PART of the perks of being a mummy columnist is that you get the nicest letters from readers from week to week.

Commiserating ones, calm and motherly ones (telling me gently not to be so manic sometimes), and funny ones.

I count myself very lucky that I have yet to receive the kind of mail that my friend, a fellow writer, gets.

Having written an article about her two-year-old son, she found a missive in her inbox calling her kid "manipulative" and insinuating that her husband and herself are doormats for failing to assert themselves to keep him in line.

While the message was a solid, reasonable one, I couldn't help but feel that it would have been a lot more effective if it had not been put forward in such a patronising, self-congratulatory way. Unless you walk a mile in any mum's sensible ballet flats, it is hard to know exactly how to "fix" her kids.

Besides, parents are a sensitive lot. Yes, even the ones that are thick-skinned journalists. After all, it's hard to hear complete strangers say bad things about your pride and joy, the child you spend 24/7 nurturing and worrying about. Sometimes, I find myself guilty of this "selective hearing".

Last week, I asked my son's kindergarten teacher if he was fine in school, and she said: "It's getting better... but..."

She then told me tactfully about some classroom misdemeanour. I heard her out, all ears, then went away repeating comfortingly to myself: "But it's getting better."

I digress. The thing is, the world is increasingly getting polarised into parents who emphasise discipline, good behaviour and obedience, and parents who believe in respecting feelings, positive reinforcement, and raising free-range, creative and happy kids. In other words, the "hard" versus the "soft". And neither side, it seems, are prepared to compromise.

Recently, yet another parenting book added to the cacophony of voices out there telling you how to be a good, great, perfect parent.

Pamela Druckerman's Bringing Up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers The Wisdom Of French Parenting unleashed the "Are the French really better parents?" questions in the United States media.

It launched dozens - if not hundreds - of soul-searching columns by parents about the supposed shortfalls of American-style child-rearing (kids who can't sit still at restaurants, for example).

The best response to the kerfuffle has been blogger (and Appalachian coal cracker, according to one Web profile) Josette Crosby Plank's post, in which she writes: "All other parents seem like they have it under control. Know what they are doing. Are even - dare you say it - better at this parenting thing than you are. I'm going to save you some wondering. They are."

Her bottom line: "So, you know... carry on."

Indeed. One of the worst things that mums and dads can do to themselves is to constantly second-guess their parenting decisions. As long as they understand their children and have their best interests at heart, the choices they make are more valid than any carping bystander's.

Here's a question I would not be asking myself on my deathbed: If I had spanked Junior from birth, would he have been more obedient and less of a smart alec at the age of five?

I would not wonder if - had I strongly established boundaries and let my boys know the limits, schedule and bedtime - they would have graduated from university by age 14. The thing is, I have made my parenting bed and I am going to lie in it (I might, however, write the odd column complaining about my sons driving me up the wall).

Like a river, I might sometimes flow around obstacles. But, with the mad onslaught of life with kids, who has the time to stop and envy another river's path? You just have to stay your course confidently, and keep flowing

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