Welcome to the Commenting Pixie Party!
We would love to be diaper-free at my home. The damn things are putting us in the poorhouse. The daycare is having greater success with our three-year-old son than are we. When he is there, he is using the toilet two or three times a week. When he is at home, he wants to take his clothes off and run around the backyard naked. In so doing, he has peed in his pool innumerable times, tried to urinate on the cats, and even deficated on his trike once. I just want to give him away untill he is five or six. Let someone else hold him over the toilet.
Diaper-free people can go suck eggs.
In my world diaper free would mean letting the kid roam around the garden without wearing a diaper. Not because he has any actual control or anything, but just because he'd probably think it was fun.
Yet one more way to not measure up to other's standards of parenting.
I think it's time to take out the "Bite Me I went to Harvard" t-shirt.
Oh, I was so hoping someone would attack that article!
What IS it with the NYT and its fondness for weird parenting subcultures?
Oh PUH-LEEEEEEEEEEZE. "Elimination communication?" Sounds like "Imagination Station" to me. Give me a break. At the risk of offending a possible diaper-free pixie, this is more bunk than one should be asked to consume. Who has all.frickin.day to hold a kid over a toilet????
And, on another note, I love the way you write!
All the news that fits, they print.
I'm not waiting for tenure to have kids...oh no, that would be too practical. I'm waiting for Nature Nappies! Forget Elimination Communication. I'm much more excited about biodegradable diapers.
I canNOT believe that article was on the front page, no less.
My mother insisted that my siblings and I be toilet trained before we were 1. Her methods probably didn't include "elimination communication." I think it was borderline child abuse. Paging Dr. Freud...
Anyhow, I saw the picture of the little one on the toilet and resolved not to read the article. So thanks for reading it so I didn't have to and thanks for giving it the treatment it deserved!
Before we had Griffin I thought we were going to be out-there hippie parents. Vegetarian, non-circumcising, co-sleeping, extended breastfeeding hippie parents.
But it turned out that I am the most mainstream of the mothers in my mother's groups. They all use cloth diapers, make their own slings out of organic cotton, and about half practice elimination communication. So, I don't even have the excuse that I didn't know about this. Seems to work for them, but my opinion is that good God, parenting is hard enough already.
The Times is really on a roll these days--first that great article about the Yale undergraduates who will be turning into stay-at-home mothers once they have children, then the two bizarro articles about real estate prices (Raising WEG skewered that one as nicely as Phantom did this piece).
We went swimming yesterday, and my daughter had a splendid time--got the kickboard to work for the first time! And then she pooped in her swim diaper, it leaked, and they had to close the pool. I was so embarassed. She didn't seem to care. I guess I was so busy communicating with her about, oh, swimming that I missed the elimination communication.
Bah.
I can't get behind this, but more power to those who can. While I would love to be in a diaper-free house; I know that is not realistic for us. Oh well, I imagine we will all survive.
KathyR, my grandmother had all 4 of her kid trained by 1, also. That was just simply what was done. She was horrified when the majority of her grandchildren were 3 before leaving diapers behind.
I really just can't fathom it.
How on earth would you toilet-train a baby who can't walk yet? Are they fifteen months and you're still rushing them there to hold them over the toilet?
To me this sounds more like toilet-training the parents--but then, I suppose that's the point. Damn those mothers and their ridiculous desires for "happiness" and "fulfillment"!
This is NOT toilet training the child to perform an independent task...this IS training the parent(s) to keep eyes glued to said infant, awaiting some twitching or squirming to suggest the need to eliminate. And fine if one has the time/inclination/dare I say obsession to do so. Good for them. But why, oh why, do we seem desperate to hunt down more fodder for division between ourselves as parents/moms/dads/families?!? And to suggest some sort of actual advantage for said infant? Puuleeez. To each his/her own potty time, I say.
Heck, if people want to roll back the clock to live more like our primitive ancestors, let 'em. No vaccines, no antibiotics, no schools, no indoor plumbing, no central heating or air conditioning, no cable, no cell phones, no Internet. Please, go ahead and have a lovely time. Embrace the maternal mortality, the infant deaths, the minimal life span. Wash those organic cotton diapers in a stream if you like! Just don't make the rest of us feel guilty for doing the things we choose to do.
I think my mother still hasn't forgiven me for getting horrible rashes from plastic diapers, necessitating the use of washable cloth diapers on my delicate little bum.
Once long ago, I lit into a troll at my site and you either sent me an email or left a comment saying how effective I was at demolishing his argument. Well, I bow to your superior skills, Phantom.
