We have these friends that we get together with a couple times a year. They have a kid that's about a year older than ours. Obviously, we cloth diaper. They don't. The wife tells me all about how she wishes they would cloth diaper but her husband is completely against it because "it's yucky."
I just smile and shake my head and tell her that cloth diapering doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing type thing. 1 cloth diaper a day is 1 less disposable not breaking down in a landfill.
Here's what I want to say, but haven't because I can't freak out on him/them.
Newsflash: having kids is yucky. Kids are yucky. They crap in a diaper and you clean it up. They spit in your mouth. They pee in your mouth. They wipe their boogers on your face. They wipe their boogers on their hands and stick them in your mouth. They slobber on you. They are filthy and expect you to hug and cuddle them. Have you not figured that out yet?
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| Mommy, will you give me a kiss? source: stevestenzel |
Cloth diapering is no more "yucky" than dealing with a kid. The grossest part about cloth diapering is something you have to do regardless of the diapering method: cleaning up poop off your kid's butt. This is no different with a cloth diaper or disposable diaper. Once you clean up the poop and stuff the wipes in the diaper, you do something with the diaper. If you are disposable diapering, you put that diaper in a Diaper Genie or some other contraption. If you are cloth diapering, you put that diaper in a wetbag.
The diapers sit. Disposable: you take out the diaper sausage when the genie gets full (a week? or more? I don't know...) and throw it in the garbage. They smell. Hopefully it's not summer and all hot out. Cloth: every other day you open the washing machine, unzip the wetbag and dump the dirty diapers in and start a wash. You never touch the dirty diapers. You machine cleans them for you. Because you wash every other day, there really is no ungodly smell that builds up from nasty week-old diapers.
"Ew, but I don't think I'd be able to wash my clothes in the machine after the diapers had gone through!" Well, if the diapers are clean (and they are after 2 washes and an extra rinse) then your machine is clean. Honestly, we have a little scuzz buildup at the high water line after 8 months of cloth diapering. I probably should scrub our washing drum out, but I'm lazy and haven't felt like doing that during my "down time" (i.e. 10 p.m. - midnight). But did you know (and I did not until researching cloth diapering) that it's actually recommended that you clean your washing machine monthly regardless of cloth diapering or not? Not sure how to do it? Here's a good resource to check out. So if you do what you're supposed to be doing (i.e. monthly machine cleaning), there's no way that your machine is dirty. Your clothes will be fine. Even if you're lazy like me, your clothes will be fine. I have never once ever noticed anything amiss on our clothes after 8 months of cloth diapering. Even with our scuzz line on our washer. Our clothes are clean and have never ever even remotely smelled anything like a diaper.
In short, there really is no extra "ick" factor when cloth diapering. I think it's just a convenient lame ass excuse to give when you just don't want to cloth diaper. I don't know why her husband is so set against it. I secretly think it's because it would force them to do diaper laundry every other day and they can't even keep up on their clothes laundry.
Good luck convincing them,
Me
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