While I'd occassionaly get into a nasty online tête-à-tête with Blogging Baby readers and grew to dislike dealing with ridiculous commentors who liked to leave statements that had absolutely nothing to do with the posts, I do, in fact, love hearing from folks who read crazedparent and my writings elsewhere.
My favorite comments from this week come from two ladies who read my contribution to the Keeping House column in the SF Chronicle. I knew the moment I wrote about one, using disposable diapers and two, tossing 'em in the trash that someone would get all up in my grill. But these two comments, near identical, made me crack. up.
-"...Apparently Charlene Prince doesn't know that solid waste (even from disposable diapers) belongs in the toilet. Flushing diaper contents is healthy for the environment, and great for minimizing odors."
-"As a mother of two small children, I sympathize with Charlene Prince's
quest for an odor-free diaper changing area. Although she gave up on the the
more environmentally friendly choice of cloth diapers, the best way to dispose
of the so-called "stink bombs" is not to place them in the outside garbage.
While this eliminates the odor from the house, it puts human waste into our
landfills and can thereby contaminate groundwater. This is the main problem with
disposable diapers. Flushing the solid waste into the toilet is not only the
recommendation of the diaper manufacturers and environmentalists, it is also an
easier way to deal with the smell. The trip to the bathroom is sure to be
quicker and shorter. A win-win solution."
Picture this...
Change stink bomb. Take stink bomb to bathroom while baby crawls after you in the the bathroom. Find something to scrape crap into diaper while simultaneously stopping baby from sticking hands in crap or toilet water. OR baby screams bloody murder while mom or dad saves the landfills from his poop. Wrap up diaper, put it in plastic bag, dump in garbage. Because his urine is perfectly fine for groundwater.
Obviously everyone in entitled to an opinion and sure, shit in landfills is not a good thing. I can respect these ladies for their heart and passion to keep our water clean. But I do my part to help protect the environment in other ways, so I draw the line and
scraping crap from a diaper into the toilet. I won't even apologize for
it.
What's our job as moms and dads just trying to catch a parenting break? To stay sane.
Scraping crap off diapers into toilets? Not so much.