And by the way, whatta nifty little logo-PS-thing-um-a-doohicky you've created! I know it's got a name and all, but I can't remember it. Wanna design one for me too?
Ha! I can't believe this was in the NYTimes! I just read an article about in People last week. I guess that's where they look for news fodder.
The article in People claimed that even though these mothers started training at 6 months, their own kids weren't potty trained until 2 to 2.5. Sorry, but I just don't see the advantage to dragging out potty training over two years, as opposed to the couple months (or so) when they are older.
And, I must add my voice to the chorus: PS, this post is hilarious! Brillantly done.
sounds to me like parent training. as a stay at home dad very familiar with diapers (3 kids, cotton diapers) i'll observe that the "elimination communication" between my daughters and me was when i smelled the need for change or when they let me know that they were uncomfortable. some combination of distaste for wet or soiled diapers and wanting to be like the big people seemed to give them an impetus for toilet use. i have known kids who breast fed and/or wore diapers rather late, 4 or 5 years. when they decided it was over, they changed quickly and easily.
nice writing.
I don't have kids in diapers anymore (youngest is 13) but I'm appalled by the idea. It's nothing more than classically conditioning infants (and the parents to a certain extent). Yes child care books pre 1950s did advocate toilet training as soon as the baby could sit upright. It was couched in the language of behaviorism because that was the popular psychology of the day. Now it's couched in terms of emotional communication because that is the current zeitgeist.
Phantom, I think the NY Times should hire *you.*
Candace, I think it's quite difficult to be hippie-er than thou in your neck of the woods, no? Any place that has such a high density of food co-ops per unit of population is going to be hard to beat.
Amy, given what the NYT has been publishing lately, I'm quite willing to believe that they're getting their ideas from People Magazine.
Susan, are you sure you didn't just make up that story just to be nice to me? If it makes you feel better, LG pooped in his diaper (because it seems he will not use the potty when his father is home, because he knows Daddy is a sucker and will change his diaper) and wandered around the house in it for a few minutes. Which meant I had to have all the windows open to combat the smell, and we had friends arrive just a few moments later. Hello, friends! Welcome to our home, a 55-degree sewage treatment plant!
Scrivener, I'd love to take credit, but my new little logo is a creation of the fabulous and extremely talented Grandma Blue. And now I'm off to post it full-size, so that you can all see how damn talented she is...
But first: welcome to the commenting pixie party, Morgan!
My first reaction was "What a load of (diaper contents)"
Definitelky a lot of training parents to read child's signals going on. But who knows, it may teach the child something, or traumatize them. Whatever. Anyway our darling (28 mos) will now tell us when she heeds to be changed but will not, under any circumstances, sit on the potty. SO close and yet so far...
Can I tell you how much I hate this story? Now someone who is anti-crate training for dogs is posting on my dog list about how diapers are like crates. Does this crazy person have any children? No. Again, I say no. See how civilized I am? I'm not USING ALL CAPS TO REPLY TO HER AND SAY-
wait, I got a little wacky there.
Sorry.
I have to confess, I DID think of you - but what I thought was, god, these people really need to take a leaf out of PS's parenting in the real world book. I didn;t hear of this in the New York Time, but a few days ago on Australian Radio National. Maybe it was a spin acquired in that particular retelling, but it struck me as racist and imperialist in outlook what with romanticising the potty training techniques of "third world" women who are, it was implied, sort of noble savages, closer to Nature.
See how good I am at having opinions on stuff I know NOTHING about?
duh, I know it's boring reading other people's shamefaced typo corrections, but I need everyone to know that I DO know it's the New York Times. Put it down to my own private non-American inadequacy schtick.
Phantom, I *wish* I had made up that story to make you feel better. And let's just say that I wish I were also making up the TWO!!!! other such stories I could tell you about today. Ah well, at least LG and CG are points of reference for each other. LG makes me feel better, CG makes you feel better.
What does LG stand for, anyway? Little Guy (we love More, More, More at bedtime around here).
Yes, I love the hippies dearly and that's part of why we moved here. But don't get me started on the vaccination issue or the home schooling. Stay home with him for 18 years??? He's waking up every two hours again, we'll be lucky to make it through the week.
My son learned to talk a little bit late -- not a lot; just late enough to give me a few months of worry -- and one reason that nearly all the books gave was, uh, elimination communication. They didn't use that phrase, but it's what they meant. They said that some parents will over-anticipate their child's needs, giving them what they need before they have to verbalize it -- and therefore the child doesn't learn to speak. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
That said, my (16-month-old) daughter is nearly always constipated, so I have had a fair amount of success anticipating her bowels & putting her on the toilet!
