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Why are diapers so expensive? (tampabay.com)
258 points by Avshalom on April 5, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 536 comments



There are a couple of ‘facts’ listed here that don’t line up with my current reality and very recent knowledge (3 kids, most recent is 18mo).

First off, 12 changes a day is a huge outlier - even for a newborn. 8 would be a more reasonable number, and it drops down to the 4-6 range in the first year, and by now we’re at 3 if we don’t go swimming.

Second item that sounds waaay off is $1000/yr for diapers. Again, that has to be an outlier based on the worst possible set of assumptions. A box of 168 diapers lasts about a month and costs ~$40. That doesn’t add up...

And finally, many of the charities I work with will hand out diapers or cards for free diapers to anyone who asks. If you’re really in a bind, call a local church, women’s shelter, or commissary! We really do want to help, but we have to know you need it.


I just had a kid 2 months ago, and 12 changes a day doesn't seem all that unreasonable for a newborn. At our one-month checkup he was averaging 9 pees & 5 poops per day - several of the poops were doubled-up where he also peed, so a dozen per day is about right. It's dropped a bit since, but instances where a single changing results in multiple diapers used (eg. he shits the table right as I'm getting the new diaper on, or he pees all over the table including the diaper that's waiting to be put on) have somewhat made up for that.

Unit cost of a diaper is about $0.25-0.30 when bought in bulk (even with your example), so $1000/year = ~3200-4000 diapers = ~10 changes/day. Change your assumptions on diaper use and everything else lines up.


10 a day may be right for the first month or so, but it doesn't make sense to extrapolate that out for a year.


> or he pees all over the table including the diaper that's waiting to be put on)

Now, that's just you being n00b :-). Source: father of 3.5 years old and 4 month old kids. And yes, I also think 12 is too many. 8-9 diapers a day was max for a newborn, now 4 months later it's around 6-7.


This seems like a classic case of annecdotal evidence being extrapolated into general truth.

Two kids from an identical environment and sharing the same ancestors are hardly a significant sample.


Read anything about child milestones, and you'll see a great degree in variability in the value.

6-7 diaper daily changes. Normal. 8-10 diaper daily changes. Normal.


12 doesn't seem that strange to me. That's every 2 hours on average. 8 a day is every 3 hours like clockwork to keep a fresh/dry diaper on. Add in the unexpected poops that don't land on 3-hour boundaries and it's not hard to do 12. It seems like the upper end of normal but not an outlier.


It's pretty common for newborns to be on a highly regular 3 hours schedule for diaper changes. Happened with all three of our kids. Like clockwork, basically.


I’m going to disagree that this is common. Newborn schedules in general are not super predictable. I don’t know anyone who has described their newborn’s schedule as “clockwork”.


Babies don't read books about how babies are supposed to behave they just do what they do, be it 2 hours, 3 hours or some baby unique interval.


I had the the same issue with my now 5 month old, I'd guess most first time parents do.


This is one of the reasons why I am happy with Kraamzorg [1]. I learned from them that if you got a boy the first thing you do when you change a boy's diaper is put something on their penis (such as a burp cloth) so that they can't pee you in the face (or on the carpet/wall/door or w/e). I remembered that even though we don't have a boy; we had a girl about 2 months ago. :-)

FWIW, we're changing diapers roughly every 3-4 hours. I can pretty much put my clock on it (a blue strip shows if she's pee'd). Every 2 hours is overkill. The strip wouldn't be full blue yet.

There's also (washable) cloth diapers which are better for the environment and wallet though they're also an investment. We're planning on switching to them, but it is too early for now.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kraamzorg


> I learned from them that if you got a boy the first thing you do when you change a boy's diaper is put something on their penis (such as a burp cloth) so that they can't pee you in the face (or on the carpet/wall/door or w/e)

We do this - we've got 20 or so cut-up facecloths we use for this purpose. They are usually the limiting factor on how quickly we do laundry. It's not uncommon to go through 3/day; it's like having a set of cloth diapers we use just for diaper changes. Plus, he's gotten pretty good at avoiding the cloth and pissing out the bottom, or choosing that moment right when I take the cloth off and put the diaper on to unload, or shitting all over his penis (!!) so that I have to clean that first and getting me in the face while I'm bent over him with a wet-wipe.

Someday he's going to win a lot of pissing contests.


That blue strip on newborn diapers must be generating billions of revenue.

Newborns pee so little and diapers absorb so much that one diaper would be enough for the whole day. But with the strip, people switch them every few hours :)


If you rely exclusively on the blue stripe you're gonna develop a skin rash. I would love to see the data on your one diaper a day newborn test.


A whole day? Until poo? Last night I last changed our little one at around 1 AM and my partner changed her diaper at around 8 AM. Suffice to say, she was completely wet.


What makes it too early for cloth for you? They come in all kinds of sizes!


Cloth diapers do cost a little bit more effort whereas the first months with a newborn are rather hectic. More so for 2 parents with ASD. So we've opted to consider going for it later on, when its less hectic. Also, in the beginning a newborn will grow quickly out of clothes. Almost everything she wears right now is too large. But the diapers (some of which were free with a "box") fit her very well.


Not everyone has the ability to buy in bulk. They are considerably more expensive buying them 12 at a time at a corner store.


I feel like this is a problem the non-profits should tackle. The mother in the article does this, it seems she really is trying to work and not depend on charity/welfare. However, there is some financial literacy / access to capital / cashflow planning type issue going on that prevents her from planning properly (buying in bulk ahead of time). If the non-profit simply offered her affordable diapers (I imagine removing the retail markup alone saves a huge amount), a line of credit or something and helped her plan her diaper supply needs it seems like it could be a helpful service (maybe they do that, article only made it sound like they give away diapers to the poor)


I kinda think WIC and SNAP should just cover diapers like they do food. Kids need both.


0.25 - 0.30 is not a bulk price. You can buy a pack of 29 on amazon all in for 0.27 per diaper.

Buying in bulk (200 pack or so) easily gets you at 0.16/diaper or below. And even lower if you look out for deals.

And assuming you need them now and don't have money for bulk buy, a 27 pack at walmart for off-brand is $5.41 at the moment. ( ~0.20/unit )


Not everyone exhibits basic competency and planning ability, but that doesn't magically make other people responsible for setting up surrogates for them.


10 changes/day is a lot, even for a newborn. This number quickly drops to perhaps 4-6 per day, and continues to drop towards 1 year of life. As others have mentioned, it would not be uncommon to get to around 3 per day for a 1-3 year old. I also speak from experience with my own kids and would back that up as true.

Therefore, the cost of diapers is probably quite a bit less than $1000/year even in the worst case.

We've also invested in decent reusable cloth diapers. To buy "enough" of them so we aren't running out or doing laundry on a small set of them every few hours, we spent around $600 or $700 for a good bunch of them. These are reusable for years, and even across children. There's even a decent resale market for them if you can believe it. By far they are the cheapest means of diapering children, especially multiple children over time. However, the downside is quite an increased amount of laundry logistics. And, in some cases, it doesn't obviate the need for disposable diapers. For example, if you're going somewhere for the whole day, it might be easier to use disposables since you don't have to carry around soiled cloth diapers. Or if the kids visit other family... sometimes just simpler to rely on disposables.


Cloth diapers are fantastic, but they're a case of "Sam Vimes' Boots"[0]. Over the course of a year, they're a lot cheaper than disposable diapers, especially if you can get hand-me-downs from a friend or eg. a local parents group on Facebook. BUT, the initial outlay is still way too much for most working-class people, and they're really only practical if you have a washing machine at home. We ended up buying a used dryer when we had our first child, just because the diapers didn't dry fast enough on the line during the winter. The article mentions that a lot of coin laundries don't allow you to wash them there, and besides, you'd be at the laundromat at least once a day.

[0]: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Sam_Vimes_Theory_...


I love what I have been calling the "five second diaper"!


>$0.25-0.30 when bought in bulk

Are these silken luxury diapers? I just bought diapers and they were $0.16/each for Costco brand and that's not on sale. A quick search on amazon shows 0.14 - 0.17 for any bulk buy of brand name diapers and that is not considering the cheaper rate you could get if you subscribe or the frequent coupons and deals that show up.

The only option I see for diapers in the 0.25-0.30 range are a small pack of 29 diapers shipped for $7.97


Google search for [diapers]. 128 Pampers for $35 from Google Shopping Express ($0.27/ct), 88 Pampers for $25 from Target ($0.28/ct), 144 Pampers for $31 from Walmart ($0.21/ct). Other brands do get a fair bit cheaper - 140 Huggies for $21 from Target ($0.13/ct), 256 Luvs for $27 from Target ($0.10/ct), and we just tried buying some store-brand Target diapers that are 40% of the cost of Pampers. We're fairly brand-loyal as diapers go, though, because we've found that the Huggies blow out a lot more than Pampers (at least on our kid, who is pretty thin) and the Targets aren't nearly as absorbent.


And diapers are just the tip of the iceberg in term of spending. /sigh


It was a huge relief to get the children weaned, and off the giant vats of Similac ... I feel that was probably even more expensive than the diapers.


Oh man, diapers pale in comparison to formula costs. My daughter gets changed ~8 times per day, but she eats up to 36oz of formula. That's about $1.76 in diapers and up to $6.79 worth of formula. Add in DI water (since we make it from powder) and the obscene cost of bottles, and it gets even worse.


What's wrong with tap water? Formula still costs a lot, obviously, but you generally don't need special water for mixing formula unless your kid has an immune disorder or you live somewhere with unsafe tap water.


Depending on where you live, maybe nothing, maybe a lot. For example many areas still have high PPB of lead in their tap water (even if below the EPA guidelines of 15 PPB, or the EU's 10 PPB since 2013, it can still be considered unsafe, just not economical to fix).

Plus even ignoring heavy metal content, in some areas there might be micro-organisms in tap water (since it is sourced from a natural well or similar), so you'd need to be boiling tap water or risk making a newborn sick (even if your body could easily cope with similar water).

> Talk to your baby’s pediatrician and ask what kind of water you should use when mixing infant formula. The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends boiling water to remove impurities and kill germs. While most municipal and public drinking water supplies are required to follow strict regulatory guidelines to be safe, pediatricians generally still suggest using boiled water to mix infant formula, at least for the first three or four months. Since there is no evidence that bottled water is safer than municipal water sources, the AAP says that while parents can use bottled water to mix formula, it needs to be boiled first. You can also use distilled water that has already been purified or ready-to-use formulas, which do not need to be mixed with water.


Meh, I’ll take a pass on that. Chlorinated tap water in developed nations should have no appreciable microbial content. If you’re concerned about lead, I can understand that. If your goal is sterile food and your baby is healthy, I don’t really get that. You’re presumably washing your baby’s bottles in tap water anyway.


https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/faqs/infant-formula.html

>Can I use flouridated tap water to mix formula? "Yes, you can use fluoridated water for preparing infant formula. However, if your child is only consuming infant formula mixed with fluoridated water, there may be an increased chance for mild dental fluorosis. To lessen this chance, parents can use low-fluoride bottled water some of the time to mix infant formula; these bottled waters are labeled as de-ionized, purified, demineralized, or distilled, and without any fluoride added after purification treatment. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requires the label to indicate when fluoride is added."


Tap water through one of those pitcher filters is fine. It's super easy to spook new parents into buying stupid crap they don't need, out of fear.

So even if ten thousand of me said this a hundred thousand times, people would still buy the "special" bottled water with a picture of a baby on the label. You have to either just let them do it, or start bottling water and printing reassuring labels. They might wise up by the second or third kid.


In fact our Palo Alto pediatrician asked immediately if we use bottled water and said we should use tap water because of flouride and minerals that might not be in the water service water.


DI water? De-Ionized? The stuff marked "Not safe for human consumption: Lab Use Only" because of how dirty the ion exchange membranes get [among other things]?

Or were you trying to say 'distilled water'?


Outside the US, distilled water is often called deionized water. Same thing, different name.


It is not the same thing. Deionized water may contain neutral organic molecules, including viruses and bacteria, as it uses ion exchange resins pre-loaded with protons and hydroxides to remove all other anions and cations. Distilled water has been vaporized out of one container and recondensed into another, so contains nothing but water and molecules that form azeotropes with water.

Distilled water is deionized, but deionized has not necessarily been distilled.

In practice, however, both are overkill for baby formula.


Nobody's arguing that they're identical processes. My point is about the _labeling_ differences. Distilled water is often sold as deionized water in various parts of the world.


But there is literally zero additional printing cost for using the word that precisely matches the purification process. They even have the same number of letters in English. Why would anybody do that?


We use kirkland brand formula from costco. It's repackaged Similac. Exactly the same thing and it is less than half the cost. It even comes in the same plastic containers. They just change the stickers. All the other off-brands are likely just as good as any brand name and usually just repackaged brand name stuff anyway.

Filtered water is fine unless you live in an area with lead problems.

And what obscene cost for bottles? We have exactly 4 bottles so far for our 4 month old and they were less than $5 each. And new nipples are about $2 each when we needed to change the flow.


We managed to save about 50% off the cost of formula by making our own. A can of goat milk powder (Myenberg) costs ~ $10 and makes 3 quarts. Before 6 months we made sure the formula matched breast milk, using a spreadsheet--I'm working on a web app!--but let's say after 6 months it's fine to feed straight goat milk. Assuming a quart (32 fl oz) per day, that's about $3.33 per day, compared to $6/day for Enfamil ($27 for a tub that makes 18 cups).


We buy kirkland brand formula (same as similac). Costs us about $1.67 per day for a 4 month old.


triangle man hates particle formula they have a fight, triangle wins triangle man!


I hope you mean RO or some other purifying process. I wouldn't drink DI water.


Our kids were on formula as well. Between kid 1 and 2 we did buy a Baby Brezza (aka the Formula Keurig) which I'm mentioning here solely because it was such an unexpectedly positive help. It cut the process of mixing+warming+testing the formula down to just hitting a button (and likely saved my sanity).


Warming? Testing? We gave our 3 cold bottles premade a few hours before right out of the fridge. Thankfully they never complained, and made our lives a hell of a lot easier. I weep for the parents who need to do the whole warming thing... seems like a giant PIA


My kid had to be on Similac Alimentum for like a year.

Now that’s a good racket.


12 changes a day is not an outlier for a newborn, it’s normal. My son is 18 months and we change him probably 6 times a day at least.

Diaper pricing is dependent on how many you buy at once, I buy giant boxes so my unit cost is low. If you don’t have $40 to buy the giant box, but only $10 to buy a small package. You are paying twice the unit cost.


I realized in my thirties that if I had just dropped $1000 on a pallet of razor blades when I turned 18 I'd have saved a couple times that. Way better returns than the actual "investment" that money ended up in.


I bought a $30 corded hair trimmer and switched to a buzz cut (I was starting to bake anyway) and a full beard. I use maybe one double edged razor blade or disposable razor per month for the edges of my beard, that's all.

I haven't calculated the savings over the last 6-7 years, but it has to be a lot, compared to shaving daily and going to the hairdresser.


I can't grow a beard. Five days in and I give up. I do buzz my own hair though. It's super easy if you just use the same guard all over.


Don't give up, it takes time. If I shave off everything, it takes around 2 weeks before it's pretty good, and a month before I'm actually happy with it. But now that I have it, maintenance is super easy, I just keep the edges under control and trim any stragglers and stray hairs.

All beards look scraggly as they grow at first, you need to give it time to properly fill in before you give up. If you can, let it grow wild for a month, resist the urge to cut or trim. Then you can start adjusting it.

The most important tips I got were to set the bottom edge right above your Adam's apple, make it mostly a straight line and feather it out, so you don't have a hard edge. Feather in the sideburns as well. For the cheeks, I prefer to keep them natural or just lightly trimmed, but it depends on how hirsute you are.

