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How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

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Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#111

Post by Spivak »

pc86 wrote: post #89
gus_massa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like $3 per day (a coffee). Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day. No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the w…

I don't care if anyone uses cloth diapers but the cloth diaper evangelists always seem to take a page out of the people who say "renting is always bad" or "leasing a car is always bad." Focusing on the (completely legitimate) negatives associated with the thing they don't like, and completely ignoring the (no less legitimate) negatives about the thing they like. I don't see it anywhere here, which is refreshing, but…

> lends itself to people making it their entire personality.

Well yeah, it would become your whole personality too if you spent that much time trying to hand scrub poop off of cotton.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#112

Post by AndrewKemendo »

xivzgrev wrote: post #46

Parent of 2 kids. Parents receive enough judgement. Do whatever works for you! -cloth diapers? Awesome -train early? Awesome -train later? Awesome There's trade offs for each, and you are going to figure out what works best for you. If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year.

While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether.

I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child.

It is objectively bad to park your kids in front of an iPad for hours a day so you can work

It is objectively bad to have your kids all over social media

It is objectively bad to feed your children ultra processed foods

Etc…

If raising your children is not the most important thing in your life, to the extent that you’re going to actually do scientifically demonstrated correct things like providing them vaccines reducing sugar limiting screen time encouraging outdoor play and exploration and community building etc…then you should not have them.

If you do not have a community that can provide this if you are not independently capable enough… then you should probably not have them.

Being a parent is a transcendent privilege across every period of time, history, class and race - it literally is the driving factor of society.

*In the 18 months since Dobbs between .9% and 1.2% (should be zero but here we are) were victims of rape and forced into birthing that child according to:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/64-000-pregnancie...

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#113

Post by anonym29 »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #87
gus_massa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like $3 per day (a coffee). Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day. No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the w…

“ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).” Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.

Assuming cloth diapers cost an extra 10 minutes a day, the time savings of disposable diapers are "worth" 60 hours a year.

What do you value more - $1000 or 60 hours of your time?

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#114

Post by Spivak »

vjvjvjvjghv wrote: post #87
gus_massa wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like $3 per day (a coffee). Most diapers only get pee, but cloth diaper are more difficult to use, let's add 2 extra minutes, 4 or 5 times per day. No solids means "not hard rock solids", they still make a nasty stinky brown paste. Hopefully only once per day. But that diaper MUST be partialy hand-washed, don't put it as is in the washing machine. At least a partial hand wash and then go with the rest to the w…

“ That's like $3 per day (a coffee).” Or $1000 per year? That little coffee a day already pays for a vacation flight.

Yeah, or 365 coffees (well for me it's energy drinks). I'm well aware which one of those brings me more total joy in my life and it isn't the flight. It isn't even close.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#115

Post by a_cool_username »

sfpotter wrote: post #88

Cloth diapers are good. We used them for our last kid with a diaper service and are going to do it again washing them ourselves with our next who is due at the end of the month. Regular diapers are useful to have either way. But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment and if they're an option for you, you should consider them. Not a hard concept, not worth a big discussion.

I had planned to do cloth diapers if we had a diaper service available, for environmental reasons, but there's none where I live now and I definitely am not up for washing diapers by hand/pooping up my nice washing machine. Props to you for sticking with it.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#116

Post by konne88 »

TLDR: 80% of kids used to be potty trained by age one. Nowadays parents train later, because diapers are so convenient that its feasible to wait until the kids are older where it's easier to train them. This provides massive revenue to diaper companies.

----

This seems roughly plausible. I have never been successful at training 1 year olds to be potty trained, because there is so much exposed poop & pie involved over such long times, that it's just way easier to push it back by a year or two when they can figure it out more or less by themselves.

Maybe back then diapers were so bad, that there was always a lot of exposed poop & pie involved anyway, so potty training didn't really make your life any worse.

I'd probably say those extra billion in revenue are well earned.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#117

Post by BobaFloutist »

trollbridge wrote: post #71
noemit wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I spend a lot of time with my kids because of my work. I've worked fully remote for almost 7 years now. After my son was born I was back to work 1.5 weeks later but I got to work with him in my lap for 1.5 years (after which he started going to grandmas) He was breastfed that entire time. Taking 2 weeks to potty train is something I've deprioritized because I'd rather focus on going on vacation/recharging and the dow…

As someone who grew up watching his dad build software for millions of people, some friendly advice is this may not be as “worth it” as you think it is.

Take that up with your dad, not a stranger on the internet offering an extremely limited window into their life.

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#118

Post by tqi »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #112
xivzgrev wrote: post #46

Parent of 2 kids. Parents receive enough judgement. Do whatever works for you! -cloth diapers? Awesome -train early? Awesome -train later? Awesome There's trade offs for each, and you are going to figure out what works best for you. If you want to train later and the diaper companies make more money, that's how a market is supposed to work. They're providing a product you value. So all good!

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year. While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether. I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child. It…

It's also objectively none of your business?

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#119

Post by tetromino_ »

sfpotter wrote: post #88

Cloth diapers are good. We used them for our last kid with a diaper service and are going to do it again washing them ourselves with our next who is due at the end of the month. Regular diapers are useful to have either way. But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment and if they're an option for you, you should consider them. Not a hard concept, not worth a big discussion.

> But cloth diapers are obviously much better for the environment

It's obvious only if you save and reuse the same set of cloth diapers for 2 or more babies. (Which places some constrains on brand, durability etc.) If you have only one kid, I am not sure which side is environmentally more friendly; growing and processing all that cotton (not to mention the plastic for all the waterproof covers) uses a lot of water and energy...

Re: How Big Diaper absorbs billions of extra dollars from American parents

#120

Post by AndrewKemendo »

tqi wrote: post #118
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent of three teens headed to college/trades in the next year. While I completely understand your positivity nihilism, this kind of parent as victim mentality needs to stop altogether. I’m looking around where I live and literally zero of these people have to raise their children because they didn’t have the access to abortion, contraception or public services.* 99% of parents decided to keep and raise a child. It…

It's also objectively none of your business?

As a black man in America I can promise you that how you raise your children will objectively be my problem

If everybody around me trains their children to be fascists that’s clearly my problem

How Society runs is everybody’s business

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