Posted on 04/25/2005 7:28:34 AM PDT by jalisco555
(CNSNews.com) - As environmentalists celebrate the 34th annual Earth Day, some in the green movement are now advocating "diaper-free" babies to help save the planet.
Citing concerns about plastic disposable diapers clogging landfills and the amount of washing and detergents that cloth diapers require, many environmentalists are taking a page from tribal cultures and seeking to eliminate the use of the baby diapers altogether.
The green movement is now promoting diaperless babies as a "retro, cutting-edge, environmentally friendly scheme" to mothers throughout the industrialized world.
The green movement already has declared war on the modern flush toilet, declaring it an "environmental disaster," and has instead pushed waterless "dry" toilets as an earth-friendly solution.
Former Vice President Al Gore joined the board of a waterless urinal company late last year to further the dry toilet cause and to help avert what many environmentalists believe is a looming international water crisis.
"There is a way to have a baby and NOT use diapers," says one website advocating diaperless babies. Parents are urged to get in tune with their infant's body signals and hold babies over toilets, buckets and shrubbery or any other convenient receptacle when nature calls.
One advocate suggests bringing a "tight-lidded bucket" along to serve as a waste receptacle when mothers take their babies out in public.
'Primitive worship'
But Robert Bidinotto, publisher of ecoNOT.com and a critic of environmentalists, dismisses such notions as "primitive-worship."
"Incredibly, some environmentalists actually prefer that the foul messes we normally capture in diapers and landfills, spill instead onto our linoleum, carpets, and even our children," Bidinotto told CNSNews.com.
Noting many greens' opposition to flush toilets and now baby diapers, Bidinotto said environmentalists' have a "strange affinity for bodily wastes," and he believes they have become "obsessed with toilet issues."
'Be the first in your neighborhood'
Umbra Fisk, advice columnist for Grist Magazine , a major environmental e-publication, has joined the diaperless baby effort.
Responding to a reader's question in the Feb. 12 issue of Grist Magazine about how to handle baby waste in an Earth-friendly manner, Fisk fully endorses the diaper-free movement as a "retro cutting-edge environmentally friendly scheme." Fisk urges parents to "be the first in your neighborhood" to go diaper free.
"People around the world who have no access to diapers manage to raise children, and a small group of parents in diaper-rich countries have decided to follow their lead. Around here, it's called 'elimination communication' or 'diaper-free,'" Fisk wrote.
Fisk argues that changing times mean parents no longer have to change diapers.
"The concept is logical and simple: Infants give recognizable signs of imminent peeing and pooping; it's possible to learn your infant's signs; infant pee isn't frightening; and if you train your kid to ignore their outputs, you'll just have to go back and retrain them when traditional potty-training time arrives," Fisk explained.
Another diaperless baby advocate, who identifies herself as Natec, wrote a how-to manual for prospective mothers of diaperless babies titled, "Elimination Timing: The Solution to the Dirty Diapers War." The manual, which used fictionalized names and characters, describes Natec's motivation to go diaper-free after the birth of her son.
"When David was born, I started to think about the kind of world I was making for him to grow up in. The thought of garbage spewing and sprawling landfills filled me with horror. And right along with this horror were those little mother's helpers, disposable diapers...rotting, but never really going away in all their plastic glory," Natec wrote.
Natec maintains that plastic diapers "can take 500 years to decompose." Natec is not impressed with so-called "biodegradable" diapers, because they "may contain more plastic to compensate for the weakness of their materials."
Although green advocates estimate that diapers account for only between 0.5 to 1.8 percent of landfill space, they nevertheless consider that troubling.
"One percent of billions of tons is worth worrying about. If we don't think about how to address that one percent, which one percent will we address?" asked Richard Dennison, a senior scientist with the Environmental Defense group, as quoted in Natec's how-to manual.
'Evil empire of Western parenting'
Concerns about landfills are not the only reason some parents are going diaperless.
Scott Noelle, editor of the Continuum Concept website and a father, explained why he eventually stopped using diapers on his infant daughter Olivia, in a web essay titled "Going Diaperless."
"In my mind, diapers became the symbol of the Evil Empire of Western Parenting in which babies must suffer to accommodate the needs of their parents' broken-continuum culture: a controlled, sterile, odorless, wall-to-wall carpeted fortress in which to live with the illusion of dominion over nature," wrote Noelle, on the website livingharmony.com.
Despite his concerns, Noelle continued to use diapers on his daughter, despite the fact that he "felt like a monster and a fraud."
Noelle finally chose to go diaperless and looked to traditional cultures for inspiration. "How I longed for a simple, dirt-floored, baby-friendly hut like that of a Yequana family," he wrote.
Natec agrees with Noelle that modern society has a lot to learn from the traditional ways of life.
"[M]any of us have not, until recent years, given credit to the mothering skills of more Earth-centered, i.e. 'primitive" cultures,' she wrote in her how-to manual.
"When you think about it, there have been millions of years of human beings and only a few thousand years with any references to diapers," she added.
But Bidinotto of ecoNOT.com bristles at what he considers the glorification of a "primitive" way of life by diaperless baby advocates.