I buzz my head without the guard, to the shortest possible setting. I did shave my head for a while, but I decided it isn't really worth it.


> Don't give up, it takes time.

It also takes the right genetics. Some of us will not have a real "beard" regardless of how much time we give it.


As a fellow bearded and balding guy, it's not real hard to use different guards, but the motions are new and using two mirrors to cut your own hair are awkward at first. You have to be ready to accept a short single guard buzz cut for your first 3-4 attempts. Having good clippers helps too.


I switched to a safety razor 10 years ago, and ordered 250 science (not shaving) grade blades.

I still have about 150 blades left. The pack cost me <20USD including shipping from US->EU.


Got a link, brand, or model number for these "science" grade blades? I've been an on-and-off DE shaver for some years, and I've never heard of this option. I settled on Feather blades myself.


I guess they're taking about American Personna Super blades, which are commonly referred to as "Lab Blues". They're about 12 cents a blade when you buy them in packs of 100, which makes them one of the cheapest blades around.

There's lots of discussion on shaving forums about exactly why they're called "labs", but as far as I know they're just regular double-edge blades.

I also prefer Feather. They cost about twice as much, but work much better on my tough stubble.


I imagine they're referring to the blades marketed for cutting up samples to put under a microscope. They're commonly sold in packs of 250.

Examples:

https://www.fishersci.com/shop/products/razor-blade-uncoated...

https://www.emsdiasum.com/microscopy/products/preparation/bl...


Also interested in link here. Also purchased large size feather blades a couple years ago still on the same box but running low.


I too use a DE safety razor and chose Feather blades after sampling an assortment. Is GP asserting there's something even better?


It wasn't stated that the blades were necessarily better, but the fact these "science grade" blades were chosen over name brands implies there may be some benefit. This was totally new to me, and it sparked my curiosity.


That’s funny. I have been using the same Gillette Sensor for 20 years. Off brand blades were available locally in the USA, but those dried up. Via eBay, I ordered Gillette branded blades “made in Germany” for a fraction of the cost of local Gillette blades. I figured the EU was not ripped off as bad as the USA for razor blades. Maybe that is not the case?

That razor recently broke, so it’s off to eBay again to find a replacement, since I have a box of blades. I refuse to pay for rip-off blades.


You're probably buying fakes, IIRC a study found the majority of name brand razor blades on eBay are counterfeit. Amazon has a counterfeit razor blade problem too, but I don't know the prevalence.


Probably, but if his face can't tell the difference, it's not a problem for him.


Until he gets hep C ( /s kind of )


The recent off-brand ones available in the US will rust if left in the shower. The "German made" ones don't, just like the OEM Gillette.


yes but storing a pallet of razor blades isn't easy and from 18 - 28 (when you would be using these razors) you are going to move a lot, due to work, college, just general renting. So moving a pallet each time is probably inefficient.


It costs money to save money.

Someone told me that mid-rich people often group together to have a grocery accountant who will do their bulk shopping for them and it ends up costing them less than a supermarket prices for superior products.


In Park Slope we have our food coop, which is co-owned by 16,000 of us and does just bulk buys of everything we need. We also voulenteer to work 3 hrs a month (I do childcare).

Our groceries are the freshest, localist, most responsibily sourced and affordable in NYC 20-50% off other stores.

FoodCoop.com


Thx for sharing this. Really cool. Where I live, I'm pretty sure we don't have a coop...but I want one!


We do about $50MM in revenue a year and also provide startup capital, training and voulenteer labor to help folks start their own.

Drop by for a tour and say hey if you do.


Could you please tell more about this grocery accountant? Sounds super interesting. How does it work? Thank you.


Razor blades are small. Assuming parent poster shaves every single day of that ten years, and each blade only lasts for two shaves, they'd need about 1830 blades.

That's 19 boxes of these, which probably fit in a shoe box.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Derby-100-Extra-Shaving-Blades/dp/B...


Given that he mentioned dropping $1000, I'm guessing he's talking about cartridge blades (e.g. Gilette Mach III), that cost a couple of bucks each and take up probably 20x as much space when packaged. Still not that much actual space needed. A small moving box would probably hold decades worth; definitely if stripped of the outer packaging.


> 12 changes a day is not an outlier for a newborn, it’s normal. My son is 18 months and we change him probably 6 times a day at least.

You can start potty training a kid at around one year's age though, which will decrease the need for diapers. That age depends on a kid of course, in my family it has started around when the kids learn to walk so age of 1-1.5.


With my first child I decided pretty quickly I'd had enough of changing pooey nappies once we began with solid food; so we started at c.6 months with potty training. All the guides said don't even try until they're 2½ IIRC. At that age they can't usually sit up, you hold them on first thing in the morning, and any time you're changing them.

Worked quite well. I added in audio cues after reading some Elimination Communication (EC) info.

3rd child, 2½ yo, will now poo & wee in potty a couple of times a day, and can tell us when he needs it. A good strong feedback loop, positive praise, no negativity about lack of "production".

Cloth nappies seem to accelerate potty training too (we've done cloth and compostable, solely the latter with current child), I think they can feel they wet themselves more easily, better feedback. If the nappy is so "good" they don't feel wet then there's no intrinsic incentive and no feedback.

As we did our version of baby sign (with parallel vocalisation) from c.6 months our eldest was able to tell us he needed the potty before he could talk.

Breastfeeding seems to make a positive difference with nappies and potty training too, I think the child has a healthier bowel and so perhaps more control, less gas, etc.


> Cloth nappies seem to accelerate potty training too (we've done cloth and compostable, solely the latter with current child), I think they can feel they wet themselves more easily, better feedback. If the nappy is so "good" they don't feel wet then there's no intrinsic incentive and no feedback.

Modern diapers are so good that they're counter productive to potty training. The innards whick all the moisture so the child's bottom remains completely dry until it gets extremely saturated.


> All the guides said don't even try until they're 2½

That is absurd. I wonder if the diaper companies wrote them?

We did something like 18 months which is far less impressive than yours but was not rocket science or anything. Maybe cheap diapers helped, as they don't feel as dry?


TBH I think that we probably started before we needed to, but poop in the potty means less mess for me to clean!

I suspect you may be right on both questions.


Ask your friends and neighbors. Did they also potty train at 18months?


What? Potty training is dependent on physiological changes around muscle control. It is usually not possible before 18-24 months. I have 3 kids under 5, and 24 months is the earliest that interest to go on the potty started.

https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/toddler/...


I'm a parent of a fully potty trained 24 month old. Mostly potty trained by 18 months, with lots of reminders. It's not easy, takes absolute commitment. The moment you look at your phone your 16-18 month old will be hiding behind then couch peeing (at least ours did).

That being said, it's nearly impossible if you don't have a parent doing full time caregiving. No daycare will do it. My wife used to do it as a nanny, where she learned about it, but that's an outlier. Really not easy to navigate between you and your family or friends who have similar age kids!


There are a bunch of people training them from very young, with baby lead potty training.

It's certainly interesting to see the difference between countries in all baby things, e.g. UK, US, Italy, France and Japan.

- How long kids are in nappys.

- How much food you are recommended to eat when pregnant.

- What foods to avoid when pregnant.

- What foods to give to babies and when.

These all vary massively from country to country.


Sticker books. Just put books that they can't place and match stickers, always leave near the toilet. If you like sticker books, and who doesn't, you know what to do...


Then how do Asian kids do it by age 1?


I assume you're referring to China, since "Asia" is a big and diverse place.

The Chinese use elimination training, or "potty on demand." You place the kid over the potty, make a specific sound they associate with going potty (you created the association previously) and they go. You then repeat this enough times in a day to eliminate the need for diapers.

I don't think elimination training is potty training. In potty training you're teaching the kid to tell YOU when they need to go, in elimination you are telling THEM when to go. Plus in potty training they're doing "active holding" whereas in elimination you're aiming for things to never get to that stage by going "potty on demand" enough throughout a day.

I think elimination training is very interesting and some parents have had great success mixing elimination with diapers to reduce the amount of accidents/cost. But even if they're trained on the elimination technique, they'd still need to be potty trained later, it just might be easier (since, again, you're asking them to tell you, rather than you tell them).


It's elimination communication, not elimination training :) The concept, as you explain, is that the caregiver is alert to cues that a poop is coming, and moves the child to the potty.


> 12 changes a day is not an outlier

> we change him probably 6 times a day at least

Does not compute... 6 times a day is not 12 times a day.


You seem to have cut out the parts that make it compute. Try reading the words in-between your quotes.


I called doctors as I was worried my kid only pooped once every second day, he said the normal range was around 20 times per day to once every 10 day (don't remember exactly).

The price of diapers also have a very large range from a few cent to a several dollar per diaper. So it's worth checking several markets. Poor people usually don't have much free time though. Especially when you have 3-5 small kids to take care of. Taking the buss around the city with all your kids is very impractical. Add the sleep deprecation and you wont have much patience either, and make stupid decisions. It is really hard to imagine the life of a poor family mother/father when you have a nanny that takes care of dressing, feeding, diapers, cleaning, washing, etc. It's basically a full time job.


I think you missed the part of the article where they talked about never having enough cash to buy in bulk, instead buying at 2 or 3x the unit cost in 5s and 10s from the corner shop.


When bulk is $40, you're just making some really, really poor life decisions if you both have a kid, and can't find a way to save that much money in a 30 day window.


"Then you shouldn't have had a kid" is among the most useless, vacuously/pointlessly true at best (and cruelly stupid at worst) statements you can give to any parent, no matter their circumstance.


I guess it's a good thing I didn't say that then.


You are making other assumptions here too, like having a Costco or Sam's Club nearby to buy the giant packs of diapers. Low income people often don't have those nearby.


You can buy diapers in bulk from amazon, Target, Walmart, honest company (more expensive), etc. Costco and sams club have almost nothing to do with the conversation other than being one of many options.


Condoms break, and it’s pretty damn hard to have an abortion if the only place you can get it done is halfway across the state.


[flagged]


The article did mention she has a rare condition meaning she might never be able to get pregnant and so this was may have been her only opportunity, so she choose it.

I don't think she was complaining here, rather sharing vulnerably the truth of what life is like for her.


I think thats a poor excuse. Even taking a payday loan out to buy a bulk bag(200 diapers) for $30 is more economical than buying a 10 pack every other day for $5. Pay day loan will cost $10 in fees but its cheaper than paying $75/m for diapers. And you just need do it once and save the $5 that you're spending every other day.


Using a legal loan shark to purchase nappies, we're now robbing Peter to pay Paul, the net gain once the legal loan sharks fees are rolled in would be pittance.

How far did society have to fail for us to have to encourage the use of loan sharks so our children can take a shit, seriously?

Edit: in an attempt to lighten the conversation which has suddenly became a class dividing conversation on economics and privilege.

My most highly rated comment on Hacker News is now about shit. Brilliant.

2nd edit: Two people didn't approve and have either removed an upvote, or I've been downvoted.

More drama than a soap box here today.


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I think we've found the inspiration for Cloud Atlas' Xultation.

'Let Them Eat Xultation' - Marie Antoinette, probably.


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Would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News?


I don't know if the numbers in the comment you're referring to are correct, but let's assume they're close enough and do the math.

If I pay $5 every other day for 10 diapers, then I'm paying ~$75/month for 150 diapers. $0.50/diaper, $2.50/day.

If I take a pay day loan of $30 for a 200 pack of diapers, then I've just brought a 40 day supply of diapers. $0.15/diaper, $0.75/day.

After 16 days I've recouped my original investment of a $30 loan + $10 fee. By the time day 40 rolls around and I run out of diapers, I've saved $60. I can now afford to buy bulk diapers in perpetuity. For every subsequent month, I'll be spending $52.5 less on diapers.


Good luck finding a legal loan shark that only charges $10.

I can only speak from the fees here in Australia but here, for a small loan. You're looking at a minimum fee of 200-300% and that's assuming you pay on time.

This is why legal loan sharks exist, and if this method actually did work as you intended it, why do legal loan sharks still exist? Couldn't you apply your macroeconomics to everything?

Food? Nappies? Water? Bulk buy all of your items on legal loan sharks just once and you're ahead.

1) Get a small loan

2) Buy all the small disposable/consumables you require in bulk and reap the savings

3) Pay off the loan with 200-300% in fees on top, assuming you pay it off in time

4) ...

5) Profit!


At 200% you still come out ahead after your first packet of diapers.

As somebody who grew up in abject poverty, and who lived in poverty for the first portion of their adult life, better planning will absolutely make situations like this instantaneouly better. When I was poor as hell I put a huge amount of effort into buying in bulk and doing various other things to avoid all of the blindingly obvious poverty traps that exist. It took some hardship to get everything established properly, but my whole life was hardship, so big deal...

Most people in the west could get away with living a sustainable (although shitty) lifestyle in poverty. It’s only proper planning and effort that will pull them out of it.


@lulmerchant

I'm from a poor working background too. You can look through my comment history, topics of poverty, drug abuse and macroeconomics are some of the many topics that typically interest me enough to contribute to the conversation here on Hacker News.

Your logic is absolutely sound, but in the event or period where you've taken the loan and have to pay it off in 1-2 weeks. What happens when said parents child gets sick and requires more nappies that day?

Perhaps they need medication.

Maybe they lost some cash walking to the grocery store.

They lost a days work.

There's no room for error and when or if that occurs. The entire benefit goes backwards and you end up losing so much more than you hoped to gain.

There's a whole myriad of reasons that could contribute to this loan going backwards when you have 0 disposable income.

But if you're borrowing $30 for nappies, it would not take much to then push you outside of that fortnightly budget so you are not able to meet your legal loan sharks contractual payments and that, by definition, is a financial slippery slope.

The financial industry relies on people like this, I would assume for every credit card owner that has 55 interest days free or a 0% balance transfer. There's another 9 who don't pay off in time and will incur interest charges and fees and make the entire business venture profitable.

Legal Loan sharks are profit driven, they are not providers of care, and they are not their to help you get ahead so you do not need to use their services again. Their business model is the exact opposite. They assume you will need to go back, and go back repeatedly.

You'd do well to watch Episode 2 of Dirty Money on Netflix - Payday. The entire episode is essentially a business case for why Loan Sharks should be avoided at all costs.

But the thing is, your maths is _correct_. So instead why can't we loan this person who lives in poverty from non-profits and similar who want to _help_ if it's so logically sound that allowing those in poverty to buy in bulk, will allow them to get ahead?


I don’t disagree with most of that. The loan shark maths is just one (rather contrived) example of how a person can break out of a particular poverty trap.

It’s harder to break out of a poverty trap than it is to live with one, but it’s much easier to stay out of one than it is to live with it. My point is that with the correct effort, people can generally break free of most of the poverty traps they find themselves in.

To speak to your last point, there generally are non-profits around who help with these sort of things, and I used some of them myself in the past. The thing that non-profits can provide so simply is the motivation and discipline required to maintain a well planned budget. Each small thing that you improve, like buying diapers in bulk, is a step towards escaping poverty, and everybody has the capacity to do those things.


> My point is that with the correct effort, people can generally break free of most of the poverty traps they find themselves in.

I find 'correct effort' to rather deceptive term, because part of the problem is defining what that would be (and your example failed as a 'correct' one).

Furthermore, I'd say a cursory glance at history shows that what you're saying is not true. Slaves did not just free themselves, the working class did not just obtain the many rights all enjoy by themselves, women did not just gain voting rights and all that jazz by themselves, and all this applies to gays and the mentally disabled too.

I'm not arguing against 'correct effort', clearly many poor, slaves, women and gays fought hard. The crucial bit here is that they did so collectively, that they needed a lot of help from those who were not in their situation, and that a big part of this involved effecting political change.

I've never heard a convincing argument that somehow we're now in a completely different situation, and that somehow now the steps one can take as an individual are 'correct action', even if of course they can't hurt.

