# **Diapers**



## Pluralized (Sep 7, 2014)

We used to do all kinds of wonderful things in our house, like wash clothes when we felt like it, leave sharp objects lying around, and sleep. Then came a couple of beautiful kids, tromping around hallways and banging on doors. Our first child, a daughter, wore disposable diapers. You know, the kind that kids shit in, and you gag and splutter and fold up and throw in the trash, then breathe out and clean up. Fill a bag with those bad boys and haul it out to the trash. Someone else’s problem after that, ‘Murica.


The second child, our son, came scooting along a few years later. Like, right before the “Non-pocalypse” of December 2012. Our diapering preferences (meaning ‘my wife’s diapering preferences’) had changed drastically, and we embarked upon a great journey that would change our lives (and our carpets) forever. Cloth Diapering. It’s like a cult of the digital age; women flock to online forums, trade tips and secrets, sell each other their used diapers (really), and scoff at the concept of throwing away a diaper. “You know, diapers make up over ninety percent of landfill content, you insensitive boob,” they’ll squawk. 


I’m as environmentally sensitive as the next bloke, really. Hate the idea of throwing single-use items in the garbage, even if they’re covered in runny excrement, no matter how virulent. But sometimes, when I’m home alone with the boy particularly, there comes a shit so wretched, so poisonous, I cannot bring myself to retain the soiled cloth. I mean like, can’t bring myself to keep it in the house. To clean it, reuse it, wash the shit off. At that point, the challenge becomes making sure I get the offending diaper rolled up and hidden in a trash bag so I can sneak it out to the trash when my wife’s preoccupied (most likely cleaning a diaper herself). 


I’m not advocating wasting your hard-earned money on cloth diapers, only to toss them out when the scene becomes too appalling, not at all. I’m advocating not having kids in the first place.


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## InstituteMan (Sep 7, 2014)

I am so freaking environmentally conscious that I went to  ridiculous lengths to build my house out of straw. I eat the organic local food, I compost everything that will compost, and I am trying to get some native species returned to my little patch of prairie. I used disposable diapers of my kids. If there is one thing to use and throw away, diapers are that thing.

Oh, there is a cloth diaper cult. My sister-in-law joined, at least briefly. If you can't afford one of those pretentious diaper services, where they come and pick up your offspring's seepings and drop super-sterilized diapers to collect the future seepings, then I think you can use disposable diapers with a clean conscious, and much cleaner everything else.


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## Plasticweld (Sep 7, 2014)

Thanks for the _warm_ memories. It has been almost thirty years since I had to contend with diapers. First child  in cloth the second in disposables.  Me being in the logging business I looked at them as a product that I made and using disposable diapers supported my livelihood.  The next time you use one,  just think of it as keeping me employed, supporting the very fiber of this country by supporting a renewable resource.  It is when you get right down to it, un-patriotic to use cloth diapers.


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## midnightpoet (Sep 7, 2014)

When the kids are young, you may be up to your a$$ in shit, but then they become teenagers and do shit - like smoke weed, get arrested for peeing in public, go joy-riding in stolen cars, get girls pregnant, end up in jail for dealing.  I'm I glad I produced him?  Jury is still out on that one.  Hope you have better luck (at least now, past 40 himself, he has a steady job).  He's married, but seemingly not interested in kids - which, considering, may not be a bad thing.  Maybe he wised up.

I think his mother (my first wife) was too lazy for cloth diapers as I remember.  This was 1973 or so.


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## Kevin (Sep 7, 2014)

You know Geo. Washington used hemp diapers.


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## E. Zamora (Sep 7, 2014)

We tried the cloth diaper experiment. When the second came along and we had two in diapers, we gave it up after several weeks. Even before then, we started backsliding, using the disposables more and more, using all kinds of excuses. We'll likely have another, and it's going to be disposables and the amazing Diaper Genie all the way.


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## Pandora (Sep 7, 2014)

I vote disposables, sorry. Did the cloth thing, a bit yucky pooey. I gag now cleaning up dog barf, I don't think I can do diapers, any kind any more. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.


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## J Anfinson (Sep 7, 2014)

> Someone else’s problem after that, ‘Murica.



LOL. Damn straight! My wife and I did the cloth thing for a while. There's cloth diaper covers you can buy that make it a bit more bearable, but when it comes to explosive, runny shits disposables can't be beat. It can be hard to convince a penny pinching spouse that, though.


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