Ten Reasons To Use Cloth Diapers

Submitted by shel on Tue, 2010-09-07 23:47
While there was lots of support at the Live Green show, we also heard every possible rationale against using cloth diapers. Most people who already have a preconceived notion about work involved with cloth diapers are difficult to convince otherwise. Everything from the sanitary concerns with handling baby waste to the dreaded diaper-bum associated with the bulkiness of cloth in the early stages of life. Well, there are lots of good reasons to use cloth diapers that outweigh convenience and permanent damage to the environment, so here’s a cobbled together top ten list :
 
  1. Using cloth diapers removes contact of chemicals against your baby’s most delicate parts. Here’s a snippet from T. Washko from diaperjungle.com:

    2. “Perhaps they know it would be unfavorable for them to tell consumers that they are in fact buying polyethylene and polypropylene plastic with bleached paper pulp, AGM (a gelling substance), petrolatum, stearyl alcohol, cellulose tissue, elastic, and perfume. Instead they would rather consumers subscribe to the ideas they present on national television...that you are diapering your baby with materials as soft and inviting as cashmere.”
  2. Using cloth diapers promotes early potty training - This probably has as much to do with the general parenting philosophy of cloth diapering parents and potty training, but there are a few factors that help with the acceleration of potty training including the simple fact that your little monster can feel when he’s wet himself and, therefore, complain loudly and vociferously about it. We practice EC here at the So Green Baby household with Tristan and, contrary to authoritative studies by learned individuals that lament the stress put upon a baby because of this practice, we decided to stick with what apparently has been working since pre-industrial times and so far we have a very happy, healthy and well adjusted 1 year old.
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  3. Using cloth diapers helps you maintain your weekly garbage output at pre-baby levels - Before Tristan was born, we were concerned that our garbage production would go up as a family unit. This would be one of the most visible ways to see your impact, as you basically count the number of bags you’re putting out every two weeks. So far, we’re still putting out one or two bags on garbage day.
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  4. Using cloth diapers will help you leave some land for your grandkids to play on - Where did you think those disposable diapers were going? Here are some stats from realdiaperassociation.org:

    5. Over 92% of all single-use diapers end up in a landfill.
    In 1988, nearly $300 million dollars were spent annually just to discard disposable diapers, whereas cotton diapers are reused 50 to 200 times before being turned into rags.
    No one knows how long it takes for a disposable diaper to decompose, but it is estimated to be about 250-500 years, long after your children, grandchildren and great, great, great grandchildren will be gone.
    Disposable diapers are the third largest single consumer item in landfills, and represent about 4% of solid waste.  In a house with a child in diapers, disposables make up 50% of household waste.

    I must admit, a part of me wrestled with the idea of having a baby only to have him inherit and have to live with the vast number of problems we’ve dummied up in our lifetime, but then ... well, did anybody see Idiocracy?
     
  5. Using cloth diapers lets you stick it to big corporations whose agenda is simply to get you to buy, and buy some more.
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  6. Using cloth diapers gives you yet another way to bond with your baby - This was a bit unexpected but the throwaway nature of disposable diapers vs. the investment that you have to make for cloth diapering creates another activity that you can bond with your little monster over. It’s another little thing that uniquely draws you into the whole child-raising process.
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  7. Using cloth diapers helps save on paying for disposables - There’s an initial investment which may seem high, but then you’re not rushing out to Walmart every two weeks to pickup a new batch of Pampers. There’s definitely a pay off over the long term, especially if you have more than one child.
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  8. Using cloth diapers  lets you dress your baby up in ridiculously cute and stylish prints - Anybody see that Huggies jean diaper commercial? Right, me either. Not really relevant when you can put your kid in cowprint, robots and monkeys.
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  9. Using cloth diapers ensures that you don’t give a damn that your little monster peed into that clean diaper you just put on him. It’s a good feeling to not have to envision dollar signs being flushed away with every disposable that you toss into the garbage - your cloth diaper goes right into the diaper pail for wash and reuse. Additionally, you never feel the urge to just let that diaper sit for a little bit longer because you have an inexhaustible stash of cloth that you can change him with as frequently as you need to (hello prefolds).
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  10. Using cloth diapers  is easy! You do that research to understand the nuances involved in selecting a TV - LED, 3D, HD, refresh rates and so on, right? Cloth diapers are way less complicated and intimidating, and contain hardly any coltan. The main refrain I hear dismissing cloth as a viable alternative usually centers around washing but really, once you become a parent your life revolves around bowel movements and baby puke. Handling these things becomes an everyday fact of life and, as Tasha puts it, it's pushing the buttons on the washing machine a couple more times a week.