It strikes me that this focus on the individual is somehow a problem on both ends of the political spectrum. The one side devolves into perhaps too much identity politics, and the other too much into the "we'd all be fine if we just worked harder on ourselves".

Both sides, meanwhile, seem to prefer to paint the other side as being will-fully <insert shitty ism>, when I think we're all really mostly equally shitty and good, probably partly right, and really we should just be mad at the immense inequality that has left us mis-directing our anger at each other.

Broadly speaking, anyways.


People aren’t property any more, we all have equal protection under the law, we have mostly reliable social welfare programs, and private charitable programs are bigger than they’ve ever been. Your analogy doesn’t hold any water at all.

The correct effort is simply whatever a person can do to make incremental improvements to their lives. It’s going to be different for everybody. Psychologically, part of the reason that poverty traps are so easy to fall into is because people in poverty don’t have the luxury of indulging in much long term decision making. However some opportunity always exists, and finding an exploiting those opportunities is the only way out.

The reason there is any focus on the individual is because you can’t simply subsidize out of poverty. If you want people to get out of poverty and to stay out of poverty, then those people need to take responsibility for their own destiny. Arguably society could do a better job of giving people the tools to do that, but that doesn’t change the dynamics of the problem. The truth is that if I was in that persons shoes, I’d be living a better life than they are. Because I was, and I managed to, and those skills eventually got me completely out of poverty all together.


we all have equal protection under the law, we have mostly reliable social welfare programs, and private charitable programs are bigger than they’ve ever been. Your analogy doesn’t hold any water at all.

Reality is that minorities get charged more harshly for the same crime than Whites and once you have a criminal record, it's harder to get a job.

Studies have also shown that all other things being equal, when a person has a resume that signals "blackness", they get fewer calls back.

Not to mention that because of overzealous prosecutions, poorly funded public defenders offices, and the prominence of plea deals, poor people don't get the same breaks as someone who can afford their own lawyer.

Then let's not even mention the poor state of some school districts since schools are funded by property taxes leading to a cycle of poor schools.

As far as just because you were able to come out of poverty means anyone can is just like saying that because I won the lottery, why can't anyone? Statistically, income mobility is rare.


Most of us went to college and lived off poverty level income. I ate potatoes, and ramen for years with a 10/hr part time job and still managed to save enough money to go on trips.

It doesn't take much time to put together a budget and if you lack the knowledge i am sure you can find free community classes to get basic budgeting skills. I signed up to volunteer at one but they had too many volunteers.

People need to get out this learned helplessness and make effort to improve their lives.


> People need to get out this learned helplessness and make effort to improve their lives.

Surely you see the problem here?


This may be accurate math but it’s also the thought process of a non-indigent person sitting at a computer, not the thinking of someone who works all day for $8.25 and hour and is taking care of a newborn and trying to make ends meet.


If you had the intelligence to do that calculation, you would have the intelligence to not be in such a desperate situation in the first place.


That's not intelligence, it's privilege and having sufficient disposable income to invest in cost saving.

Items like chest freezers that cost more electricity to run, but allow me to buy more food and freeze it. At the cost of larger electricity bills.

It's having enough money for fuel so I can drive 80km to Costco.

It's having /time/ so I can just do the baths of all the above because I'm not working 60 hour weeks to feed the family.


That’s grade school arithmetic. We’re not talking about people who aren’t intelligent enough to do arithmetic, we’re talking about people who don’t have the correct mindset and motivation to make small, incremental investments in their future.


Maybe she could have waited until she had $30 saved up before having a kid? Crazy, I know.


I do not blame stressed people (single mother most of all!) from making decisions based on lack of time.

However, it really IS helpful to make a larger purchase. You can think of convenience-purchase-pricing of things you use regularly at home like loan-sharking at exorbitant rates. It hits those least capable of affording it.

The flip side is you get a huge benefit from scrounging for the money/time to get the bulk package. It's like an small investment that returns 200%.

My wife makes fun of me, but I often buy a large amount/quantity of a few items at the grocery store, i.e. ones that we already use regularly, that I know the usual price of, so I know when a "sale price" (or bulk price) is actually a good deal. This only really works well for things that are shelf-stable, of course.

Diapers are definitely one of the things you should try to buy in large packages when the prices are low. It genuinely is hard for a single mother to do this, but there's a significant payback in both money AND time.


It's not just convenience. Because of cash flow (rent, groceries, etc), people on the poorer end of working class just never have enough money available at one time to do bulk buys, even with perfect money management.


Ultimately, I think the main thing that's interesting about this article is how programs for the poor have so many restrictions on what one can buy with them that can create sorta random hardships (in this case, essentially none of the financial assistance program funds can be used to buy things one might want to spend money on when taking care of a baby, like diapers).

That said, we have a 4-month old, and she still needs 12-15 changes a day (it's only gone down a little since birth) to be happy. She starts crying the moment she wets her diaper, and that and being hungry are just about the only reasons she cries, so it really is important to change her often, and those 168-diaper boxes last more like 2 weeks. For us buying bulk packages at about the same ~$0.25 each price you are, it does cost like of $80/month i.e. $1000/year. My friends tell me the rate of diaper use goes down at about the same rate that the size of the diapers go up (so a box of constant size lasts about a constant duration); I haven't researched the price for larger diapers, but wouldn't be surprised if companies price the larger diapers to keep a constant dollars/month rate.

This is also something that varies a lot more based on the kid than anything else. We have a friend whose kid was born the same week who never cries due to diapers and they have to set a schedule of checking to avoid her kid getting a rash, since the kid never asks for a change.

So I think certainly $80/month is the right number to think about from a policy perspective, since that's what they cost for a significant portion of families (even if you buy in bulk as we do). If some families (like our friends with the kid who doesn't complain about wet diapers) get away with less, that's great for them, but not much comfort to a poor family for whom this is a hardship.


12 changes a day is not a huge outlier, but it is on the high end. Standard pediatrics holds that a newborn - infant that is not dehydrated should be producing 2-8 diapers of urine per day. A newborn should be producing a couple of BMs a day, down to once a day by age four (though IME once/day even relatively soon after birth is pretty common.)

And the articles does say “as many as 12, though older kids need fewer.” So, that seems spot-on.


Why would people bring a child into the world if they can't even afford diapers, will always blow my mind.


It's not about affording diapers, it's about affording clothes and food and healthcare and baby strollers and a bigger apartment and babysitting and diapers.

The costs of everything you need to raise a child come as a surprise to most middle-class people. How would they not to the poor. Common sense says that people raise kids in developing countries and they have nothing, so it can't take money, right? But in a western society with a western standard of living, that common sense is wrong.


Or to put it differently: If you raise a child like in a developing country, but you are in one of many developed nations, the government will come and abduct your child.


Because they got pregnant. And an abortion wasn't possible, for medical or ethical reasons.

Edit: Or for other people's ethical reasons, manifested as laws against abortion.


Or political. Abortion is not accessible in all parts of the country.


With all due respect, I never understood the prevailing attitude in the US to do everything it takes to make you keep that „sacred life“ if you get pregnant by accident – and then once it‘s there, drop it like a hot potato and do exactly zero to make it a tax-paying, happy and productive member of society. The hypocrisy of it all just blows my mind.


"Pro-birth"

Yeah, they wail and wail about murdering children and then are all too pleased to scorn and segregate the mothers (but not so much the fathers) of these children so they have the worst possible chances.


Right, political. I was including that in "ethical". But I see my error.


Or in all western countries.


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At which point did we, as a society, settle the philosophical conundrum that is taking an unborn life? Cells, fetus or baby? What is it? Since when? Why? How should it be done?

I'm not religious at all but it seems to me that, at least tangentially, most religious believes are rooted in philosophical unknowns and feeling of uncertainty. Religious people then resort to their faith of choice as a way to find answers.

Then again, since, as you say, being against abortion for religious reasons is idiotic, do we have an all encompassing scientific and philosophical answer about when, why and how it is "not idiotic" to perform an abortion?

If we don't, because as far as I know we don't, then why is it idiotic to decide based on your inability to understand a situation for which other people do not have answers?

As I said, I'm not religious and agree that religion is certainly not the only compass some people should lead their lives by. Nevertheless, your remark rubbed me the wrong way. "Idiotic," how can you be so judgmental if you to don't have answers to all the questions I listed above?


The philosophical conundrum was settled when we as a society created the single definition for what life is. At that date we also defined good, evil, humane and inhuman.

That is to say, there is no single moment when those got a definitive definition. There is human rights and yet we have not a single definition of what human mean. I still recall reading discussions if a dead person has human rights or not, which implies some amount of uncertainty that goes beyond even life itself.

Calling people idiotic is never the right move and it does rub people in the wrong way, but I disagree to the claim that you need to have all the answers. I do not have a encompassing scientific and philosophical answer when human life start, what makes it human, and when it ends, but I still perceive human rights to be essential and those who object to human rights to be fundamentally wrong. If the discussion is to be moved forward I feel like demanding answers to those question will just lead into an impassable domain.


Yes, it's a cheap shot to just dismiss it all as religious and idiotic. Except in self-defense or war, societies generally aren't OK with killing people. But when do fetuses become people? Some cultures were OK with parents (or at least, fathers) killing children younger than eight years. Many have gone with birth as the cutoff.

There is an argument that conception is the cutoff. But on the other hand, the relationship of mother and fetus is rather unique. So arguably she can evict a fetus, whenever she wishes. After all, there is otherwise no obligation for one person to save the life of another.

So anyway, it's not just about religion.


> So anyway, it's not just about religion.

But religion played and still plays a large role in forming these discussions because of its supposedly unique position as a "moral compass" for many cultures over the course of history.

Imho this is especially evident if you take a look cloning and stem-cell research in general. While most of the West is still busy trying to figure out how to make it compatible with Christian ideals of life, China, in their usual pragmatism, just goes ahead and does it because they don't have a comparable lobby stopping them from doing it.

In that regard, it is pretty much religion that put a stop sign there and even tho this debate is anything but new, I'm not really sure we've actually progressed at all with said debate, it rather feels like decades of stalemate.


Yes, many religions undeniably provide standard answers for such ethical questions. But that doesn't make them religious questions.


> So arguably she can evict a fetus, whenever she wishes.

A mother 'evicting' a fetus at 24 weeks without the abortion would result in a very tiny, but likely healthy baby (at least in the US, where premature baby care is generally outstanding). Source - held one in my hands this fall when our friends adopted him.


Sure, she evicts, and gives it up for adoption. If it's viable, it gets adopted, or ends up in an orphanage. If it's not viable, it dies. But it's not her responsibility.


It's not that religions are idiotic. It's that trying to enact any moral framework homogenously across a global population is idiotic and completely unrealistic.


Religions are for slaves.


> "Because they got pregnant"

Really? In 2018, given the myriad of ways you can cost-effectively prevent pregnancy, I hardly accept "because it happened" as an answer.

Yes, birth control sometimes fails. That statistic alone cannot explain the quantity of individuals having children, who simply shouldn't be. People can down vote me all they want, but what I am saying is true: Having children when you cannot afford to take care of them is reckless and incredibly selfish.


People screw up, all the time.

But yes, sometimes people have kids, realizing that they have no clue how they'll afford them. Call it desperation, if you will. Or rebellion against an unjust society.

Or maybe they don't really think it through. Much of the time, I suspect.


Put it to adoption ?


Because the color of your skin matters. African American babies are cheaper to adopt but stay in the system longer because they are harder to place in adoptive homes.


Not really relevant to solving the problem of getting rid of the baby. Any parent who's OK with aborting that baby probably doesn't have any issue with how long the baby stays in the system.


Totally relevant. The original statement was (paraphrased) "Someone might have gotten pregnant even if they can't afford kids," to which someone replied "Put it to adoption."

First, this seems incredibly heartless -- poor people should just give their kids up to adoption -- and second, it only makes "logical" sense if you assume that adoption is a better outcome for the kids than growing up poor. But if, as stated, some kids are going to end up in "they system" for years or decades, instead of magically getting adopted into some rich family, then putting them up for adoption may well end up much worse.


What a fetus comprehends is different from what a toddler comprehends. Many people assume (whether correctly or incorrectly) that a fetus has the level of consciousness of an animal, or perhaps even less than a companion species like dogs.


Correct me if I’m wrong, but it can actually cost money to put a child up for adoption in some places.


You're wrong in the US, which is where this story is. In fact adoptive moms get healthcare, and sometimes even room/board/food etc paid for them.


I agree. Birth control is much cheaper than diapers, and a lot cheaper than raising a child to adulthood. The person this article focuses on was chosen carefully. Most readers will feel sympathy for her, but in reality, the consequences of her decision to have unprotected sex out of wedlock while working at a low-paying job and living with her parents as an adult is her responsibility. And clearly, she's irresponsible. And there are people who don't think adult humans should be responsible for themselves, which is who this article's aimed at.


Birth control fails. Approximately 8% of women still end up pregnant during their first year on birth control, and even after the first year the percentage doesn't fall to 0.

There are many reasons that it fails, although missing a dose is the largest reason. Other reasons can be improper storage, using certain drugs (prescription or otherwise), or even consuming an unusual amount of some foods or supplements. Even if you do everything right there's a small chance that it will happen anyway.

Now, people like to claim that if you skip a dose or mess up taking it at the wrong time of the day it's your fault, but it can be complicated due to the different types of pills available, and if you get switched to a different brand, it can be easy to mess up. Typically pills come in a 28 pack. The first 21 or 24 of those will have the hormones used to prevent pregnancy, and then either 7 or 4 will be placebos. But some schemes only give you 21 pills and then you go a week without taking any before starting up the next set. There's also now larger packages and the hormone concentrations and days without taking them vary as well.

Condoms have certain advantages, but they break. And other forms of birth control tend to be more expensive and out of the reach of people living in poverty.


IUD anyone ?


They're more effective, yes, but carry more risks since you're keeping a foreign object in you for up to 10 years at a time.

You can see the various options and pregnancy rates (both based on the typical use and the perfect use case) for the first year: http://www.arhp.org/Publications-and-Resources/Quick-Referen...

Personally, rates like these makes me glad to be a gay male.


> carry more risks

Citation needed, and good luck finding one considering the long list of pills side effects.

Also all your previous objections to birth control are invalid in the case of IUD.


Very effective and a good choice, but I know someone who had a child after getting an IUD.


IUD pregnancies are often extrauterine (which are mostly non viable, so that solves the unwanted pregnancy problem). And there's still abortion. I wonder to what point having a child was a choice in the case you evoked.


As someone who had a very wanted (married, secure in our careers) pregnancy end up being “extrauterine” (tubal, if you must know) and therefore requiring emergency medical intervention to not kill me, I think you may want to reconsider that as a better or more economical outcome.


Well, there is one form of birth control that's both free and 100% effective.


In the same way, although cooking doesn't always make food safe to eat, there is a form of cooking that's simple and 100% effective: not eating.

And although the various safety measures rock climbers use sometimes fail, there is a method of rock-climbing safety that's 100% effective: not going rock-climbing in the first place.

And I have a perfectly safe car: that is, I never leave my house.

I take it you can see how ridiculous these are. The point (well, one point) of cooking is to be able to eat food and not get food poisoning. The point of all the ropes and things is to be able to climb rocks and not fall to your death. The point of seatbelts and crumple zones and antilock braking is to be able to drive from place to place and not get killed in a car crash.

Not having sex -- which I assume is what you are referring to here -- isn't a form of birth control, because it doesn't accomplish the objective of having sex and not making babies.

It might still be a good idea, of course. Just as it might be a good idea never to go rock climbing (maybe it's just too dangerous to be really worth it for anyone who's thinking clearly) or never to drive a car (it's bad for the environment in lots of ways, after all). But that's a separate argument, and the case needs to be made honestly (cost/benefit on failure rates, appeals to alleged rules handed down by alleged gods, etc.) rather than by snarky one-liners like the one above.