"These people have no idea what primitive life is really like. Their preferred alternative to today's 'controlled, sterile, odorless' environment is a world of filth and disease, where countless millions died in plagues and epidemics," Bidinotto explained.
Shopping with a diaperless baby
Ingrid Bauer, author of the book "Diaper Free: The Gentle Wisdom of Natural Infant Hygiene," writes on her website natural-wisdom.com that the key for parents interested in going au natural is parent-infant communication.
"Observation and close bonding interaction help the parent to understand the baby's signals, body language and timing rhythms," Bauer writes in the frequently asked questions section of her website
"Some common signals that indicate a need to pee in a young infant are: squirming, "fussing," tensing the face, frowning or having a look of "inner concentration," she wrote.
"When the baby has to go, the parent holds him or her in a comfortable position over an appropriate toilet place and makes a cueing sound (perhaps a gentle "sss")."
What's the parent of a diaperless baby to do when out shopping? Bauer offers this solution.
"These parents may rely on using public bathrooms, or bring along a container such as a tight -lidded bucket," Bauer wrote.
Bauer calls freedom from diapers "responsive infant-care."
"This gentle and ancient practice is the most common way of caring for a baby's hygiene needs in the non-Western world," she writes.
Bidinotto rejects any notion that industrialized nations should mimic the traditional cultures.
"The only thing that we moderns have to learn from primitive cultures is what they themselves learned. They learned that life is much better with modern conveniences, such as diapers. And in fact, most primitive peoples can't wait to get and use such conveniences," Bidinotto explained.
"But now environmentalists want to sentence millions to the filth and drudgery that our ancestors were so eager to escape," he added.
Oh great, now we are going to have babies pooping and peeing all over the shopping cart seats. I'm sure those things are already filthy enough.
Too true. However, you haven't really parented unless you've changed a diarrhea-soaked diaper in an airplane toilet in turbulence. Talk about seperating the men from the boys!
. . .and will no doubt appeal to those 'Mom's; who are still nursing their 'yet-to-be-toilet-trained, three-year old. . .
Laugh or cry? I don't know.
We expect people to pick up after their dogs. Is it too much to expect people not to let their kids shit in the gutter?
-ccm
I'd guess it's a direct descendant of the outhouse.
"Oh great, now we are going to have babies pooping and peeing all over the shopping cart seats. I'm sure those things are already filthy enough.
"
It'll be like going to PetsMart every day.
"The disposable diaper and the garage door opener are the two greatest inventions of the 20th century."
Two of three. The greatest invention was the coffee pot with the automatic timer.
Now, as to this article. Let's see, the enviro-nazis want us all to ride public transportation along with a bunch of diaperless babies?
The parents of a friend of mine once went to China. I can remember her father coming home none to pleased -- seems that diapers aren't used in China (or weren't used at the time).
This is typical nonsense of the left -- if someone in Europe or Asia or anywhere other than the U.S. does something, then it must be good. I don't mind embracing certain aspects of other cultures -- the food, for example -- but not something like this.
The idea is to revert to the state of the third world where there never have been diapers.
The absence of diapers is probably acceptable in semitropic and tropic third world where the practice is common, but where it is cold, the practice is untenable.
Growing up, my family didn't have a lot of money. My mother used cloth diapers on myslef and three siblings. When soiled, she washed them and then reused them. Messy...but saved money.
Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.
Just wait 'til the "diaperless" crowd targets the restaurants. Will they suggest (no, demand) that the rest of us have to put up with their kid letting loose on the floor? Of course they will.
Holy crap these people are absolutely nuts!
You make an excellent point, maybe being completely toilet trained at one year of age (the goal of the mothers of the baby boom) is too early, but seeing four year olds in diapers is crazy. Maybe the eco-nuts should work on their liberal neighbors who don't bother to toilet train a child in the second year of life. That would reduce a LOT of diapers!
My first thought was... these are all people that probably DO NOT have children and have never had a baby.
That's what the left wants. There's too many people, donchaknow?
>>Actually if you look at the average age for toilet training it has increased over the past few decades. Kids used to toilet train before the age of two. Now kids four and older are wearing diapers.<<
Pull-Ups and working mother's are the cause.
My girls are seven and five. Both were trained at two. We went to "Betti Potty Camp". My oldest sister, who trained children almost 30 years ago, told me to come to her house with my oldest.
She said, no Pull-Ups (the child cannot feel when she is wet) and a potty ring, no potty seat. Every 15 minutes someone put my daughter on the potty. She was trained in 3 days and we were able to go shopping with no accidents within two weeks. Working mothers don't have the time to do this kind of training. Every working mother I know, sticks Pull-Ups on the child and tells the Daycare that they are in the middle of training.
Around about Kindergarten age, these kids have trained themselves.
Definitely one for your Just Damn list!
"Imagine eating at a restaurant while the mom at the next table is holding her baby over a bucket. Certainly adds to the ambiance!" jalisco555
"it's the women who change a baby's diaper RIGHT THERE in a restaurant who get me. And then they get naasty if you say anything to them." tiamat
And, just imagine how nasty they'd get if you were to light a cigarette spoiling their 'ambiance'.
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