This Messy Job We've Gotten Ourselves Into...

I stumbled upon this popular blog post the other day and both cringed and faintly smiled as I read it. Entitled "The 2 Reasons I Would Never Switch to Cloth Diapers", the author promotes her faithful love of disposable diapers, with their convenience and overall inoffensiveness in the pee & poop department. Although I can agree with some of her statements (yes, there really *does* need to be a 28th hour in the day for mommies!), several of them made me cringe a little, like this one:

I get that cloth diapers can be cheaper. But the cost of disposable diapers is more than worth it to me. There is no price tag on the satisfaction of permanently disposing of the memory of one’s urine and bowel movements. Not to mention permanently disposing of the actual urine and bowel movements.

Let's face it, folks--the pee and the poop factor are there regardless of what type of diapers we use or, heck, even if we use elimination communication from birth! Babies poop, pee, spit up, and partake in tons of other less-than-favorable actions! Our society is trying to make raising our babies an overly sanitized thing, where their milk comes pre-packaged in pretty little cans and bottles, and their every little milky burp cloth and dampened diaper can be crumpled up and whisked away before it offends us. Are we mommies seriously that offended by our little ones?! If so, then maybe we need to get over ourselves a bit! Of course, I'll agree that there is a yuck factor to lots of parenting jobs, but let's not forget--it doesn't end with poopy diapers! After newborn poop comes the dreaded toddler poop, wretched and foul in their little nappies, and we think nothing may be worse--until they have a diaper-less accident on our rug while trying to be potty trained! Even once potty trained, diaper days are traded for alternate messes--spills, ketchup smears on the walls, nighttime puking sessions. I'm sure parents of teenagers would agree that the parenting messes do not go away once your kids hit thirteen--just take a whiff of any sixteen year old boy's room to know as much! ;)

I'm not saying that as moms we should be martyrs and subject ourselves to every disgusting and horrific thing just for the sake of it; by all means, there are some modern conveniences that do help to make our lives easier and more pleasant. However, let's just think beyond ourselves for a little while here (because heaven knows as moms we're going to have to be doing it for the rest of our lives, anyways!)--the poop that "offends" us so much for twenty seconds during a disposable diaper change then sits around for days festering in our garbage pails or garages before it is left to fester further in our landfills--becoming someone else's problem--for literally hundreds of years. This notion of "permanently disposing of the actual urine and bowel movements" that the author above mentions is actually a total facade. Disposable diapers are not a permanent disposal of waste--they are, in fact, much closer to a permanent storage of it. On the flip side, taking the extra twenty seconds to be "offended" by the poop in a cloth diaper does in fact lead to its permanent disposal. Once flushed down the toilet, that waste is properly treated by our water treatment plants, leaving no lingering by-products or wastes.

All I'm saying is this: if we stop to realize that, as moms, we're really in this whole parenthood thing for the long, messy haul anyways, then a quick little change of one dampened pocket diaper really shouldn't be such a big deal now, should it?!

I'd love to hear your thoughts... :)