You need to eat. You need to leave the house. You need to use some form of motorized transport to partake in society.

You don't need to have sex. Abstinence is a form of birth control as much as being bald is a hairstyle.


So pleasure should only be for the wealthy?

I know that this may sound strange, and I don't share this trait myself, but for many people sex is a critical part of forming a romantic bond with their partner. Without sex, they feel unloved and invalidated in the relationship. That's just part of their emotional needs. So for some people sex is indeed a psychological need.


You don't need to do any of those things. You can subsist on liquid diet-drinks. Plenty of people never leave their homes, either by choice or because for some reason they can't. Plenty of people don't have cars. (I didn't until I was 36 years old.)

But a large fraction of people would find their lives made much, much worse if they were unable to eat solid food, to leave their house, or to drive a car.

Exactly the same goes for sex.

Brief reminder of the context for this discussion: the person the OP is about had a child despite not having much money, various people here said you shouldn't be having children if you're too short of money, others pointed out that not having children is sometimes difficult, and that is when user rubidium suggested that total abstinence from sex might be the answer.

So we're talking here about whether it's reasonable to say that poor people should just never have sex.

I guess opinions on that might vary. My opinion is: duh, no, what an absolutely terrible idea. You don't literally have to have sex any more than you literally have to have friends or holidays or music, but just like any of those it's a hell of a thing to say whole classes of people should just do without.


Speak for yourself.


Only the rich should be able to have the fulfilling romantic relationship they desire, right?


Make that 99.9999999999% effective, according to "sources".


"source". Just one, The Bible.


AD&D sourcebooks, 2nd edition, salvaged from the trash?


So unmarried women who can’t afford birth control, or who live at home should be forced into abstinence?

Your entire comment is incredibly entitled and condescending. Have a look through the other comments on this thread for some reasonable discourse on the subject, plenty of people have commented on how the issue is far more nuanced than you make it out to be.


That's exactly the point some of us are trying to make:

This issue is incredibly nuanced, but people like you (and the authors of the article) never want to talk about one side of it: Personal responsibility.

The second we bring it up, we're denounced as callous, entitled, naïve, etc. etc.

It's surprising to me how often those pronouncing the complexity and nuance of an issue are almost always just fierce defenders of ONE side - the other side - of the issue.


One factor to consider is that it might, even in the US, be one of the few ways to make sure you'll (eventually) have some helping hands and be (somewhat) taken care of in older age.


Maybe because they also couldn't afford contraception?

Life just happens, as nice as it would be for all children to be born planned into stable circumstances, afaik the reality is often quite a bit more unpredictable than that.


Rape is a thing.

Failed contraception is a thing.

Lack of access to contraception or abortion is a thing.


Some things/ideas/comments are best kept in our thoughts. Your comment qualifies; I mean it as a feedback.


Yeah, lets not talk about icky things like people not being responsible.


I work in Family Law and these type of statements can be said about any group: wealthy, middle class, poor.

Middle class: "That people who work all the time and never spend time with their kids are allowed to have children will always blow my mind. What is the point of having a child if you never see them."

Rich: "That people who will rob their kids of their self reliance, by buying them everything they want, are allowed to have children will always blow my mind. What is the point of having child if they just end up leeching on their parents."

I mean we can come with all sorts of irrational and judgmental comments.


They shouldn't, but now that it's done, should the child have too suffer for the mothers mistakes?


So, only the wealthy should have kids? Because if you factor everything in that we "should" be doing for kids, only the wealthy could afford it.

Seriously, why don't we leave the decision of who should be allowed to have kids out of the conversation and we as a society buck up and help take care of the ones who need help?


Why should middle-class people be the only ones who can have children? I find it much more mysterious that we have people who work full time in this country who can't afford diapers.


My son is 4 months old. For the first few months, 12 changes a day was definitely not an outlier. However, we were very quick to change his diaper once we noticed it was wet.

$1000/yr for diapers is definitely possible. You and I may have the luxury of purchasing diapers in bulk, but for many people (such as the young woman in the article), 32 diapers for 10 bucks is reality.


This article was from Tampa Bay, Florida. Different states have very different social services nets. And it also varies by metro area. Also, prices are often (perversely) cheaper for basics like food, gas, and diapers in wealthy areas vs poor areas.


I have a 10 week old and we've kept meticulous logs of diaper changes[1] (and everything else). We get 12 diaper change days a couple times per week. 9 is more typical. $1000/yr is pretty high but not unbelievable. A lot of grocery stores and small shops don't sell diapers in cost saving bulk packages so it really just depends on where you live and your access to more economical options.

1. https://i.imgur.com/IAFAu18.png


$1000/year seems normal to me.

Even when they start using less the older kid pack costs the same for fewer diapers... plus night diapers etc.

Add wipes etc and you hit over $1000 easily.


Anecdotally I agree. Especially if you are buying the Costco branded diapers in the 168-count boxes.

The Costco diapers (and formula actually) are the same mfgr as the name brands, at a significant discount.


Unfortunately for families that struggle with finances and like many other issues — it takes money to save money.

People buying small packs as needed will end up spending significantly more than those who can afford to stock up at places like Costco.

I also use Costco diapers, and I basically only buy them when they're on sale at $8 off per pack, which is a 20%-25% discount, depending on diaper size.

To do this you have to:

- be educated about looking at unit prices and be able to think through these issues

- afford a Costco membership in the first place. Yes — it "pays for itself", but you have to afford it in the first place and have the self-control to not spend more than you should.

- afford and plan accordingly to stock up by buying multiple boxes of diapers at a time when they're on sale. You have to buy enough that you don't need any for the 3-4 month gap between sales.

Besides Costco, I've found that the Target brand is priced rather reasonably, even at the smaller quantities.

The difference between buying newborn diapers at Costco sale prices vs a normal-sized Pampers box is $0.11/unit vs $0.28/unit. It's huge, and remains high as sizes go up ($0.21 vs $0.40 for size 5).


> afford and plan accordingly to stock up by buying multiple boxes of diapers at a time when they're on sale. You have to buy enough that you don't need any for the 3-4 month gap between sales.

Right, and “afford” doesn't just mean the price of buying the diapers in one shot (which is simply the discipline of saving for intermittent purchased) but also affording adequate storage space for the stockpile (including after all applying a similar strategy to any other productd for which it provides a higher return.

The “cheaper if you buy bulk packs at Costco, and cheaper still if you buy multiple of those when they are on sale” thing is true, but is equivalent to “cheaper if you have a big chunk of storage space you can devote to it, and cheaper still if you have a giant chunk of storage space.”


Our pediatrician explained that the frequency of changes varies. Some children go more than others, some less.


What about diapers not pumped full of BPA and other chemicals?


Just to provide some perspective, I have worked on the structural analysis (FEA) of diapers for P&G, when I was working at an engineering consulting firm. As the article states, these companies pour millions into R&D, and for me that included running simulations to determine if the diaper's material properties were appropriate. To do this, I was running simulations of a diaper being wrapped onto a baby, the baby walking, and then pooping. The pressure, forces, stresses on the diaper were calculated and we drew conclusions based on these simulations to improve the quality. When I was working there, I also worked on new razors, loofahs, bottles, etc.


As a parent thank you! It is amazing the things a diaper managed to neatly contain. I always imagined there was a group dedicated to design things the elastic catch on the edge of the diaper.


My wife and I cloth diapered both of our children. In addition to being radically cheaper it also resolved rashes/eczema in both kids as well as accelerated potty training.

There is an 'ick' factor but liners and a toilet sprayer take care of 99% of that.


We cloth diaper too (3 kids, a two and a half year old potty trained for about a year now, and 5 month old twins). Personally, I find disposable diapers to be way more disgusting than cloth. With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop. Its like having a mini pit toilet in your house.

We have also noticed, like you mentioned, that cloth diapers are easier on the babies' skin and makes potty training significantly easier.

For anyone who is reading this and may be interested in cloth diapering: Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster.


Props for doing that. We tried with our twins, but eventually decided cloth diapers are for people with single kids that aren't burnt out.


Ugh. Yeah, I regret deeply buying cloth diapers for my twins. The economics looks better for twins, since you only need like 50% more, but the time premium is higher than expected with twins, so it ended up eating into too much prescious downtime. Worse is we couldn't get them to stop drinking the majority of their fluid intake before bed, and the pee at night required us to use absorbant disposables anyways. In the end I'm not sure they were a net positive investment, even ignoring the higher than expected opportunity cost of havings twins.


"cloth diapers are for people with single kids"

Maybe not for twins, but "one kid at-a-time" is more than doable and the second kid is where the real money savings come in.


Yeah, I meant that by single (English is my second language).

And of course cloth diapers are probably a good idea for twins too, but I just couldn't handle it. There comes a point where you'll give almost anything to get five minutes of free time every now and then.


Sister had twins - I totally get it. Their house was crazy for the first couple years. You do what works ;)


> With cloth, you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain. With disposables, you end up with a garbage can literally full of poop.

Worth pointing out that just because you use disposables doesn't mean you can't rinse it out / dump into a toilet. We used cloth for 8 months and then transitioned to a daycare that wouldn't let us use them. I still dump all solids into the toilet because I don't want my baby's room to smell like poop 24/7.

Also, if you read the box, most diapers will instruct you that you are supposed to do this, as human waste doesn't belong in landfills.


The thing that grosses me out when I attempt to do that is then the polymer filling stuff gets all wet and nasty. That stuff just weirds me out...

Our twins are currently just breastfed, which means their poop is basically yogurt. So nothing to dump in the toilet yet. I remember we would dump the harder poops out before we threw the diapers away if we were out of town and using disposables.


Disposable diapers are actually a burden on society in many places even beyond the obvious problem of essentially putting sewage in the trash; https://www.nearta.com/Papers/GovernmentDiapers.pdf


> you rinse it out and the majority of the gross stuff is down the drain.

How do you rinse it? What drain?

> Get some quality covers and then buy a ton of flour sack towels. They make the best inserts. Super absorbent, cheap, and unfolds to a single layer, which means they get cleaner and dry faster.

Don't understand this whole paragraph.


Many people have a laundry room (or area) with washer, dryer, and utility sink. For example, see http://www.mlexecutiverealty.com/_account/images/listing/122... .

Taking care of a baby requires specific education. You should not expect to know everything about the topic if you have not researched it.

It is rude to express your confusion this way. As written it implies that the author did not express things well, when it appears instead to be that you are ignorant of the topic and don't feel like doing the research. I'm often that way, but since no one else cares, I don't comment about it.

How is it that you did not think to do, say, a DDG search for "diaper insert", or even better, "diaper insert flour sack"? The first hit for the latter is http://mamanloupsden.com/2014/10/29/whats-deal-flour-sack-to... , which seems quite relevant.


I've seen people hook up a hose to their toilet and just spray the diaper "into" the toilet, I guess it could also double as a bidet too if you wanted.


I don’t agree, it was terse but didn’t intend it to be rude, and there is some responsibility to use clear wording without obscure terms or jargon. Raised a child and never heard any of those terms before.

Reminds me of many tech articles here where obscure acronyms are never explained.

Also putting feces down the sink doesn’t sound like a great idea, though maybe it’s fine. No explanation given either way.


You don't put it down the sink, you rinse off the diaper into the toilet.

https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Baby-Cloth-Diaper-Spraye...


The sink and the toilet connect to a drain pipe within probably 5 feet, so its really not as gross as people tend to think. Also, no matter what you are going to get poop on your hands and wash that off in the sink, so poop is going down the sink either way.

Obviously when the baby is old enough to have well-formed poops, you dump that in the toilet. Otherwise we just rinse them in the sink, put them in a 5 gallon pail, and then wash them in the washing machine every day or two. (More often because of twins)


Diaper covers are basically the water-proof outer part of the diaper. Then you put cloth inside to handle the absorbing liquid.

For example: https://www.amazon.com/Thirsties-Wrap-Cloth-Diaper-Cover/dp/...

Flour sack towels are thin kitchen towels, I assume named how they are because they are the same material that people used to buy bulk flour in.

The picture is bad, but these are what we bought: https://www.theisens.com/products/flour-sack-kitchen-towel/8...

Basically its a towel a little less than 3 feet on each side. I fold it in half the long way, in half the other way, and then in thirds the original direction. You put that inside of the diaper cover, and then put it on the baby just like a disposable diaper.

When the baby pees, you replace only the cloth part. When they poop and it gets on the cover, you get a new cover as well.


A lot of people don't live in places with an in-home washer/dryer. They have to go elsewhere in the building for pay laundry or to the laundromat. This makes it logistically and financially nearly impossible to use cloth diapers. Not to mention the substantial up front cost for cloth diapers, which makes them inaccessible for people living paycheck to paycheck. This is an example of how having money allows you to save money.


When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall.

In relation to the case in the article, I wonder if we couldn't subsidize certain items and allow parents to receive a one month supply at low to no cost? Why should we give disadvantaged people $180 a month just to let several middlemen take a cut via the corner drugstore?


The main idea behind UBI is that the government doesn't know exactly what each individual needs at any given time, but does know that those things can probably be bought for money. One person might need diapers, another socks, and yet another a car payment to take their child to school. Given money increases flexibility, as opposed to a fixed list of items that may or may not be needed.


How is the package distributed? If the parents are homeless, where is it sent? If the package is stolen or damaged, how do they get a new one?

What is the basis if your concern? Over and over again studies show that poor people are no worse at managing money than non-poor people. Probably better, since they have so little to waste.

In this weird present where Gawker now has decent journalism, I'll quote from http://gawker.com/poor-people-do-not-just-blow-any-money-the... :

> The popular image of the "Welfare Queen" is one that is seared in the mind of many Americans. No big surprise, since countless millions of political advertising dollars were used to put it there. Nevertheless, evidence shows that the welfare state in the US, to the extent that we have one, works—that giving poor people tax breaks, and social welfare, and, yes, cash aid helps to bring people out of poverty and allows them to lead more bearable lives. ...

> I will politely refrain from addressing the racist overtones of the "poor people are lazy and stupid" position because they should not need lengthy explanations to debunk.

> Poor people are not perfect. Nor are middle class people, or rich people. Wasting money is a possibility, among humans.


This has been done in the past, e.g. government cheese.

It turns out that letting the market deliver necessities based off of demand is far more efficient than the alternative. That would be a government anticipates how much a community will use, what styles of diapers they'll want, etc.


Really? Do tell me more about the benefits of water system privatization in the US.

Story upon story like https://heavy.com/news/2018/02/risks-costs-private-water-lea... doesn't make me conclude that letting the market deliver water is "far more efficient than" a public water system.


Calm down. Assuming bad faith is for Reddit, not here.

Your argument is making a straw man. You are the first commenter to bring up public utilities. Everybody needs water. Systems that are accountable to local government are the most effective way to get it. Usually that is with a publicly-owned water corporation.

A basket of goods is far different. Back to the subject actually at hand: some people will need cloth diapers. Others disposable. A government employee would need to administer the program in that town or district.

The inflexibility of the program would mean that some parents would not use all their diapers and would dispose of them. Other unfortunate parents would need way more. Also, what size diapers? Benchmark this against weight? A physical bottom measurement? Not all children use diapers at the same rate.

Hopefully this example gives you an idea of the complexities involved in centralized management. Empirically, baskets of goods are less efficient and more costly when centrally administered.


And tone policing is its own uncharitable rhetorical style.

You said "letting the market deliver necessities". Water is a necessity.

I'm also for single-payer government run state-wide/national health systems. Somehow those work and are more cost-effective for overall public health, despite a variability of need which is far higher than that of diapers.

Now, I agree that akira2501's proposal isn't tenable, and in a parallel thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16763183 ) you see I list some of my objections.

What I disagree with is your broad and non-nuanced statement regarding the supposed efficiency of letting the market deliver necessities.


