It takes a village?

I've been thinking about the saying "Its takes a village to raise a child" a lot lately. I belong to a chat group of moms who had babies in October. I enjoy the group because these women are going through the same thing I am and I get a lot of good ideas from them. Its also nice to know that there is someone else out there that is ready to pull their hair out because of something that their child did (or didn't do as the case may be). I think its really helped me be a more relaxed mom to have this resource. Its hard being kind of in the middle of generations when it comes to babies. We're the first of our friends (for the most part) to have kids, so I can't turn to friends for advice (although I have some awful good ears out there that have listened to me ramble on and on). Its been a long time since most of my family has had a newborn, so its hard for them to remember how it was. I do have Mark and Janna, but I feel weird about calling them every day and saying "she's doing this, what do I do?!". Its so much more reassuring to go to place where I have 50 moms to give feedback to me or where someone else has experienced it before me and I've read about it, so I've been prepared. Anyway, I'm getting off topic. Back to the saying . . . before I had Alyssa I didn't realize that there were so many drastically different views on child rearing. Belonging to this board has opened my eyes to so many different views on breastfeeding vs bottle feeding (and today someone brought up soy vs regular formula), co-sleeping vs crib sleeping, CIO vs NCSS, vaccinating vs not, infant discipling, diapering, when to start food, jarred food vs table food ~ the list goes on and on. And even with all the different views and the different stands I believe that each person is doing the best for their child, their family, and their situation. Sure, there are choices that people make that I am appalled at and don't agree with for Alyssa, but who am I to say that its really the "wrong" choice. So, it got me to thinking about the whole village raising a child thing. If I see our born in October board as a village, I don't think this saying is right. I think its more like "it takes every villager to raise their child". Can you image that tension if a village actually only had 1 child and everyone had to agree on how to raise that child? Heck, sometimes its hard for Adam and I to agree on how to handle something with Alyssa. I know this quote probably isn't as applicable in the US as it is in other countries where they don't have the options that we have, but I guess I've just been really blown away since becoming a mother at the different views that are out there. Before I thought everyone was basically the same . . . sure, there were a few "out there" people that did bizarre (in my eyes) things, but overall I thought everyone was the same. And maybe overall everyone is because there are only a few people I have met who I disagree or don't understand their parenting stand. Just kind of interesting to me.