she's typically dirty by day.
I'm from Connecticut but live in a small California town, so my inner preppy often clashes with my inner hippie. We had every intention of parenting like my parents did in the 1950s, but we found ourselves practicing attachment parenting instead. I would read up on what we were experiencing, run across Dr. Sears' work and think, "This guy is a quack!" But then there we were, already doing what he said to do.
I was ashamed for a long time, but now I have parenting pride. DH and I just did what DD needed and we did it in full agreement with each other. I don't judge anyone who parents the regular American way (North American? apparently the west coast of Canada and all of Mexico practice attachment parenting), but neither do I want to be judged for the way we parent. My niece, in college, showed us her brand new childhood development text book which points out how the American way of parenting newborns is much different than that of every other culture in the world. Not wrong, not right, just different.
DH and I are believers in the trust-mistrust phase of human development, so we make our decisions with that in mind. DD was not one of those babies who slept 20 hours per day and nursed every 3 hours (she nursed around the clock and had "silent reflux" which means you have reflux but just swallow it). Anyway, I think it helped me a lot to find parents who A. faced similiar challenges, and B. chose similiar solutions or at least employed a similiar governing philosophy. Thankfully DH and I were in full agreement of what to do, otherwise I would have really doubted my mothering instincts.
P.S. I found many people here, on this site, as a lurker.
And I guess all I am trying to say is no one is perfect and everyone has their own style of parenting and I think that is great. I was never the type to have a parenting book in my house. So I never read up on the techniques. I am just the type that does it and I am perfectly happy beating to my own drum. I do remember a few friends with older kids talking my ear off about attachment parenting and it just was not for me. Power to anyone that wants to do it but wasn't my thing. Would I call what I did as typical American style? Will if typical is having your baby in the swing for the first 4 mths because she hated the crib okay than I guess so. We just worked with our child and found out what worked best for her and us. And I guess I could play the second guessing game of did I do something wrong? But I look at my DD and she is a happy even temper child that goes to bed with no problems and I have to say if I did it wrong than I will willingly take it b/c I like my end product.