I disagree you have parsed my response correctly. I do not know why you or the previous poster choose to mischaracterize a narrow statement as a broad and universal one.

If you re-read my comment, you will see that I provide a counterexample to the "all markets for everything" narrative.

Your response indicates that you think I'm a member of the opposing intellectual "team" and you need to defend yours. Not only do I acknowledge that single-payer is effective in several countries, I believe that it is one of many possible solutions to the U.S. healthcare problem.

My comment was narrowly disputing the effectiveness of a centralized planning system for market commodities. Even the NHS has considerable decentralized aspects.


[[citation needed]]

And I mean a comparison between governments of equally developed nations. That means that you compare the USSR to Brazil and not the USA. Since the difference in HDI between the USSR and Brazil was smaller than that of the USSR to the USA.


Because those same middlemen are the ones who would benefit the most from UBI.

Of course subsidizing goods and services means we will have to stop pretending that all choices are equally good and start acting like adults again, where just because you really, really want to do drugs and have 8 kids doesn't mean you will get to do that regardless of how much money you have.


How exactly does subsidizing goods mean someone won't do drugs or have 8 kids? Do you think the folks addicted to drugs want to be?

Most folks don't do drugs excessively. But if it is OK for a middle class person to drink once a month, I'm OK with poor folks drinking once every few months. Or other drugs infrequently (i'm pro-legalization of many things). If you don't want folks to do drugs all that often, the only tool available with subsidies is to subsidize rehab and/or medical care and the family care that might come with inpatient rehab programs.

8 kids? How the heck do you expect to combat that with subsidies except though making sure birth control is nearly free (including the doctor's visit for women to get it, and actually offering low-cost sterilization). This completely glosses over the need for fact-based sex education (rather than the abstinence-only sort popular in some areas), for instance, and does nothing to deter folks that want 8 children.


>Most folks don't do drugs excessively. But if it is OK for a middle class person to drink once a month, I'm OK with poor folks drinking once every few months. Or other drugs infrequently (i'm pro-legalization of many things). If you don't want folks to do drugs all that often, the only tool available with subsidies is to subsidize rehab and/or medical care and the family care that might come with inpatient rehab programs.

You don't subsidize alcohol, you tax it. Then you borrow a leaf from the Australian playbook and add a puke green coloring to it and force it to be sold in brown cartons with pictures of dissected livers.

>8 kids? How the heck do you expect to combat that with subsidies except though making sure birth control is nearly free (including the doctor's visit for women to get it, and actually offering low-cost sterilization). This completely glosses over the need for fact-based sex education (rather than the abstinence-only sort popular in some areas), for instance, and does nothing to deter folks that want 8 children.

You force sterilize people after the second child. And pay people to get sterilized with one or no children.

Unpleasant but when we are hitting the limits of what the planet can sustain and the best hope is 'we will go to Mars', doing unpleasant things so we survive is the better alternative to the cannibal holocaust we are setting ourselves up with.


Sterilization in first world countries isn’t useful to solve world population as a whole because most/all first world counties actually have negative birth rates and are only bolstered by immigration. Furthermore, birth rates globally are slowing down as it is. There’s no need to go down to forced sterilization or other barbaric methods.


> When I think about UBI I worry about responsible spending and wonder if just subsidizing common items food, clothing (diapers) and household goods wouldn't be a smarter solution overall.

Irresponsible spending is precisely what will happen with UBI. When you cut a check not earmarked for a specific purpose (food, rent, clothing, etc.) you will inevitably end up with people mismanaging their money and coming back for more ("but I'm broke through absolutely no fault of my own, how will I afford to eat?"). This will lead to backstops beyond UBI for people facing emergencies, which will lead to a small but significant portion of people gaming the system by, well, having "emergencies" every month that leave them unable to afford necessities.

The fatal flaw of UBI is assuming that there will be no abuse.


There is abuse of earmarked assistance. UBI isn't unique in that regard.

Trading food stamps (or food purchased with them) for drugs. Etc. The drug addict is going to get drugs one way or another; we may as well reduce the friction (and use the savings to pay for rehab).

Regardless, most of the poor are just trying to get by and not prone to abusing whatever assistance is available.


Right but each step required to convert a food stamp dollar to something you arne't supposed to buy with foods stamps adds friction and inefficacy.

By handing out food stamps that can be used for X you make X the default for that thing and require user to go out of their way to use the food stamp money for something else.

If people are using food stamps to buy food to sell to a bodega at 50% value and then using that to buy beer you've effectively doubles the price of beer (or diapers) for people buying it with food stamps.

It's mind-boggling that a bunch of tech people who are well versed in the various tricks employed to get users to do things don't understand this.

It's not like anyone who's on welfare/ebt/food stamps doesn't know exactly how to convert those dollars to cash if they want to. It's just not an efficient use of those dollars compared to buying what you're expected.

Replacing all those with UBI just removed the extra steps and cost penalty for using welfare/ebt/food stamps on things you're not supposed to.


I think we're making the same point, but I see removing that friction as a good thing, while you don't.

In your example, the bodega is getting a 50% cut of the aid that it shouldn't. Instead, we can give the recipient 50% of the current amount in cash, and let them buy the drugs directly. The extra 50% can be used in several ways... pumped into rehab or education, reducing tax burden on others, whatever we decide.

In both cases, the drug addict uses all their aid for the same amount of drugs. In my scenario, society spends less for that outcome.


In the current scenario there's an incentive to not spend your welfare money (taxpayer money) on drugs. I think that's worth letting the middle man take a cut of.

You seem to be under the assumption that welfare is supposed to be income. It's not. It's aid, financial assistance for near-necessities. If you want drug money without hurting your eligibility it's not that hard to work under the table.


In the case of the drug abuser, I'm not sure that incentive to spend appropriately applies. They're a drug addict after all - they really don't have a choice (other than rehab, but that also costs money).

Regardless, I'm much more concerned about the average recipient, who may need more gas than bread some weeks, or some other completely reasonable situation. As noted in a sibling, it's been proven that the poor aren't any worse at budgeting/spending than the not-poor.


I imagine for those, you could use a washboard in a shower/tub. It's not a huge volume and the "dirt" is not caked in, for the most part, so it should be a fairly easy wash.


You don't need a washer / dryer. You wash them in a bucket with soap. Only takes a few minutes.


You can hand wash them in a bucket with washboard (though we didn't) and line dry them. We actually line dried ours about once a month to air them out and sun-bleach the cloth. About 30 $5-15 cloth diapers lasts you 3-4 days between washes.


where are you line drying them? In your bathroom, most people are lucky if they have an outside space to do this when living paycheck to paycheck


Correct. In your bathroom.

Honestly, there is an epidemic of self defeatist in our day and age.


I've lived with people who did that. You put a used diaper in the toilet, and do a couple stir and flush cycles. Then you put them in a bucket with detergent. Once a day, you hand wash those, and hang to dry. With about 20-30 diapers total, you can manage.

But damn, finding used diapers in the toilet is annoying. Plus wet diapers hanging all over to dry. If it's your kid, though, it's not a big deal.


In my area, where relative humidity is often 60-90%, this form of drying would result in moldy cloth, not dry diapers. My guess is Tampa's microclimate is probably similar and line drying isn't an option.


People line dry everything in south-east Asia, in >90% RH. Though I suppose that’s usually out a window or on a balcony.


How do you think people washed and dried clothes there 100 years ago? How do you think they do it in more humid and poorer places today? Do you leave your towel on the towel rack and let it dry there or do you throw it in the dryer every time?

Mold thrives in moist, dark places, not most sunny ones.


A 100 years ago housekeeping was a full-time job, and quality of life was generally pretty bad.

Also the society functioned differently; one middle-class salary could sustain a middle-class family, for one.

We no longer live in that reality, nor would anyone want to.

It's like saying that homeless people are OK because there were no buildings in prehistoric times.


Neither societal structure or quality of life affect the drying time of cloth diapers in humid places.

Edit - and having lived in both, you're much better off drying things in a hot humid place than in colder ones.


We used cloth diapers in a place that's hot and humid but seasonally cold (the US Deep South). Outside on the line, diapers dried a lot faster in the summer than the winter. We ended up having to buy a used dryer for winter use, because they simply didn't dry fast enough to be ready by the time we needed them.


Even if you go with a diaper service instead of washing them yourself, cloth can be cheaper than disposable. It depends on your local rates and the number of diapers you need per week; typically the more you need the cheaper a diaper service is per-diaper.


Well, I mean, I personally know people who are living paycheck to paycheck who cloth diaper, it's not basically impossible like you suggest. It's really, really not.


Serious question(s) from a father of 2 under 2...

How do you get the cloth diapers clean? Like, really clean so they don't still smell after they've been cleaned?

My wife and I were planning on cloth diapering. We bought some high-end cloth diaper and liners and started on our merry way. We found that no matter what we did, our little guy smelled like piss all the time. My wife was washing diapers 2 or 3 times in between wearings, "stripping" them to remove remaining smells, etc., etc.

Our water bill went up by literally $50 a month, we were buying all kinds of detergents to try and get the smells to go away, and we had already invested a ton of money actually buying diapers in the first place. Not to mention that my wife was spending all her time washing, re-washing, and folding diapers _and_ our kid still smelled like piss.

In our case, disposables were a god-send. The little dude is happy, he doesn't smell, my wife doesn't spend half her day cleaning diapers, and (especially since we buy diapers in bulk on good sales), we've found disposable diapers to actually be far _cheaper_ than what we were paying for water, detergent, startup costs, etc. on cloth.

I would never go back, just because of the time savings alone.


We used cloth diapers on my son (who is now almost 4). Our technique was as follows:

-One wash cycle in warm water using no soap.

-One wash cycle in hot water using soap.

-Dry

Every couple weeks we would put white vinegar in the no-soap cycle. This helps cut the smell down.

Every couple months we would put a small amount of bleach in the no-soap cycle. Any more frequent than this and we found the diapers then irritated our son's skin.

If I had to do it all over again, not sure how I would choose. As you call out, there are additional costs to the cloth diaper approach (water, detergent, etc) that add up, plus it takes quite a bit of time.

One advantage that we found is that our son, and other folks we know who used cloth diapers, all had kids who ended up potty training sooner (anywhere from a couple months to 6+ months earlier) than kids wearing disposables.


Why do cloth diapers result in faster potty training? Is the urine/feces felt by the child (ie, all that fancy absorbent material in disposables is harmful to training)?


My wife is a member of a diaper science community on facebook group called fluff love. They have extensive information about how to get your diapers really clean, with targeted information for specific situations like water hardness, washing machine type, materials, etc. The folks there are very helpful and responsive to issues.

What we ended up doing was 1 "power wash" cycle, followed by a regular wash cycle each time, and just regular ol Tide detergent. Sorry for the tide ad.

Short answer: it's hard to say specifically, because it depends on a ton of factors.


Have you tried putting them in the sun? Sunlight does a lot of good on diapers. If you have the option I'd put them on a line outside.

As for the other stuff, we used a double-rinse with powdered detergent and things seemed to work pretty well.

The time factor was _super_ annoying. Maintenance for cloth diapers is a full-time job sometimes, but it felt good not to add a billion pounds of waste to the landfill.

Full disclosure: Now that we travel a lot more, we're pretty much only in disposables.


Yep, we had a similar experience trying to do it ourselves with our first two (also under two at the time!) - see my other comment for some of the reasons why this is a thing - but got back on the cloth diaper train when a relative exposed us to the magic that is cloth diaper service. Best of luck with two under two!


Our routine: Warm wash with Oxi-clean, Hot wash with detergent, air dry the covers, tumble dry high the inserts. Baby is 8 months and so far no smell and very little stains on the inserts.


Yes, that's exactly what we did.


You need to soak them in something stronger before washing - something bleach based. Napisan is great for this (and also for any white shirts etc).


Same, at first I wasn't sold on the concept but my wife wanted to try. It's way cheaper and better for environment. Now I don't regret it and find the idea of using 100% disposables silly. We still use one disposable each night because they absorb better or one here and there when we're out.

The upfront cost was $150 so that might be an issue for some.


If you didn't have in home access to a washer and dryer (that is, assuming you do) would your opinion change?


It depends. If I can afford it then I'm likely to exclude any residence that doesn't have a washer and dryer. And if I can't afford it then I'm more like to use cloth diapers because then the savings is significant.


I found with liners it was even better than diapers. No smell because everything goes down the toilet. Mind you, my kids were eating solids before we put them in cloth.


We did the same. Putting this thing into cloth removed ‘ick’ factor: https://www.amazon.de/gp/aw/d/B00E5NN4KQ/ref=mh_s9_acsd_top_...

It can be washed 2-3 times if nothing serious happened.


Its a whole lot more environmentally friendly as well. And that's something that will probably affect your kids more than you.


how does this not contaminate your washer with feces?


Do you think your washer is somehow not already contaminated with feces, from washing underwear?

I read an article a while ago that tested and found substantial fecal residue in typical washing machines, without cloth diapers going through them. Can't find it now among all the cloth diaper related search hits.


My grandma always used to wash undies by hand separately and then pour boiling water over them. I found it to be very weird when I was a kid, but she might have been onto something. I would do this if I was living with an immunocompromised person but its probably overkill for a healthy family.

It's also suggested you clean the washer every once in a while too.

Fecal bacteria is found everywhere it seems, so that's why frequent hand washing (especially before food prep) is important.


Good point.


Detergent and water gets just about anything clean..

However, you presoak them, and scrape a majority of the feces off into the toilet at change time.


You rinse diapers in the toilet before washing them.


We're also using cloth diapers, except when travelling (which is pretty rare), but it has had no impact on the childs exzema.

(As expected really, half of the rashes are on his arms/torso and completely away from the diaper-end!)


Where did you get cheap cloth diapers? I haven't looked too much into it but some women in my family recommended against it because they said cloth diapers are expensive.


We travel a lot with our son. No way we were gonna do that with cloth diapers.


Diaper services can also be better for the environment and the wallet.


That depends on your location; my experience in NYC was that diaper services were just a little more expensive than buying small bags of disposable at CVS, and vastly more expensive than ordering bigger bags of disposable at Amazon.


"Diapers are sold at much lower prices in Norway than in the rest of Europe. The large price difference has led to smuggling of diapers, mainly to Eastern-European countries. The diaper smuggler gain both from the price difference and by evading taxes on the trade"

https://www.duo.uio.no/handle/10852/57685


I was also thinking about that. Normally we do everything we can to buy stuff from abroad, but for diapers even low cost countries buy here. Kinda absurd.


I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs. The fact is 30 years ago, most kids were out of diapers by the age of 2 [0] and nothing is stopping you from using reusable products just like people had to do 30 years ago. The shear unpleasantness of non-disposable diapers is what pushed people to start training their kids at age one. But now the "convenience" of throw away diapers leads modern parents to leave their kids in them until they are over the ago of 4 (disgusting), and complaining about the price the whole way. And here in Texas, anyone that doesn't make over $40k a year automatically qualifies them for the "WIC" program which means they get their diapers free for how ever long they want.

And yes I am a parent, and was somewhat lazy as my kids were not out of diapers until right at the age of 3 but all of our friends still didn't even try until their kids were 4. Heck I can remember being 4 years old and running around my grandparents farm and popping a squat right out in the open field and burying it just like the barn cats around there. I almost find it child abuse to allow your kid to be so unconscious about their bodies that they have no problem crapping on themselves when in other cultures 4 year olds are cutting up fruit with machetes (personally seen in a small village, Africa).

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_training#History_in_the... [1] http://dshs.texas.gov/wichd/


I personally find the line of thought of your post rather astonishing and even after a few years I am still not sure, how much of this is somewhat representative of a deeply disturbing mentality which is stereotypical "american" and what is just a individual abnormal lack of empathy and more so, being annoyed, that others arent even worse off.

>I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs.