That’s it. Anybody have any other reasons to use cloth diapers, feel free to add and don’t forget to check our cloth diaper wiki!

 

 


De-Stuffing

Submitted by shel on Fri, 2010-09-17 15:27

So, we’re trying to divest ourselves of stuff. Big stuff, little stuff, old stuff, new stuff, working stuff, broken stuff - just stuff. It’s actually baffling how much stuff can creep into your life while you’re not looking. Stuff jumps into your shopping cart, charges itself to your credit card and sneaks into a box destined for your home via some kindly Canada Post employee who’s entirely unimpressed with how much stuff he has to leave in your mailbox or lug into your house. Stuff is sneaky. As such, it’s high time we put stuff where it belongs.

It didn’t always used to be this way. Growing up, stuff was naturally kept at bay due to the cost of acquisition of said stuff; and in simpler times, there just wasn’t nearly as much stuff as there is now to buy. There exists such a consumer culture right now that our interest in our own stuff expires as newer versions of the same stuff gets released year after year. I was floored at how busy every mall we visited in Miami during our most recent family trip was. If there was a recession, then people bought a lot more stuff that I’d ever believed if this was an example of spending restraint. The stuff that had been accumulated between my three siblings by the time I was born fit neatly in a container the size and shape of a Donkey Kong barrel. By the time I’d left home to come to Canada following high school, the barrel was still there and the contents had not changed significantly since my elder sister last pushed herself around on a ratty old orange play horse with four wheels on a too-narrow base. Today, stuff has conquered large swaths of territory in my house and appears keen to continue its wanton destruction of clean living space.Our printer that has served us well for the last five years recently depleted its toner cartridge. After tens of minutes of hunting around at FutureShop for a replacement cartridge, we were informed that that model had been discontinued, and the toner cartridge was no longer available for purchase. What’s a couple that’s recently sworn to uphold a significant reduction in stuff to do? Well, since those SoGreenBaby packages have to go out tonight, I guess we have to buy a new printer, right?

Stuff is insidious and unnecessary. The little monster has his own fair share of stuff littered across the living room, but can reliably be counted on to play with only five, maybe six of those things. The other ninety billion items of stuff could disappear, and he wouldn’t notice - admittedly, we’ve been keeping most of this stuff around so that his little friends have stuff to play with when they come to visit. But that’s not a good enough reason, and eventually the little monster’s stuff will also be whittled away to a manageable and reasonable amount. I’ve always had a bit of a pack rat mentality. I’ve attached too much sentimentality to inanimate stuff, but another reason why I hold on to a lot of this stuff is because rummaging through it ostensibly triggers memories that I’d forgotten, that usually make for good stories and blog entries. Again, however, this is not a good enough reason to hold onto stuff. Plenty enough things happen in my life on a day to day basis that there is sufficient material to recount interesting stories and blog entries without having to rely on things that happened fifteen years ago. Besides, the best stories from your past are the ones that you can relate to your present, and that happens based on experiences when you least expect them to happen.

