For awhile, I was a militant APer. That’s attachment parent, in case you’re not down with the lingo. I hung out on the AP message boards, I ran with the AP crowd on my pregnancy "month" boards.

My daughter, HelloKitty, is the middle child. Flip, my oldest, is six years older than she is, and SpiderMan, my youngest, is three years younger than she is. With Flip, I didn’t know any better, so I parented the way my parents did. I fed him formula, he wore disposable diapers, he slept in a crib, the works.

When I got pregnant with my daughter, I started hanging out with the APers. When she was born, I followed the gospel of AP to the letter. She slept with us, breastfed, was cloth diapered, rode in a sling, she never cried it out, and I was almost never away from her.

I anticipated her every need and she had everything she wanted before she knew she wanted it. She nursed til she was nearly three years old and slept with us until after she was three. I had become a slave to the Gospel of AP, spending every moment parenting or reading about parenting, writing about parenting, thinking about parenting. I never had time alone. I never, EVER had time alone with my husband. My marriage suffered.

By the time SpiderMan showed up, I was way too tired to follow AP to the letter. He was breastfed, but I laid him down in a crib to sleep. He certainly was not held constantly, and my mom bought us disposable diapers so I wouldn’t cloth diaper him. I was glad for it, I didn’t have time to deal with cloth diapers.

Especially since my sweet, baby HelloKitty had turned into HelloKittyzilla. Now that I didn’t have time to cater to her every whim and anticipate her needs before she needed them, she went off the deep end. She expected things to always go her way, and when she didn’t get her way, the biggest fits ever were thrown.

I still tried to positively discipline and not negatively discipline until one day, I had completely had it. I sent the kids to my mom and dad’s house and spent some time to myself. When I got the kids back, I started being more assertive in my discipline, including time outs and- everyone’s going to really die here, but- the occasional spanking.

And guess what? My sons are both easy-going, laid back guys. My oldest son is responsible and fun to be around. My youngest son is independent and fearless. My daughter? She is the exact definition of diva. She expects things to go her way, and she wants that to happen right now. She also wants to be with me every second of every day.

If I go to the store, she wants to come with me, even if she’s going to be bored to death. She also excepts to be constantly entertained. She’s a lot better than she was a couple of years ago, but she’s still the diva, and probably always will be.

Was this a result of attachment parenting or was this predetermined personality? I think the diva predisposition was there, but I do think APing her pushed her over the edge of divadom. Children need more independence than the AP way allows for. Attachment parenting can make parents slaves to their children.

This is not to say I don’t like or love my daughter. I think she’s fabulous, her divaness included. She certainly does know how to get what she wants. But the APers I used to hang out with were really fond of the "when you know better, you do better" saying. And in hindsight, I would have been way more moderate with my attachment parenting.