Like another poster said, you are aware, that the post is written by mother of a newborn struggling to make ends meet. Do you really take it personally, that a poor mother in the developed world is complaining about diaper prices instead of using reusable diapers? In a country where paternity leave is not the norm? And your argument boils down to the assumed availability of aid agencies?

As I am still not sure if there is a cultural misunderstanding here, Are you aware, that in some regions, arguments like this are considered deeply antisocial and seen as a lack of basic human decency?

Normally I wouldnt think to much about a post like this, seeing as you are posting it here, you have to assume, that you are making a worthwhile argument which might convince someone after he engages with the facts you put forward.

I am just lost on this.


The article followed a mother of a newborn who was struggling to make ends meet, not a four year old.


Disposable diapers are required by, as far as I've been able to tell, all daycares, so if you're a working parent that "convenience" is in fact a functional necessity.

I'll agree that the later and later potty training is utterly disgusting though.


> I always take it personally when people complain about diaper costs.

Why? How does this impact you in the slightest?

Being a parent is hard enough of a job already without randos on the internet being judgemental.


WIC doesn't cover diapers.


I have an 8 month old and just the other day was thinking how are they able to make these things so cheaply? Seriously for 80 cents a day I can avoid the nightmare of cloth diapers (sorry planet). All the estimates in the post are soooo far off the mark. They are done with the cost of premium diapers for 4 year olds at the rate of use of a sub 2 month old. I’d say 350 bucks Canadian a year if I extrapolate out our costs to complete our kids first year.


$350 a year is about what I pay. I have diapers arrive each month on Amazon Subscribe and Save. The price per box averages about $30 and we get 1/month. Every so often we might need to buy an additional box if we are running low.


The planet will be fine. Maybe better off, in fact--do you have any idea how much water it takes to wash these things?


What about the amount of water it takes to manufacture disposable diapers?


I feel like this article was an extended ad for Huggies. Particularly with the happy ending being "Tonight, she was bringing home Huggies".


You're absolutely right. There was only one mention of cloth diapers anywhere in here, and it was quickly dismissed by "they are difficult to clean without a machine".

Nothing about how cost effective they can be, and then we go right back to learning about how huggies are better than generics.


Yup the South Park episode "Truth and Advertising" is become more and more true.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truth_and_Advertising


advertorial? I mean, it happens all the time, right? e.g. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/weekinreview/13goodman.ht... (although that article is from 7 years ago...) Sorry, I read more articles about this recently... blogs doing paid mentioning/sponsorships and not disclosing it.


I meant to say, read more articles about this more recently, but don't remember where and a very quick Google search didn't return anything that seemed familiar..


I don't understand the argument that generic diapers "don't last as long." Every diaper lasts until it's soiled; it's not like the generic brands absorb one poop but you keep the "better quality" diapers around for three poops, as though they were paper towels. The only reason I can think of that they wouldn't "last as long" is if you have defective diapers that you have to toss before using (only happened to me once or twice in 2+ years of using Target/Walmart brand diapers, hardly significant). There are other reasons to buy more expensive brands (fewer blowouts, less diaper rash, odor containment, sensitivity to materials, who knows depending on the baby) but I don't see why usage volume is one of them.


>Every diaper lasts until it's soiled;

But some diapers can handle multiple pee's before they need changing. It's not just about the poops.


This is more a story about, “Why is social assistance so horrid in the US that poor parents can’t even afford diapers”


Whenever something like this comes up, my first question is always: "OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?"


In addition to cloth diapers, babies got potty trained significantly younger than they do now. We had our daughter ~90% potty trained by her first birthday. From what we've found looking into it, that was extremely common until the past 50 years or so.

Its not uncommon now for 3 year-olds to still be in diapers. That's two full years longer in diapers, simply because parents either can't be bothered to potty train their children, or have been told its not possible to do it earlier.


When both our children was in daycare somewhere between the age 1-2, we told them that he (both times) was almost potty trained, but still need a diaper to sleep. They wanted to just give them a diaper and told us "oh, but boys get out of the diaper later". No lady, he is well aware of when he needs to go, and we've trained this. Now work with us, rather than destroy our work. No wonder some of them get our of the diaper so late, when the professionals care takers have so little time that they recommend later potty training.


hvidgaard got it. The problem is the reliance on day-care providers, who have little incentive to stick to a potty-training regimen. Kids can be trained much earlier than today's average, but with today's time-crunched parents, it's hard.


Why would a daycare provider have little incentive to stick to the regimen? In my experience, daycare providers are usually the ones to push parents on potty training. Changing diapers means 1 staff is caring for 1 child. Once a child can go to the bathroom on their own, they have more time to spend with the other children. Additionally they have less waste, less need for storage of diapers and wipes.


I really don't know. My comment is just based on the experiences of friends and family. Parents too busy at home, and little or no support at day care. As mentioned in some sibling comments, today's "super diapers" might not help, as they might be too absorbent.


Can anyone here remember wearing diapers as a baby/toddler?


Does anyone really remember being that young at all?


I can. Once I sat on a sewing pin that someone had dropped on the floor that went through my diaper. Very painful and it's one of my earliest memories.


I have memories before 3 (no diapers though).


> OK, how did we do this before diapers were invented, and what happened to that?"

My Mom always mentions it as well. She used a stack of cloth diapers, then hand washed them, dried them and even ironed them. It was a pretty labor and time intensive process. She says we are lucky to be able to get a box of diapers from Amazon, use them, throw them in a diaper pail and close the lid and not have to worry about it.


She didn't need to iron them though.

Now you just chuck them in the washing machine and then line dry them or put them on a low heat in the dryer. The sheer amount of nappies that were in our outdoor bin kinda made us realise that we needed to change to cloth.


She didn't but she liked everything to be neat, clean and organized. But for practical purposes agree, it's not needed.


It's a good question, but often the answer is "we had a stay at home mum that had time for all this stuff", which I think could be the answer here (I don't know if cloth diapers are time consuming or not). Older solutions might be perfectly viable but no longer practical because of cultural changes.


The laundry can be only slightly time consuming. If you didn't have your own washer and dryer, however, it would be very time consuming.



Cloth diapers are still around, and better and easier than they were then.


Ireland

5 nappies a day x 365 days = 1825 nappies / 30 per pack = 61 packs x euro 2.99 [1] = euro 182.39 per annum

Which sounds about right to me. Where are they getting a $1000 from?

[1] https://www.aldi.ie/extra-large-nappies-size-6/p/05962400586...


They do their math in the article. "In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents. The quarters add up quickly. Newborns need as many as 12 changes a day. That’s $21 per week, or $84 per month. Bigger kids need fewer, but their diapers are more expensive." It's a worst case calculation biased towards newborns, which they don't remain all year, obviously. For me, it averaged more like $800 - $400 a year. Also, 2.99 a pack is insane for me as an American. That would go for about $8-$10 USD, depending on size.


Well in smaller EU countries the prices tend to be little bit higher due to quantities but year that 1000$ doesn't add up. ATM couldn't find anything under 0.18€/piece in Estonia. https://www.prismamarket.ee/products/search/teipm%C3%A4he


Same for Netherlands. The month-box of 210 huggies costs 34 euro, so you get a number around 300 euro/year. If you buy from stores with discount, you'll get a price of around 11 cents per nappy: https://www.luierinfo.nl/aanbiedingen/pampers/premium-protec...


It would appear that a large part of the problem is the person's finances are in such bad order, they cannot afford to buy the diapers in bulk. Could the local church or community organisation not buy the nappies in the bulk and then sell them at the lowest item price possible ?

When in such poverty (and potentially from a less educated background) I know finding solutions is difficult. But this is where community should help. Having a baby is super expensive and super stressful, but there are some things which can help e.g. consider cloth diapers, encourage breastfeeding to avoid formula costs.

I don't know how much support someone like this gets. But I guess not enough.


I have 4 kids, the youngest being 18, and like many people said, 12 a day is way too high, except for a newborn.

Disposable diapers are indeed expensive, but I've heard that the environmental effects of cloth diapers are comparable. Fortunately, it's a problem that is long, long behind me.

One thing I do remember is that nothing makes a baby more willing to take a big dump or even a pee than putting on a fresh, clean diaper.


I was expecting to see people brainstorming technical solutions...

Anyone interested in brainstorming some solutions to this?

What do the component parts cost of the best diaper?

Are there ways to bring those costs down by an order of magnitude?

How about an X Prize for Diaper Design?

What questions should be asked around this problem?

I'd be up for hosting a video virtual brainstorm of this topic if anyone is interested, let me know.


To everyone talking about cloth nappies: you're insane. You do it for 3 years. Then do it for another 3 years. Then talk. They are a fecking nightmare to manage.


Two solutions : Shorten the span (3 years sure is a lot, especially when reading other testimonies here). Don't repeat.


3 kids, all been in cloth / reusable nappies. We were not militant strict. Used dispoable for night due to extra absorption. But day time use, pretty much only reusable.

Anecdotal of course, but they all were toilet trained before other kids. Whether that is because it is more noticeable the nappy is wet and uncomfortable or other factors (wife was home all the time, kids in a nursery from a young age all day seemed to lag further behind). But I think the cloth nappies definitely played a part.


“Wife was home all the time” is the key here and a luxury not available to all.


Cloth diapers are expensive. My wife and I bought them and tried them for about a week before giving up and selling our stock. So for one there is a large upfront cost, and if parents can get over that hurdle, there is also the need to find a daycare that will 1. accept a child in cloth diapers and 2. be reliable enough to send back your cloth diaper investment.


Looks like a whole comment thread got deleted because it got too political. I understand that political discussion isn't right for HN, but I don't approve of comments disappearing silently. It would be nice to see a note from the moderators explaining that that's what happened.


In your profile there's an option called "showDead" which you can toggle to show comments that have been killed.

Comments can be killed by mods, but I think the vast majority are killed by user flags not moderator action.

The karma threshold to flag a comment is small, about 50. TO flag a comment you click the timestamp of the comment, which will take you to a page where the flag option appears.

The karma threshold to downvote a comment is higher. I think it's about 500 or 750 or so.


Thanks for the info


When the mods/admins intervene, they usually "detach and mark off-topic" (move to bottom of page), not delete. Users flag posts to hide them.


Hmm, not one commenter here in 120+ addressed the point of the article, namely why don't companies make cheaper diapers, instead of only ratcheting up the high tech? Obviously it's more profitable, but are there other factors?


There doesn't need to be any factor other than "it's more profitable", though. The higher tech is there to produce higher margins.


They are expensive because they haven't hit the price points which induce demand pressure downward.

That said, the thread holding this narrative together is the terrible welfare system in the United States.

I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices, no questions asked.

n.b., cloth diapers are a fair bit of work, and a substantial investment early on.


> I see absolutely zero reason why the 0-3 y/o in poverty shouldn't qualify for free diapers from the local welfare offices

I'll give you one reason: a large chunk of the voting population/tax base doesn't want to pay for it.

> no questions asked.

I understand your sentiment, but as soon as that sort of policy is implemented, unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system.


> unscrupulous individuals will abuse the system.

Welfare fraud isn't that prevalent, and adequate checks on gratuitous abuse are not exactly difficult to implement.

For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking.


The point being there are checks. "No questions asked" implied no checks.

> For the people who would rather see newborns have health issues than pay taxes, I frankly find their morals odious and their foresight lacking.

The article referenced a black, un-wed, young mother stuggling to pay for diapers. That portrayal of poor minorities is what the anti-welfare state sees when fighting for less taxes. The money isn't going to people who are struggling like they might be; the money is going to minorities who aren't willing to work hard.

Said more plainly, the health and wellbeing of black and brown babies are worth less to (some|many) Americans than white ones.


> The point being there are checks. "No questions asked" implied no checks.

it really doesn't.

no questions need to be asked if you aren't tripping the fraud wires of, e.g., grabbing 30 diapers a day for 1 kid.

> Said more plainly, the health and wellbeing of black and brown babies are worth less to (some|many) Americans than white ones.

I agree that that describes the reality that exists. I find that morally problematic, however: whatever else we can pick at, I feel that babies are all equal and they matter.


My belief, if you showed most (all?) Americans a baby, regardless of color, and asked if that baby deserved healthy life, they'd say yes. If you asked if they'd donate $2, they'd probably be inclined to do so.

The problems comes down to the concept in abstract. Special interest groups capitalizing on the frustration of paying tax, by preying on human's most base nature of mistrusting people that are perceived to be different.

"You're paying high taxes, and lazy people (minorities) are getting a free ride." sounds much better than "You're paying high taxes, and government contractors are taking a lot of that money."

Especially since poor/minorities are far less of a powerful lobby than those who represent government contractors.


I'd probably use cloth nappies if I were a stay-at-home dad. As it stands, I'd much rather put some of the money I'm earning towards the convenience of disposables.


The Wikipedia article is very informative also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper

From Pampers making big sizes for the child to be dependant until the age of 5, to skin irritation because of diapers. My guess. You just can't expect the same quality of care when people get poorer and poorer in general.


I'm pretty sure I never spent that much on any of my three sons. Here in Norway (you know, everyone's favourite "Oh my god it's so expensive" country) you can get one nappy/diaper/bleie for less than NOK 1, say about ten cents US. Even at 12 a day that's only USD 438. And 12 a day is ridiculous.


I saw 0 difference between pampers and supermarket branded nappies. Only the piss strip from pampers is handy for the first two months. However marketing is powerful and most people are emotionally driven not analytically driven. So we get this situation. Medical has the same problem.


In UK nappies are ultra cheap. My Wife uses Lidl's nappies but Aldi's are equally good (if not the same!). They cost around 5-7 pence each. Can't really exactly remember because they are so cheap. Pampers are more expensive but by much.


So the article should really be about 'Why are diapers so expensive in the US compared to Europe?'

Here is another example from a UK suermarket https://groceries.morrisons.com/webshop/product/Nutmeg-Nappi... which is 0.075 GBP (0.10 USD)/diaper.

The UK doesn't charge sales tax on nappies/diapers - https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-notice-714-ze... which may explain a small part of the difference.


Yes I noticed this too:

> In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents

That's so much more expensive than here. Looking at the pictures you can get the same brands and nappies for half the price here.

In the decent sized packs from amazon pampers are only a touch more expensive but yeah the Lidl ones are just as good as far as I can see. We mostly used pampers because they are cheap with a subscription but have used Lidl ones fairly often. Shame we're not very close to a Lidl store (well we are, but traffic).


I just checked Dutch prices: googled and took the first link for diapers for newborns: 52 diapers for €7, or €5 if you buy in bulk. So that's 10-13 cents for random big chain diapers of a good brand.

Seems to be a typical price. At another chain, I get the same prices for another brand. Looking for the biggest A brand, I find 72 diapers for €15, which is a bit more expensive, but still less than 25 cents (though eurocents are worth a bit more than dollar cents, of course).


ALDI Junior Nappies Size 5 (40) €2.99 - €7.5c each

Pampers Premium Size 5 (35) - €8.99 - €25.5 each

Bigger packs are cheaper per nappy. If you can wait for offers you usually can get the Pampers much cheaper e.g. right now 2 x 72 pack for €23, 16c per nappy.

We started off with Pampers and moved to ALDI, never looked back.

But all in all at 4 nappies a day you'd just break €110 a year with ALDI.


*by not much. Sorry, 17,5 flight is taking it's toll.


Disposable Diapers are surprisingly high tech, or at least well engineered. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc


When we had our first kid, we scoured the shops looking for good deals on diapers. Turns out there's a mailinglist you can subscribe to which alerts young parents when a shop in the vicinity has a sale on diapers. Buying them in bulk at the right time can save a lot of money.

By the time we had our second child, we didn't care. We buy diapers without thinking about it now. The stress of worrying about this is a bigger cost for us now than the money we pay.

