Posted on 04/22/2004 2:57:07 AM PDT by kattracks
(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.
\ldblquote...[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.
See Related Articles:
Flush Toilets Called 'Environmental Disaster'
Introduction of the Flush Toilet Deplored at Earth Summit
E-mail a news tip to Marc Morano.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
Do they? - that would nullify my prior post on this thread.
I do know though, that a modern plastic diaper went through the disgestive system of my Labrador virtually unchanged.
Likely, same product.
If my Latin holds up, she's the Shadow Fisk...
This sense of knowing is what I experienced with infants: a symbiotic, telepathic communication that I know is the intuitive knowledge and birthright of all beings. As a species that has the longest period of infant dependency, it appears that we also hold the record for soiling our own nests. This is only because many of us have not, until recent years, given credit to the mothering skills of more Earth-centered, i.e. "primitive" cultures.
INFANT CARE Correct infant care is vital to producing "Super Babies." Super Babies are similar to regular babies except they belong to you.
Never use commercially prepared baby food; there are rumors that it causes cancer. Feed your child the same grotesque and faddish foods that you eat: soy cakes, kelp, alcohol-free beer, twelve pounds of oat bran a day — whatever dietary foolishness is current in your house. Then force the rest of your irrational activities on the child. It doesn't matter when a kid begins to walk or talk but it's very important that he should begin to work out at the gym and communicate openly with his child psychiatrist as soon as possible.
An infant should be weaned from the breast as soon as the mother has had an opportunity to shock and discomfit her boss, mother-in-law, and husband's friends by breast-feeding the baby in public.
Weaning a child from the breast is very similar to weaning an adult from alcohol or drugs. The same techniques of substitution and psychological support may be used. Babies are not, however, generally sent to the Betty Ford Clinic or AA meetings. But this might not be a bad idea. Give it a try.
TOILET TRAINING Modern parents believe toilet training should be an easy and casual affair. Just let the child sh-t all over everything. This prepares him or her for a brilliant career as a talk show host.
DISCIPLINE It used to be thought that children should act like "little adults." Like many things that used to be thought, this is true. In fact, now more than ever. Today's real adults are self-involved, impulsive, inarticulate, and spend as much time as possible out playing. They can't sit still, don't like to get dressed up, and hate every kind of activity that requires self-restraint. Adults are the children of today, and therefore children have to be adults because there's only so much room in the world for kids.
One way to discipline a child is by having a tantrum. Cry, scream, or hold your breath until the child behaves. When dealing with immature behavior such as nose picking, genital fondling, or public belching, try to be discreet so your child won't make fun of you when you do it.
You can also reason with even the smallest child. Tell a baby, "When you cry in the middle of the night and have to be fed and walked and burped, it, like, you know, violates my space." This is useless but instructive. It teaches both you and the child an important lesson in the powers of logic.
Spanking can be effective at times, especially since it's much less dangerous than striking a person your own size. But usually you should try to be an easygoing parent. That way the child will be much more surprised and terrified when you hit him.
Another excellent method of discipline is to ignore a child who's acting up. This may not work very well, but it certainly is easy. What people often mistake for permissiveness in modern parents is actually firm discipline exercised by means of this technique. Ignoring a child kills two birds with one stone. When you pay no attention to your kid, you're also respecting his privacy — a good way to show love while inflicting punishment at the same time.
Do not be dismayed if your child seems to want more affection than ignoring him provides. Children like a lot of affection, but they also like a lot of candy, which goes to show that children have no idea what's good for them. Explain to the child that it would be rude, a form of lying, really, to show too much affection to somebody you aren't going to sleep with.
- P.J. O'Rourke, Modern Manners
They are still in business around here, course, I am in Western Washington, where we are a little greener ;~D
Isn't this kind of obsession common among those who refuse to grow up?
No Comment
But she's all for having her son walk around a mess in his cloths?
And think of all the water she'll be wasting trying to clean the stains out of his cloths
This women is a wacko
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