I think some people just have too much time on their hands.
Oh, Susan, my sympathies! At least you can take comfort in the knowledge that LG is older than CG, right? LG stands for Little Green, from the Joni Mitchell song, but Little Guy works, too. Baby Blue is obsessed with that book at the moment. She wants everyone to know that she has a belly button, just like Little Guy.
Jeez, Candace, every two hours again? Is he teething? I'm so sorry! Baby Blue had a 4 or 5 day interlude of sleeping 7 or 8 hours in a row. But now she's back to waking 3 or 4 times. Yawn. I wish I was in Hippie City with you -- we could meet at a coffeehouse and drink placebo-effect decaf while our Adorable Offspring tore the place to shreds. And we could get each other started on the vaccination/homeschooling thing...
Oh, goodness, Jennifer. They do find a way to make you feel like you've screwed up no matter what you do, huh?
Interesting what Jennifer said... they told my mom more or less the same thing when my bro was approaching 3 and not yet talking. They told her to stop accommodating his wordlessness and encourage him to speak when he needed something. But I digress...
What I was really wondering is whether all those stats PS quoted account for the 80% of people who signed up for Elimination Communication (gag) workshops or e-mail lists or whatever, tried it for two days and then RAN to the nearest WalMart for carton of Pampers.
I will say that the one friend I know who does this is much more moderate about it than the ones apparently cited in this article. Her daughter wears a diaper, and what happens is just that more often than not, the mom takes her to the potty and she goes there, and then the same diaper stays on since it never got wet or dirty. She's doing it partly for economic reasons. Since they're not going "diaper-free", it doesn't interfere with outings (sounds ridiculous to me to do it that way - and when I was in China I was put off by all the diaper-free children peeing in the street through a slit in the pants). Anyway, it works for her, but I don't like the idea of an article saying that it's _better_ for the kids to do it this way. Seems very optional to me (like baby signs).
Oh, wow. I wanted to say something about this article, too, but here you have done it so much more wonderfully than I ever could have. Of course, my second has proven herself potty-trained as of last week (just shy of her second birthday). I would feel like this is rubbing salt in the wound, *except* that I am fully convinced that this is just poopy karma making up for #1, who didn't train until just before her 4th birthday, which doesn't sound so bad until you factor in that she had anywhere from 6-10 poops a day for 3 1/2 of those years. Every Day. (I should hasten to add that this was completely due to her whacked out GI tract...details unnecessary).
Oh boy, Moreena. I sure hope there is such a thing as poopy karma. If there is, Baby Blue should be ready for potty training, say, tomorrow.
That's good to hear, Genevieve. Ultimately, I don't have a problem with the different ways parents approach the (choose one) potty training/sleep training/infant carrying issue -- I have an issue with people who try to impose their methods across the board for everyone by claiming that one way is better and the rest are harmful. And I especially have an issue with media giants who harness those people and use the anxieties they produce to help sell newspapers.
Oh, but they can leave the house. They just carry a big bowl around with them at all times to catch any eliminations. That doesn't really leave a free hand for anything like, say, shopping though . . . so I don't really see the point of leaving the house anyway. 
LOL
It's hilarious to think that I've "scarred my kids for life" because I didn't hold them over a potty for the better part of their days during infancy and toddlerhood. Sounds like a drag for everyone, frankly. I've done a crunchy thing or two (or many) as a parent, but this is so far out there, I can't even entertain the thought without cracking up.
On a serious note a lot of current parenting fads are an attempt to emulate the developing world because their parenting is just so superior to our's. As if a lot of Guatemalan mothers wouldn't take that baby off their backs and put him in a swing while they chop wood, if they had the option, because they just have a superior sense of mothering. I mean I'm a sling fan and all, but let's not be ridiculous.
And great, funny blog!
Thanks, Staci, and welcome to the commenting pixie party!
Phantom -- I'm chiming in very late in this discussion, because I just *had* to tell you that, yes -- you were right! Apparently, the NY Times is either getting stories from People Magazine, or vice versa! (See -you're precognitive!) That very self-same story, complete with picture of little Hannah Rothstein, was in this week's People. I picked it up just for grins and giggles, and there it was in all its non-diapering glory. Puh-leeze.
I'm all for doing what you can to see to your child's needs, but this seems excessive to me. A child, from what I remember from early ed classes and seminars, doesn't have enough muscular control over their own body to effectively toilet train until about age 2.5 to 3.
I just had to let you know that your crystal ball was indeed working.
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