So, stuff begone. Garbage amnesty day is next week, but we’re being responsible about our excess stuff. Compost and recycled products still has its place. Electronics are being disposed of correctly at depots equipped to handle these things the right way. Donations are being made of stuff that’s in serviceable condition, and garbage goes where garbage goes while we make the vow to shop responsibly for stuff that’s necessary and not excessively indulgent. By doing so, hopefully the little monster will grow up learning by example that the frivolous acquisition of stuff is not the ideal to aspire to, contrary to what - well, to what every other voice in his ear will be telling him.


Too little, too late?

Submitted by shel on Thu, 2010-09-30 13:04

Recently, I came across a study that indicated a threshold for household annual income where maximum life satisfaction (all other things being equal) is optimal. Anything over that, the study states, does little or nothing to contribute to your overall happiness or well being.


It’s an oft enough stated maxim, I believe. I’ve maintained a similar kind of philosophy - where some kind of equilibrium can be achieved where your happiness stops becoming a function of how much stuff you can buy, and starts becoming more about how much of your time you can truly make your own. Raj Patel, in his book The Value of Nothing, makes a similar argument about the cost of happiness increasing exponentially per each measurement of a hypothetical unit of happiness as the amount of money you make increases.

As mentioned, I subscribe to this type of reasoning. I’m not a CEO or a Vice President or in distant view of acquiring any type of senior management position because I haven’t been chasing that carrot, or the trappings associated with such an elevation in role. Friends, coworkers and associates who had entered the workforce at around the same time as I did have mostly moved on to bigger things and I’m genuinely pleased for them when they do, while I’ve maintained a role as crewman number 6, content to simply do my job well and leave the corporate politicking up to others who have a higher threshold than I.

That being said, things do change a little bit when you’re (not so) suddenly responsible for the development of an impressionable, tiny being with a blank slate. As a parent, you’re suddenly deluged with motivation drawn from different sources that funnel through to different outcomes; the need to provide for your child so that he wants for absolutely nothing, the desire to be measured as a success in his eyes, the fear that your peers have outpaced you, thus creating a perceived disadvantage for your child’s future, and just the general feeling that you’re not doing enough to sustain the forward momentum of the family.

If this is you, then sit back and take a breath.

If you’re wired to believe the threshold theory, then you’ve probably already reconciled some of these conflicting motivations but this isn’t always necessarily the case. I’ve had discussions with a co-worker who has a similar outlook and philosophy as my own but who maintains, irrationally by his own admission, that the things that he’s acquired thus far - house, car, big screen TV - are used as definitive milestones that mark his progression through life. He despises the notion, but can’t shake the idea that to downsize or to reduce is a regression, a setback that would put him behind where he previously was.

This certainly isn’t to say that just because you’re not chasing the dollar doesn’t mean that you’re not motivated in your own way to provide for your little monster. In fact, this thought trajectory is what lead to the idea for this post - the idea that the thing I most regret that I can’t pass on to my kid right now doesn’t center around a large budget to renovate his bedroom, or a burgeoning RESP account, or a position of authority at a Fortune 500 company. Those things are certainly priorities, but the criteria that’s recently surpassed all others as measure of the success that I wish to be assessed in the eyes of my son, the question that I imagine him asking, is - Have you impacted any lives except for my own?

The result, I suppose, of recently wading through the very dense and lengthy memoirs of a certain political activist. I have no regrets about the decisions I’ve made along the path I’ve chosen. The path itself is another matter. I’ve stated these regrets to my two nephews, both being teenagers and closer in age to myself that they still have some measure of respect for the opinion of an uncle who’s not a doddering old man out of touch with the times. At this stage in their lives, they’re still developing a social conscience and their exposure to the things that will affect their world in my lifetime and theirs is really controlled by their teachers at school and the adults in their life at home. So, if the best advice I can give them is a statement of regret about the things that I didn’t do, so that they might consider not making those mistakes themselves, then maybe that’s not such a terrible thing.
 
Besides, I still have some time left before my own little monster realizes that his dad isn’t Superman - at which point perhaps I’ll have something palpable to shoehorn in place of that disappointment.