Cloth Diapers and other things dads don’t talk about

Men are comfortable being warriors, providers and even husbands/lovers. But we don’t talk about being dads unless a joke is involved. TV shows such as Home Improvement and even The Cosby Show made men in the father role seem a bit dopey. Example: Mr. Huxtable might have been an MD but he was often bested in a verbal wrestling match with one of his youngest children. All wrapped in humor but the message is clear “Dads aren’t to be honored and followed.”

Well, thanks to a recent comment by one of our readers, I realized that while I do write about being a man and husband my parenting hasn’t gotten much attention here.

You asked for it.

To start I thought I would cover some of the “baby stuff” because we are just now in the toddler stage.

Cloth Diapers. Until we became pregnant, diapers didn’t cross my mind. Just like most people, I assumed that when the baby came you rip open a package of disposable diapers and that’s the end of it. Of course, nothing is that simple. Diapers, like anything we create, must exist after we use them. So landfills get millions of diapers a year and most parents just ignore the fact that someone has to live with that mess. We all get the final effect of water quality being ruined, adding more steps before water is drinkable.

Thinking about all of that there were still moments when cloth diapers seemed like a strange alternative, my goal was to have complete success with elimination communication but that was unrealistic. The amount of laundry and handling dirty diapers weren’t what I dreamed about when we started our baby journey. Still, knowing all the stats of diaper waste kept coming back around and once my wonderful, beautiful wife attended a cloth diaper meet up we were hooked. Lots of support and experience later and cloth diapering is the only way to go.

Makes me smile to know we don’t have to contribute to destroying the planet and we save money every week on diapers. Especially now with Baby Next on the way the money savings becomes a big deal. Of course this isn’t as simple as just using cloth diapers, the water used and other resources do have an impact. The goal for our family is to move closer to have a beneficial impact on the planet we were given.

Parenting is hard work no matter what you choose. Knowing that I am even more convinced that making informed choices that are the best for our family, our community and our planet is not just nice but vital.