Friends used cloth diapers for environmental reasons. Hell of a lot of work, and I have no idea what they cost. Old-fashioned cloth diapers are cheap, but messy.


It's not obviously true that cloth diapers are better for the environment. EG:

https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic...


We used a combination of disposable and cloth diapers. Disposables for daycare or when not at home, and cloth for when at home. And this saved us massive massive amounts of money. You buy a couple dozen cloth diapers for $40, and then it is $.50/day for an extra load of laundry. My son still has his cloth diapers as rags he plays with and he's been potty trained for years.

But on weekends and evenings, cloth diapers were basically free. And word of warning, they are disgusting to shake into the toilet before throwing into the washing machine with a cap of bleach, but you get over that.


Because you need them and do not really have any other choice. The same reason that a razor are so expensive, and toothbrushes, and female products, and shampoo and ... you get the drift?


This article was a really good read. The woman featured in it celebrates finding a job in Pinellas Park but sadly she lives in Tampa and is about to experience another ill afflicting our piece of paradise: It's about an hour and a half by >= two buses from Tampa to Pinellas Park. That problem will still be around when the diapers are rotting the landfill and the kid's in school. Being poor in Florida is hell. Without a car it's hell^2.


Even 50 cent diapers are less expensive than the time it costs you to change them. So I don't think they qualify as "so expensive".


Maybe you should have read the article. Maybe not expensive for a software developer making 6 figures a year, but that's not most people. For people living near poverty levels $1k a year is a lot of money.


I'll do the maths for the UK since I have numbers.

50 cents is about 0.70 GBP

UK minimum wage is 7.83 GBP per hour pre-tax.

So one nappy at that rate is 5.5 minutes of work. That's considerably longer than the time it takes to remove and clean.


It’s 0.35 GBP.


The environmental factor is also pretty huge. Store a weeks worth of disposables separate and the amount of landfill over the course nappy period of a baby is insane!


My husband and I are gearing up for our first pregnancy. We're at the point in our careers for we know we can actually afford this. That said, we are really liking the idea of washable diapers. I'm surprised this hasn't caught on. Instead of more diapers, what if the state paid for a service to collect and wash those?


A big part of the reason this isn’t a thing right now is because modern water-saving eco-friendly washers are simply not capable of washing diapers. This is further compounded by the fact that modern laundry detergent is phosphate free. Basically, the average person no longer has access to the necessary equipment to properly do it.

If you are well off, you may be able to pay a diaper service with commercial equipment to do the washing for you. We had a relative cover this for our third child, and I can attest that it works out quite nicely.


Not the state, but major cities each have several good cloth-diaper-as-a-service (CDAAS?) companies. You pay a subscription fee and exchange dirty diapers for fresh ones every week. Makes the whole process convenient as using disposables.


You do realise that people, before disposable diapers, did just that?


Coming from a former Soviet state, we did not have disposable diapers when me and my siblings were growing up. Washable diapers were the only option, and it was horrible. Both for the kids as well as the parents having to wash them all the time.

Im actually amazed that there are people today who think this is a good idea and want to go back to it. Seriously what?


I remember old giant cooking pots where people would 'cook' those and then dry them later on.


There are organizations that help out with diapers in the US. Some notable: https://greaterdcdiaperbank.org http://nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org/


The Engineering Guy has a great video on disposable diaper technology - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYNX8y6lQMc

It's impressive. Not sure how much R&D plays into the costs, but probably more than it may seem.


Does anyone still use cloth diapers these days? They’re reusable and produce so much less waste.


Yes, my family did a few years ago. I would guess that we used around 80% fewer disposable diapers... disposables are still useful when traveling and other miscellaneous situations.


Yes


Heh, what a day on Hacker News. I read comments about bidets, where people go into intimate detail about how they poop -- and now comments about diapers, where parents go into intimate detail about how their babies poop and pee. :)


>In the United States, the average diaper sells for about 25 cents.

Really? I'm currently paying 8 cents a diaper from Aldi.


The word "average" suggests that you buying a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer is not at all incompatible with this figure.


Its an article about how expensive diapers are and the plight it causes to those with low income. Why are we talking about anything BUT a much cheaper diaper from a budget retailer?


“Given the technology that’s inside them,” consultant Heidi Beatty said, “they are super cheap.”

Talk about being full of shit!


Diapers are not a necessity. Washable cloth is more than fine, just more work and less convenient.


Can't wash them in laundromats that don't allow them, and you have to have the money for the initial purchase plus the time to do the laundry. Plus you cannot use cloth diapers at daycare.


> Diapering a child now takes about $1,000 a year for an average product.

That doesn't seem right. Are these people buying the smallest quantities possible? You can buy ~300 diapers for $30 on amazon. That's only $360 /year.


No source but I believe that's a big issue. If you don't have money, you can't buy at scale (or store/transport it). Though here it isn't that much (relatively) like say buying bulk beef vs store bought.


folks living paycheck to paycheck cannot afford big upfront costs like this. even if it saves them money in the long term. too bad personal finance isn't a thing taught in public schools.


Perfect example of the Sam Vimes Boot Theory (https://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Sam_Vimes_Theory_of_Econom...) at work.

Nothing is more expensive than being poor.


$30 is big upfront costs? Seriously?

Of course, that may be a bigger sum in 3rd world countries. But they don't have Amazon there at all and probably don't use diapers either.


When you are making minimum wage, which I believe is ~$7.50/hr, and are most likely not working full time, that is a good chunk of a day's pay. Granted, if you are in that situation, you are probably getting some government assistance.

Also, some people are just terrible at managing money.


I think the latter is the bigger of the issues.

360 nappies will generally last for 2 months. If you can't afford a mere $30 for that, then it's a case of your priorities being wrong (e.g. buying alcohol, tobacco, Netflix etc before thinking about your kids' needs) - in which case you should probably give serious consideration over whether you should bring kids into the world.


Did you read the article before writing this presumptive and judgmental comment?

She had a difficult pregnancy and thought this would be her only chance to have a child. She left her job to avoid being exposed to harsh chemicals that could jeopardize her pregnancy. On welfare, she was allotted only $180/mo for necessities beside food. When her partner got a job, she was disqualified for the assistance—he had to work 18 hours a month just to make up the aid they no longer received. She struggled to find a job herself but ultimately got one.

The article notes that the average diaper is $0.25, so your 360 would cost $90 on average, 1/4 of her monthly assistance on one item alone—assuming she only needs 6 diapers per day, which sounds like a low estimate. She did proactively seek out coupons and discounts, and decreased the frequency of changes—which had minor medical consequences.

The article is about the plight of a mother who faced adversity in providing for her son, but persevered the best she could. I defy you to justify your claim that her priorities were wrong, or that she was unfit to be a parent.

Perhaps the only disqualifying attribute for parenthood is the utter lack of empathy for another human being.


Well technically speaking, you kind of pointed out yourself how the mother is sort of an unfit parent.

Parenting is to provide for the child, not just emotionally, which I'm sure this mother does a tremendous job of, given how much she has sacrificed for the child's well being, but also to provide physically as well.

It seems like the couple were on the border of poverty before the child was conceived, so it wasn't a wise financial decision to do so.

Yes it's a rough situation, but as many commenters have pointed out you can do cloth diapers, more tedious to clean, but saves you supposed $1,000. As others have also pointed out you can goto Church or various other organizations that provide support. And more importantly you could have budgeted and realized, though you want to have a child, this is probably a bad decision.

Kids get more expensive as they grow up, not less, so if there are already issues around diapers, the situation will only get worse as time goes on.

Just saying, this isn't an unwanted pregnancy, this was a predetermined choice, so certainly some accounting and pre-planning could have been involved to show, this is definitely a bad decision before hand and will create a tremendous amount of strain on the parents as well as eventually on the child.


> Did you read the article before writing this presumptive and judgmental comment?

Yes, I read it, but I was talking generally, and not passing judgement on this specific case... but since you mention it, this mother chose to have her child - it's her responsibility to ensure that she has the financial means to provide for it.

> The article notes that the average diaper is $0.25, so your 360 would cost $90 on average

So... don't buy the average-priced nappies - buy cheaper ones, such as those that one of the parent posters mentioned (the 360 for $30). Or (especially if she isn't working) , cloth nappies are a cheap option too.

> assuming she only needs 6 diapers per day, which sounds like a low estimate

I've got kids. 6 nappies a day is actually a high estimate. They need 6-8 for the first few weeks, sure, but then it goes down. My 1 year old needs 2-4 nappies a day.

> When her partner got a job, she was disqualified for the assistance—he had to work 18 hours a month just to make up the aid they no longer received. She struggled to find a job herself but ultimately got one.

> The article is about the plight of a mother who faced adversity in providing for her son, but persevered the best she could. I defy you to justify your claim that her priorities were wrong, or that she was unfit to be a parent.

As I explained, I was talking generally, not about this specific case. I do feel for this woman - it sounds like a really shitty situation (no pun intended!). Also, the benefits system (just as in the UK) can sometimes hurt, such as when her partner got a job. Also shitty.

> Perhaps the only disqualifying attribute for parenthood is the utter lack of empathy for another human being.

I don't lack empathy; I just don't like parents that don't prioritise their kids, and those that make the conscious decision to bring children into the world without thinking of whether they can actually provide for them, emotionally and financially - oh, and apologists for them.


The whole discussion started about buying diapers in bulk to save a ton. Nobody is saying that $90/mo for diapers is reasonable. But $30 for 2 months worth of diapers (as OP claimed) is kinda reasonable. And if she is getting 180/mo allowance, she definitely has that $30 on hand to buy in bulk.


It's not $30/day, it's $30 for 360 nappies that will last around 2 months. Even if you're making minimum wage, you can afford that if you've got your priorities right.


But when you are bringing in $50 / day, you have a lot less money to work with. That's the point I was trying to make. $30 is inconsequential to me, but 4 hours of pay is.


And that $30 is for 2 months of diapers. Roughly $0.50/day. It's not like those people are getting paid daily. And I'm pretty sure they're good enough at math to realise that buying in bulk is cheaper. Unless they lack social skills or have addictions, which is totally different can of worms. And not exclusive to poor people.

Even if they're working illegally and getting paid daily, they probably get monthly welfare.


I get what you mean, and when bringing in $50 a day $30 is definately not inconsequential - but it's still perfectly manageable.


Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month. Unless you pay day's diapers every day..

Do you think poor people are stupid and can't plan even a week ahead? They're getting paid weekly or monthly in most cases after all.

In my experience, poor people are much better at managing money than better off folks. I could see plenty of people who couldn't bother to order bulk of diapers and then store them somewhere. But poor people usually go the extra mile even for couple bucks.


My comment wasn't about poor people being dumb. My comment was attempting to point out that, when you are poor, small amounts of money matter a lot more.

I may have worded it poorly or misread the context of the comment I was replying to, but the point I was trying to get across is that when you don't have much money, you have to be much more conscious about how you spend it. And if you aren't, then you go broke and don't eat for a while. It's an easy thing for well-off people to lose sight of.


Exactly, they're much m ore conscious about how they spend it. Thus putting aside $30 is no brainer vs buying in small packs. Most people, poor or not, get paid weekly or monthly. It's not that hard to buy $30 worth of goods after getting paid vs spending $10 every few days...


It's usually not that they are stupid, it's often that they literally don't have the money to pay the upfront cost of the bigger pack because they are living paycheck to paycheck.


How big is paycheck? Probably more than $30. When buying in bulk for 2 months is cheaper than buying weekly for 1 month, it's kinda nobrainer. And they'd need even more from one paycheck to another to get supplies in smaller packs. Unless they're getting paid weekly. But even then, $30 is not that much of a stretch. especially if you buy food in bulk one week, diapers in bulk another week.

Your point would be correct for bigger hundreds-or-thousands-of-dollars purchases though. But $30... Come on?


Someone in that situation likely isn't going to be able to get a single full time job because employers are cheap and don't want to pay for benefits. Getting paid multiple paychecks in a two-week period is not at all unrealistic. If they are working non-formal employment they could easily getting paid for a single day of work some times.

Some one who manages to get 40 hours a week of work at minimum wage of $7.25 minus 7.65% for FICA taxes is getting $1,116 a month. Take out rent, transportation and food and there is not going to be much left over for buying things that you don't need right away.

You seem to be completely out of touch with the way people in poverty live if you think people aren't living paycheck to paycheck and have money left over after paying essential expenses.


Maybe US poors are somehow special and different from poors in other countries?

In my country lots of people make ~ $500. Or even less. With prices similar (or even in many cases higher) to flyover USA. Living paycheck to paycheck is the norm here. What people do, after getting paycheck(s) they put together a budget for the next month. And $30 once a month for essentials is definitely a better deal than paying $15 weekly for the same thing. As you said, they don't have much money left. Thus they take every possible bulk or coupon deal to save money.

Yes, poor people are having a harder time than your average HN folk. But vast majority of them are not dumb and can do math pretty well. I hate how US media is portraying poor people as unintelligible who can't think ahead. Yes they can. Unless US poor are somehow different?

What they need is more job security, better paying entry level jobs and more education opportunities (wether vocational or after-hours college). And better pay for infamous but educated jobs like librarian or teacher. Which are borderline minimal wage and borderline poor over there.


Don't you get it? Anecdotes and hypotheticals trump logic and common sense.


How about statistics instead of anecdotes? This article is pretty well sourced, and, while not all of the math checks out, the preponderance of evidence seems to point towards "yes, that is a regular choice that poor people in the US make": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...


Try one of the poverty simulators, here's one: http://playspent.org/html/


Are there realistic poverty simulators? This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts... You're set up to fail.


>This one has a catastrophe happen every day, cars breaking down, teeth needing treatment, plumbing problems, traffic fines, credit card bills for expenses that happen before the game starts...

I see the issue more about it being a moralistic simulator. (or if you prefer a simulator with a political agenda behind)

The kid needs $15 to go with a school excursion, I don't have them, the kid remains in school and the stupid simulator doesn't miss the occasion to remark this.

And surely my kid won't get them $100 sneakers!

And my family pet is not going to suffer, because I have NO family pets, I can't afford them.

By behaving as a total bastard, including having my pet suffering, having the kid become hungry because he is too proud to get the free lunch and deciding to ignore everything else including the medical check for chest pain, I can get to the end of the month.

But a number of questions and answers are clearly targeted to inducing the player into anti-consummerism (which maybe is a good thing) while on the other hand hard pressing on completely senseless society stigmas.

This: "You chose to live farther away from your job, so your rent is lower. But your gas costs are higher. In fact, for every dollar a working family saves on housing, they spend an additional 77 cents on transportation."

could have been written as:

"Congratulations, you know how to move a slider left and right, and choose the combination that costs less, between $855 living nearer and $760 living further you chose to save $95 per month or around 8% of your net income"


It's a stupid asshole, not a poor simulator. Maybe US is different, but in Europe most poors wouldn't get credit card to begin with. Even payday loans are strictly regulated. Many of them will know how to fix common plumbing problems too..


I'm more than enough familiar with poverty. In my country, $30 is a day's wage.

Let's say small packs cost $85/mo (as per $1k/year). Big monthly pack is $30. So weekly supplies in small packs are barely cheaper than buying in bulk for a month.

Do you really think poor people are that stupid? That's flat out insulting.

In my experience, poor people are fuckin great at managing money they got. Of course, some of them are barely functioning in a society due to illnesses or addictions. But there're plenty of well-off people who don't know jack shit about budgeting and live paycheck-to-paycheck.


Even if you know you’re losing money, if you can’t afford to invest you can’t invest.


Not all disposable nappies are the same. The ones for $0.10 each are pretty horrible.


„Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark have poured billions of dollars into research and development“

Can that be true? Really Billions?

Or just a story to justify a pricing strategy to maximize profits with those who can pay it leaving others aside?


Not per year, but in total over the last 100 years is believable.


