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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

#21

Post by [deleted] »

echelon wrote: post #11
HPsquared wrote: post #8

Babies and childcare can cost either a huge amount, or not very much at all.

Modern American middle class norms are that babies cost a fortune. The best nutrition, daycare, early childhood learning, classes, tuition, etc. Extreme expenses. All throughout history, children have been cheap, and if you look back far enough - disposable. And even parents viewed kids as a free source of labor. Kids used to be left to roam the woods, streets, and neighborhoods. Now a lone child will get a call from…

[deleted]

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

#22

Post by colmmacc »

cowpig wrote: post #12

I feel like the time demands of modern life are the main culprit here. Today families mostly need two working parents, which means nobody to take care of the baby full-time. If you have someone taking care of them full-time, toilet training early is usually easy and a net time save. But if you can't ever invest that time because of the time version of the poverty trap, you are in diapers until the kids are developed…

Our two year old is potty training right now, and this was definitely a factor for us. We had to wait until it could be explained. Another factor is that diapers are now so absorbent that the kid feels no real discomfort from a pee or a poop. His main motivation is peer pressure and to be a bigger kid; concepts he's only recently caught.

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

#23

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

We did cloth the entire time (G Diapers, not sure if they're still around). It was a cloth shell with cloth liners.

Worked fine.

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

#24

Post by cowpig »

echelon wrote: post #20
cowpig wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah keep up the fight against big baby keeping our child labor rights down.

Kids should have jobs in high school. It's a fantastic way to learn budgeting, work ethic, entrepreneurship, and gives them a drive to study harder. For kids without two stable parents, it soaks up their time and keeps them out of trouble. Since when did we start viewing this as bad? I worked at 14 doing lawn work for neighbors to save money for video games. It taught me a lot. There's nothing wrong with that.

Your comments are just totally out of touch with the realities of being a parent today. The average person can't afford to raise a kid because of the time demands of constant work to make rent and afford food.

We're discussing an article about diapers.

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

#25

Post by [deleted] »

abustamam wrote: post #5

We're using cloth diapers for our daughter (6m). She's still exclusively breastfed so no solid poops but so far I estimate we've saved over $100/mo by this decision. The story may change when she starts on solids but I recommend everyone to try out cloth diapers, just make sure you have a routine and system in place to make it less overwhelming (we have two diaper pails next to the changing table, one for disposable…

[deleted]

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

#26

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

echelon wrote: post #20
cowpig wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah keep up the fight against big baby keeping our child labor rights down.

Kids should have jobs in high school. It's a fantastic way to learn budgeting, work ethic, entrepreneurship, and gives them a drive to study harder. For kids without two stable parents, it soaks up their time and keeps them out of trouble. Since when did we start viewing this as bad? I worked at 14 doing lawn work for neighbors to save money for video games. It taught me a lot. There's nothing wrong with that.

Since we learned those types of kids vote "wrong".

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

#27

Post by echelon »

cowpig wrote: post #24
echelon wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kids should have jobs in high school. It's a fantastic way to learn budgeting, work ethic, entrepreneurship, and gives them a drive to study harder. For kids without two stable parents, it soaks up their time and keeps them out of trouble. Since when did we start viewing this as bad? I worked at 14 doing lawn work for neighbors to save money for video games. It taught me a lot. There's nothing wrong with that.

Your comments are just totally out of touch with the realities of being a parent today. The average person can't afford to raise a kid because of the time demands of constant work to make rent and afford food. We're discussing an article about diapers.

> The average person can't afford to raise a kid

Yes they can, they just choose not to.

I think the reason people aren't having kids is that they're on their phone all the time.

I'm serious. Phone use is a dopamine sink and removes pauses throughout the day otherwise spent on relationships and thinking about the future.

I'm not the only person to think this.

https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/405376/pronatali...

Furthermore, people in past times were historically more budget-conscious and stressed than we are - yet they had lots of children. And developing nations are typically much pooerer than our lower class, yet they're also having lots of children.

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

#28

Post by stevehawk »

echelon wrote: post #11
HPsquared wrote: post #8

Babies and childcare can cost either a huge amount, or not very much at all.

Modern American middle class norms are that babies cost a fortune. The best nutrition, daycare, early childhood learning, classes, tuition, etc. Extreme expenses. All throughout history, children have been cheap, and if you look back far enough - disposable. And even parents viewed kids as a free source of labor. Kids used to be left to roam the woods, streets, and neighborhoods. Now a lone child will get a call from…

> We did okay for hundreds of thousands of years. Did Big Advertising get the best of us and make us needlessly devote expenses and energy?

ever since my wife was pregnant i've actually started paying attention to the advertising targeted at women. Holy shit, I feel so bad for them. It's easy for me to laugh at and ignore the "if you buy (this product) then this sexy woman will be attracted to you" ads (spoiler: she won't). But their advertising is very much "you should feel bad about yourself for not buying this, because it means you don't love your (self |child |pet |whatever." It really tugs at emotions and capitalizes on insecurities.

And they do it to themselves a lot of the times, it's not just the big companies doing it, it's female influencers trying to maximize their referrals/sales.

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

#30

Post by noemit »

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #19
noemit wrote: post #15

My mom toilet trained me at 3 months. She had me on a schedule and she would hold me one toilet during the determined times and I would go. This was right after communism fell so she only had access to cloth diapers, and cleaning them was so annoying she did it as early as she could. She was shocked at how long my kids stayed in diapers. I asked her how, and well there is a slight difference between us. She had 2 yea…

> don't have the time to dedicate I hope it's worth it

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 downside is minimal. There is no evidence late potty training causes any damage (except to your wallet.) You have to prioritize these things. My kids are always priority #1, but that doesn't mean I have to eliminate all other things I enjoy in life. My kids get to grow up watching me build software for millions of people, so yeah, it's worth it. I know I would be an excellent stay-at-home mom, but I'm also an excellent work-from-home mom.
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