Livin' the Good Life

Marc Morano, CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer, reports in an article titled 'Diaperless Babies Seen As Earth-Friendly Solution':

As environmentalists celebrate the 34th annual Earth Day, some in the green movement are now advocating "diaper-free" babies to help save the planet. [...]

"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. [...]

Umbra Fisk, advice columnist for Grist Magazine..."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. [...]

"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. [...]

"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. [...]

Scott Noelle, editor of the Continuum Concept website...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. [...]

"How I longed for a simple, dirt-floored, baby-friendly hut like that of a Yequana family," he wrote. [...]

That's not the peanut butter, honey. I just recycled the 'tight-lidded' jar.

Can't we just tape one square of toilet paper on 'em?