Childless by choice...

[AJ]

Recently, a former co-worker said to me that single people must be living a useless life.  They just go home and watch tv and that's it...

... One co-worker lady even said, it's best if I start saying "I am divorced" .. Darn!  Has it come to that ?

Nah.  It's come to: time to stop paying attention to your coworkers.

...Interesting topic.  I will have to read all the posts...

Kinda hard to do when loopsrider has deleted his posts.  


 Quote from: loopsrider on September 14, 2011, 08:31:30 PM
"...4/ The fact that siblings play the "kid card" to opt out on taking care of aging family members pisses me off to no end. According to my siblings I must have an endless bank account and can afford to take care of my mother without their help...."

Saw this xkcd and thought of your siblings, loopsrider...

[ducatiz]

Oh, all the married people around me seem to think I have tons of cash.  Having two bikes, they think I am so loaded.  I wish that were true.  They don't seem to get that I have to constantly save a lot on one income cause when rainy day comes, I have nobody except me to lift me up.  No secondary income to cushion me from the wifie or anyone for that matter.

you're an anomaly then.  it's very well established that childless people have more liquidity as a population.  you have no idea how much kids cost and it blows your mind when you start spending $500/month in diapers.  We are looking at schools for our kids -- starting price is around $15k/year. 

In short -
Would I have liked to have kids ?   Yes.  Would have been cool to see lil me and try to mold him/her.  But alas, it did not happen.

older dads can make better kids.  my wife's father was 40-soemthing when he had his first child.  three kids:  one doctor, one engineer, one lawyer. 

[Triple J]

it blows your mind when you start spending $500/month in diapers.  We are looking at schools for our kids -- starting price is around $15k/year. 

WTF are you feeding your kid, or how many in diapers do you have? $500/mo in diapers?!?! Geez...we spend maybe $200, maybe. Big ass box of Huggies from Target.

Agreed on school/daycare. We're paying ~$1,900/month for daycare. Ugh!!

[ducatiz]

WTF are you feeding your kid, or how many in diapers do you have? $500/mo in diapers?!?! Geez...we spend maybe $200, maybe. Big ass box of Huggies from Target.

Agreed on school/daycare. We're paying ~$1,900/month for daycare. Ugh!!

That's for two kids, and I might be over estimating some.  We tried using cheaper diapers but they always broke or sucked otherwise.

Most people do not change their kids diapers enough.  We changed them as soon as they were wet.  Not once did either kid have rash or anything.  No matter what the maker says, they simply do not keep the kid dry enough.  leave a wet diaper on a kid and you end up with fungus balls.

If you're getting daycare and not school, you can get the dep child care credit, i think it's up to 5000 per kid now.

[somegirl]

$500 per month or even $200 per month shocks me!  We got a whole stash of cloth diapers for $200.   Wash and dry and they are good to go again.

I agree most people do not change diapers frequently enough. 

[Buckethead]

leave a wet diaper on a kid and you end up with fungus balls.

And the kid gets a rash, too.

[ducatiz]

$500 per month or even $200 per month shocks me!  We got a whole stash of cloth diapers for $200.   Wash and dry and they are good to go again.

I agree most people do not change diapers frequently enough. 

wash and dry?

you mean after scraping the shit off, right?  you can't toss a cloth diaper into your washing machine with a quarter pound of turd on it.

we tried that for one month.  our washing machine was going constantly and we were going thru a gallon of bleach every week.  what we saved in cash money was lost in time dealing with scraping shit and washing washing washing washing. 

plenty of people have tried to compare the environmental impact and cost of cloth diapers vs disposable.  if you're a stay at home mom, then it works time-wise, but environmentally, it is terrible.  you have to sterilize them so that means hot water and bleach which means cost to heat water and dumping bleach into the drains.

[somegirl]

wash and dry?

you mean after scraping the shit off, right?  you can't toss a cloth diaper into your washing machine with a quarter pound of turd on it.

we tried that for one month.  our washing machine was going constantly and we were going thru a gallon of bleach every week.  what we saved in cash money was lost in time dealing with scraping shit and washing washing washing washing. 

plenty of people have tried to compare the environmental impact and cost of cloth diapers vs disposable.  if you're a stay at home mom, then it works time-wise, but environmentally, it is terrible.  you have to sterilize them so that means hot water and bleach which means cost to heat water and dumping bleach into the drains.

Yes wash and dry.  There are these neat inventions called diaper sprayers that make it easy to get poop off, no scraping needed.  BTW poop from exclusively breastfed babies (typically the first 6 months) is water soluble and does just wash off.

