Parenting?

Today on CNN there is an article called 8 Ways to be A Happier Mom. It talks about how a mother with a child under the age of three is moody and a strain on the emotions. Although this article is interesting, it got me thinking about parenting in general. There is so much information out there about parenting. When I plug "parenting" into Google, i get 87.9 million results. But who is a real authority on parenting? And is there a right way to parent? Trying to find the answer to these questions, I found this article called Shortcuts: How to be a Parent. This article touches on how to be a "modern" parent. With so many options, you could mold your kid to do acting, karate, piano, basketball, painting, singing or whatever you want. This idea is very scary. In the past, kids were left on their own to play outside and walk to school. Now kids have schedules and commitments. The first notion that changed this was Dr. Spock. He was a pediatrician, but he didn't even have children. When he married his second wife, he had a stepdaughter who was already 11 at the time. So other than his medical experience, what gave his knowledge to write his book? Why did thousands if not millions of women trust him when it came to raising a child if he never did? I think, when having a child, you should trust your instincts and know that you're going to mess up sometimes. I wouldn't listen to other people because every child is so different.