For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for October 11, 2012

The start of tough love I presume.

The punchline works for the canned baby food, but not the disposable diapers. Aren’t disposable diaper more expensive than cloth diapers?

I tried to do almost the same for my second as the first. Now, if I had had a third, I don’t think I could have done it.

Nowadays disposable diapers are almost as cheap as cloth, and they are entirely biodegradable (at least the ones we get here are). And I doubt cloth diapers are more environmentally friendly if you yourself have to do two washes a day to keep up… no diaper services where I live!

This made perfect sense to me (mine are 7, 5 and 3), but in my circle, it’s backwards, because it was only around the time of my 3rd that cloth diapers came back “in” in non-urban areas, along with the homemade food (which was always around), feeding and comforting on demand all day and night, child-carrying, but only in the right carriers, and longer times rear-facing and in 5-point harnesses. We’re all nuts.

An Ellie smile in a third panel! It’s as rare as a unicorn!

A – wom – bom – ba – loobom…………

Wait’ll #4! (As in my grandkids.) Thank goodness for older sisters. My mom was in a family with nine kids. When she was four, she had to babysit a sister while everyone else was out in the field. She said it took her all afternoon to change a diaper.

Thought baby food came in jars, not cans.

Reality has set in

Diaper services still exist.

Used cloth at home, disposable diapers when travelling. The trunk was filled with disposables when we took a two-week trip with a one-year old. As they were used up, left room for souvenirs. Had a friend that took a one week trip without dealing with the diaper pail at home. Came back, it was filled with maggots!

My parents used to always say the first one is fine china, the second one is porcelain, the third is indian rubber.

It’s a matter that, with two kids, who has the energy? Or time?

I don’t think so, as long as the food is all natural and I would think a cloth diaper would cause a rash easier than disposable.

My first son was Jan 1960, second son Feb 1961, 3rd son September 1962 (was 50 this year while I was 75) and daughter was born July of 1964 after which I had to have permission from husband for tubal L. He gave me a hard time over it, but his wife “could not work outside the home” and he made $15000 his best year – expecting me to make it work. I divorced him after 16 years when the kids were in school enough for me to start work and it was rough for a bit but I played to my skills- worked as drafter and eventually got good jobs – later taught myself CAD and even their programming languages (menu and LISP). I worked thru versions 2something thru V16.

I used cloth diapers for all 4 and got a terrible rach on my hands (as they had to all be prewashed in the toilet before the diaper service. We had no space in our home for all that when they were babies. I made all my own clothes and much of the kids back then.

FIRST CHILD: “Oh my god, he’s got a splinter, quick rush him to the emergency room!!!!”

SECOND CHILD: “Ah, I don’t see any blood and there is no protruding bones, get up and walk it off.”