We don't use chlorine bleach, it's bad for the septic.  We are still able to get them completely clean, it just took a little trial and error to work out the process that works for us.  We line dry.  Yes we use hot water but our washer is efficient and only uses the amount we need.   I'm not a SAHM, our nanny does the diaper laundry during the week.  We wash every other day and it doesn't take very much time once you get into a rhythm.

Many of those popularized studies comparing the environmental impact were funded by diaper companies and are quite biased. 

How many times do those disposable diapers blow out and then you are doing extra laundry for the clothing?  Cloth diapers contain everything.  Overall kids potty train earlier with cloth diapers so there is added savings right there.

BTW we also do EC (elimination communication) so much of the time we are just cleaning out a potty instead of a diaper.  This really has the lowest environmental impact.

[Stella]

if you're a stay at home mom parent,

fixed

[somegirl]

Forgot to add, technically you are not supposed to dispose of human poop in the garbage, so you should be scraping it out of the disposables too.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with cloth but I know many people who are successfully and happily using it.

[JBubble]

Many people use disposables without any issues as well. I'm childless at this point so maybe my opinion doesn't matter, but I don't think there is a single "right" way to do it.

To relate back to the original topic, as a childless person, one of the things that frustrates me about people with children is their ability to judge other parents. Why would I want to listen to friends of ours disparage other friends for their parenting choices on diapers? Or breastfeeding? Or any of the other myriad of child related decisions out there. Kinda sucks to see friends become judgmental pricks to each other when their choices differ.

[desmopr]

Yes wash and dry.  There are these neat inventions called diaper sprayers that make it easy to get poop off, no scraping needed.  BTW poop from exclusively breastfed babies (typically the first 6 months) is water soluble and does just wash off.

We don't use chlorine bleach, it's bad for the septic.  We are still able to get them completely clean, it just took a little trial and error to work out the process that works for us.  We line dry.  Yes we use hot water but our washer is efficient and only uses the amount we need.   I'm not a SAHM, our nanny does the diaper laundry during the week.  We wash every other day and it doesn't take very much time once you get into a rhythm.

Many of those popularized studies comparing the environmental impact were funded by diaper companies and are quite biased. 

How many times do those disposable diapers blow out and then you are doing extra laundry for the clothing?  Cloth diapers contain everything.  Overall kids potty train earlier with cloth diapers so there is added savings right there.

BTW we also do EC (elimination communication) so much of the time we are just cleaning out a potty instead of a diaper.  This really has the lowest environmental impact.

   We use cloth diapers exclusively on our 1 y/o.  I was hesitant at first (wife's idea), but now I back it 100%.  Initial investment is in the few hundreds, but I think it's worth it all the way.  Once you dial the process in and use good detergent it's easy.  I attached a spray hose from HD and Ace bought parts to one of our bathrooms.  Works like a charm!  And yes, dispensing poop in garbage is technically illegal.  

[somegirl]

Many people use disposables without any issues as well. I'm childless at this point so maybe my opinion doesn't matter, but I don't think there is a single "right" way to do it.

Sorry J, I didn't say it was wrong to use disposables, I was trying to point out that there is a good alternative option that is significantly cheaper.

To relate back to the original topic, as a childless person, one of the things that frustrates me about people with children is their ability to judge other parents. Why would I want to listen to friends of ours disparage other friends for their parenting choices on diapers? Or breastfeeding? Or any of the other myriad of child related decisions out there. Kinda sucks to see friends become judgmental pricks to each other when their choices differ.

I agree that there is too much judgment going on, but I don't see that it is just parents doing it.  I also see a lot of non-parents making judgmental comments about other people's children or parenting styles.  Maybe there is something about kids that just brings it out of people.

[ducatiz]

Forgot to add, technically you are not supposed to dispose of human poop in the garbage, so you should be scraping it out of the disposables too.

I'm not sure where you got that.  No restriction on it here or anywhere around here.

Sorry to hear you had a bad experience with cloth but I know many people who are successfully and happily using it.

It wasn't bad as much as it was just unnecessary work.  We can't line dry because of the humidity and prohibition on line drying in our neighborhood (no joke).  If you're not using something to disinfect the diaper, and only hot water, then you are not disinfecting them.

Our kids were breast fed for the first year but once they were eating solid food it was elephant dump city.  You can spray all you want.  Once that stuff worked into the fibres, forget it.

[Triple J]

loopsrider is loving this thread now.  Not only threadjacked, but threadjacked by people talking about poo!!