Why is sunscreen so expensive?


I wish the author could answer the question without a tangential "human-interest" piece. tldr?


Autonomous demand.


This article is so frustrating. The helplessness and dependence are just sad. Cloth diapers cost less than $1.50 each in a 10-pack. If you are poor enough, you can wash them in a bucket with bar soap. That's what virtually everyone did before washers were invented. I'm saddened that this girl didn't figure this out. I know first-hand, when you're poor and desperate, you figure shit out. Unless, of course, you have a system that encourages dependence on public assistance and actually ends up hurting a woman's self-sufficiency and puts her little boy at a high risk of being helpless and dependent, too.

I want to help them, but the answer isn't more subsidies. I want to see her get that better job, even if it means losing the assistance. I want to see Dad stay in the home because that's so critical for developing emotional control in young adults. I want their son to grow up scrappy and industrious, with a good sense of how to get by even things are tough because tough times happen for everyone.

I don't blame this woman. I'm not pissed at her. I'm pissed, however, at the politicians who have created this dependency web to trap people like this woman and ensure that there will always be a need for do-gooder politicians.


Jesus, your comment and the other replies just straight up reek of privilege/ignorance.

What you're suggesting is obviously the pragmatic choice - obviously, if she's poor as shit and can't afford regular diapers, using reusable cloth ones is a great solution. But that's not the fucking point of the article - its $CURRENT_YEAR in the richest country in the world, this absolutely shouldn't be a thing that happens in the first place.

I'm not even a communist or anything, but its absolutely insane to me that Americans don't realize how "third world" their country is in some ways. Do you think that back in the 50s and 60s when your parents or grandparents were buying the first mass produced disposable diapers, they would have expected 60 years later people would be forced to go back to washable cloth diapers because they couldn't afford regular diapers? What a stupidly low standard to have for the wealthiest country in the world.

Capitalism is an awesome thing, but it seems conservative pundits and the rich have convinced a lot of people that you can't have both a strong, capitalist free market economy along with a government that actually gives a shit about its citizens and not just the top 10,000 guys with the biggest wallets or whatever.


They also wouldn't have imagined that not making everything disposable and plastic would be a bad idea and yet here we are.

Not everything is better because it happened in the past. God forbid you have to be a little bit more mindful of wanton consumption than people were in $CURRENT_YEAR - 50.

Calling a country third world because you can't throw away tons of disposable diapers... now that's a low standard, or just ridiculously privileged.


You are right about consumption and throwaway society issues. At the same time, i dont believe the reason people can’t afford diapers is that they are expensive to protect the environment... plus creating lots of trash shouldn’t be a privilege for some - it should be prohibited for all.


It should be priced. If you are full vegan, and recyle everything for years, and never travel, so your environmental load is minimal, you should be able to afford a year of time saving with a baby, by using disposable diapers.

And maybe it could be price adjusted for income, so everyone should do the same effort for the environment.


There definitely should a price system that also encompasses the health/environmental/social damage a product brings over its full production and lifecycle!

That would generally reward people so much for the good things you mentioned that they still could afgord the one bad thing...


This has nothing to do with the argument, at all.


It completely does. Why are cloth diapers third world? Why are disposables seen as so superior that they should be had at a discount? They should be expensive to account for their environmental cost. Just because they didn't care about that in the 50s doesn't mean anything.

So yeah, it's incredibly relevant.


No, you entirely missed the point.

Cloth being better is something else entirely, nor was I suggesting that disposable diapers be discounted with taxpayer money. The point was "Why does the poor in the richest country in the world have to worry about something as inane as affording diapers in 2018?"

I agree that people should use cloth - but the response to "Hey, this poor person can't even really afford to buy diapers!" shouldn't be "wow that damn government making her dependent on welfare bux, shes so dumb she doesn't even know about cloth too!". It just reeks of being completely out of touch with the poor experience in America. Maternity leave isn't really a thing for someone like her - should she maybe be working an extra job or two to afford better diapers? Even if she doesn't, how do you know she has the time to deal with changing and washing cloth diapers? Being a stay at home mom doesn't exactly work as well as it did in the 50s or 60s, and she doesn't have a husband working for a tech company or whatever who can support a family on a single salary.


Let's be clear and honest about this article: there was no second job for her to work because she quit her first job before the baby was even born to go on assistance. Your argument doesn't hold water with me. My mom worked when she was pregnant with me and went right back to work after I was born. My wife, a physical therapist with a physically demanding job, worked until the very day both of our sons were born and then went back to work four weeks later. The girl in this story did none of that. Again, I don't blame her--the system practically invited her to do this.


The discussion was about how something that almost every parent uses, relating to one of the most basic human functions, could be outside of the purchasing power of an inhabitant of a major developed country.

I don't disagree with a discussion on how we externalize costs in cell phones, take out food containers, packaging for toilet paper, or whatever else. But however reasonable that discussion is, it was besides the point of this discussion.


    > Do you think that back in the 50s and 60s
    > when your parents or grandparents were
    > buying the first mass produced disposable
    > diapers, they would have expected 60 years
    > later people would be forced to go back to
    > washable cloth diapers because they couldn't
    > afford regular diapers?
I tried looking up the real price of diapers since the 50s until modern day, and the only thing I could find suggests that this statement is outlandishly inaccurate.

Here's a document that quotes prices from the 50s in the US[1]:

    [...]Prices typically ran above—sometimes well
    above—ten cents per diaper, while cloth
    diapers sold for 1-2 cents each and diaper
    services typically charged 3-5 cents per
    diaper.
According to http://www.usinflationcalculator.com 10 cents per diaper in Today's money would be $1.03. I don't live in the US (although I do buy diapers), but looking at Amazon for even small packages you've got prices like $15 for a 40-pack of Pampers, which is $0.40 per diaper. It looks like you can easily get that price down to half of that if you buy bigger packages, buy non-brand etc.

So I think you can tell your grandparents in the 50s that accounting for the price of soap etc. their grandchildren are going to live in a country where disposable diapers are as cheap as cloth diapers. That doesn't sound so bad.

1. https://www.edana.org/docs/default-source/default-document-l...


... their grandchildren are going to live in a country where disposable diapers are as cheap as cloth diapers. That doesn't sound so bad.

I'm going to regret sticking my head over the parapet on this one but ...

You're making the argument that it's great that diapers are a quarter of the price that they were, and isn't that great. But we're speaking in the context of how the poor can't even afford them at that price.

I've no stake in this argument. The dynamic of poverty and privilege is a topic that demands robust discussion. But I couldn't let such an obvious contradiction slip by ...


No, I'm not trying to make that argument. There's certainly people today that have kids and can't afford diapers in first-world countries even if they were say 1/4 of current prices.

I'm specifically responding to a part of the GPs comment that seems to be claiming that things have been getting worse since the 50s.

Which is not to say that anyone being unable to afford diapers can't be considered unacceptable, or that you could argue that social policies should be changed to amend that problem.

But it doesn't help anyone if the discussion isn't factually based. As far as I can tell poverty has been going down since the 50s[1] (with some bumps), and more generally, if you would present anyone in the 50s struggling to raise kids at their income level to swap with someone in 2018 at proportionally the same income level they'd take that swap in a heartbeat.

All of which is not to say that thing can't get even better, but there's no way to set sensible social policy for the future if we don't look at the data showing where we've already been, and what current trends are.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States


I would have to seriously question your assertion that poverty has been on the decline since the 50s .. I've seen the stats you present, but also stats to the contrary so the case is far from closed.

What I do know is that the average industrial wage relative to the cost of living has been steadily declining with a marked plunge from the 80s onwards.

I will concede that the 50s is a poor comparison, as much of the western world was in the midst of a post-war economic boom at that time.


Yes that may be wrong, however it would have to have gotten much worse for someone buying diapers to be worse off than 50 years ago, since their price in terms of purchasing power has plummeted in the meantime.

I don't know about the average "industrial wage", but that sounds like a bad metric to focus on. Manufacturing in the US has dropped from around 25% during this time down into the single digits, so it's not as common a job as it used to be. If anything I'd expect the wage to have gone up, since those jobs are now more specialized.


> If anything I'd expect the wage to have gone up

You'd think so, wouldn't you? The truth of the matter is most manufacturing companies are facing the same problem tech is right now: a "talent" shortage. The pay hasn't kept up with living costs in most areas. The days of buying a house and raising a family on an "industrial wage" are long gone. The pay is hardly enough to keep one person alive these days. As a result, nobody wants the jobs. The companies can't keep their assembly lines fully staffed, but they don't want to pay more either.


You're quoting prices for a diaper service--one that comes to your house and picks up the dirty diapers, launders them, and gives you clean, folded diapers in exchange. This is a rich person's service. My parents didn't use a diaper service in the 1970s, they washed them in the washing machine like virtually everyone else. So, in today's money, those $0.01-0.02 cloth diapers would be about $0.10-0.25 in 2018 money each and let's say that soap would be another $3 in 2018 money. 40 cloth diapers and soap is about the same as that 40-pack of Pampers and you get to keep and re-use the cloth diapers. You're breaking even after one load.

Any parent here who has ever used cloth diapers can tell you: they save money. They should be teaching cloth diapering like they teach breastfeeding to mothers of newborns.


I mistakenly over-quoted the paragraph and included the sentence about diaper services, but the prices I was discussing were the retail prices quoted before that.

But yes, I'm willing to believe that cloth diapers were cheaper, and still are cheaper. But that's a digression from the main topic at hand, which is the question of whether or not disposable diapers are cheaper than in the 50s when adjusted for inflation.


Honestly, I have no idea. My parents were struggling when I was born, but they were also living in the hippy-dippy 1970s when a "natural" choice like cloth diapering was the favored option. Either way, the diapers were cheap and they worked well--I potty-trained very early.


Your comment is completely contradictory.

You say the OP's comment reeks of privilege/ignorance, but you go ahead and expect government privilege in $CURRENY_YEAR.

The OP was commenting that certain people leech and do not want to find a job and help themselves, but rather want more help from the government.

I grew up with cloth diapers not because my family was poor, but just simply because it was a better choice for us at the time. My Family grew up in the 50-60s with cloth diapers, because other types of diapers weren't available. I don't see that cloth diapers are a poor-people's choice. Why is that so "third world"? Is it bellow some "level" you think should exist - that my friend is the privilege/ignorance you were smelling in other comments.


You don't even understand what privilege means, my dude. I expect my government to serve myself and the people, and not a handful of old dudes at the top of the food chain. If you think a government serving its people is a privilege, I think you have a very poor idea of what democracy is (or should be).

>...certain people leech, do not want to find a job...

This is privilege and propaganda at work right here. Being so far removed from what its like to be poor that you unironically believe some bullshit like "poor people just want government bux for free".

>I grew up with cloth... Not because my family was poor, but because other types weren't available... I don't see that cloth diapers are a poor-peoples choice.. Is it below some "level” you think should exist?

Absolutely - I expect that the poor in the richest country in the world aren't forced to regress to the standards of 50-60 years ago for their children. There's nothing wrong with cloth diapers or the fact that you were brought up with them. The issue is that people like you don't think its a problem that somebody in the USA in 2018 has to get cloth diapers not because they want to, or their baby's skin handles it better or whatever, but because they literally cannot afford not to.

What the fuck is with this race to the bottom? Yes, I absolutely expect there to be certain standards of living in different countries that are upheld by society and government. How am I the crazy one here? I don't want to live in a fucking country where I'm making 6 figures, comfortable in my air conditioned home while down the street somebody has to shit on the street because public toilets were abolished because muh taxation is theft or something.

There's nothing shameful about being poor or different countries having different standards of living - there is something shameful about a society which looks at somebody struggling and instead of lending a hand tells them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.


First of, you're not the crazy one here. We are just simply discussing things - I apologize if you felt like I thought you were crazy, because that's a tough word. Whether we disagree - sure :)

OT: To my eyes - there is a big difference in a sign "WILL WORK FOR FOOD/MONEY/ETC" and "PLEASE GIVE ME 100$ I NEED IT". Should the USA be like Mother Theresa, lend their helping hand to everyone in need?

I can tell you for a fact that there are tons of people who live on social aid, that are eligible to work, maybe even have degrees and just simply don't want to work. The whole point is, the more you help the more will the people get used to it and will start leeching - it's in the human nature.

I think enjoying bodily pleasures is great - but having a baby is something you need to ensure you can handle. If you can't raise a child right, don't raise it. I have seen people have 5 children - only so that the mother can live off of welfare.

You can give your wealth away - that's what I'm doing, but I'm not expecting my government to provide diapers, I buy them for the people in need. I expect my government to provide health care and jobs, the people will take care of the rest.

I don't mind USA helping people in a real need, but people who are just reckless should not be helped, because they knew what a child brings.

This is privilege and propaganda at work right here. Being so far removed from what its like to be poor that you unironically believe some bullshit like "poor people just want government bux for free".

Privilege is that I'm saying that people get used to government help and dont want to work? That's not privilege, that's called common sense. No point in discussing this further.

You don't even understand what privilege means, my dude. I expect my government to serve myself and the people, and not a handful of old dudes at the top of the food chain. If you think a government serving its people is a privilege, I think you have a very poor idea of what democracy is (or should be).

Oh - but government creating jobs and providing health care is serving old dudes? If what you're saying continues, you will end up with a world full of people that have no ability to resonate, work or be challenged.


> OT: To my eyes - there is a big difference in a sign "WILL WORK FOR FOOD/MONEY/ETC" and "PLEASE GIVE ME 100$ I NEED IT". Should the USA be like Mother Theresa, lend their helping hand to everyone in need?

There might be a difference between those two signs, but I'm not sure it's as profound as you make it. People change and learn as they grow. Someone holding a "Need $$ for beer" sign today may be holding a "Will work for food" sign tommorow, and who knows, perhaps "Now hiring" the next. Should we make sure the man starves to death in the first or second phase before he has a chance to mature and contribute to society? What percentage of humans are irredeemably intolerable? Can we not afford to help them out anyway just to make sure we don't miss the others?

I agree that people ought not have babies they cannot afford, but given that the entry bar is low and, ya'know, it does happen, is it fair for society to leave the child adrift in the wind to... punish its parents? Does society work better when it's comprised of adults who were such children?


You're correct I trivialized it a bit to help my argument. No one should be left to die and everyone should get help when in need. That's a humane and right thing to do.

Just to clear it up - my issue is with people feeling entitled to get help, while they can work.

Yes, no tiny creature should be punished, but there has to be a thought put into it at first I believe.

You mean the adults who were left to starve? No, it works better when children are loved and brought up in a normal environment. I see your point :)


I threw up a little bit in my mouth reading this.


I am glad you did, now you can freely eat it.


Is that what you do? Eat your own puke?

For me it was straightforward enough to just quickly swallow it again as it emerged. No need for any additional ceremony.


No I leave that to ignorant commenters that add nothing to the discussion.


Since you have a policy in place, I guess you must be very used to people vomiting upon your utterances.


Not to throw you flowers, but I frankly wish more people reasoned like this. Well said.


Can you maybe not resort to insulting other's intelligence?

The word privilege is a common term in thr English language and I'm sure the person you're responding to knows what it means.


The OP was commenting that certain people leech and do not want to find a job and help themselves, but rather want more help from the government.

I do not see how you got that from OP. Your sentence is very loaded. You are reading this with your own filters, it seems.

What I got from OP is the government is not helping people become self reliant. Instead it is helping them financially, but also hurting them long term by impeding their ability to learn ways to lift up.


I don't blame this woman. I'm not pissed at her. I'm pissed, however, at the politicians who have created this dependency web to trap people like this woman and ensure that there will always be a need for do-gooder politicians.

unless, of course, you have a system that encourages dependence on public assistance and actually ends up hurting a woman's self-sufficiency and puts her little boy at a high risk of being helpless and dependent, too.

By having the government helping them more, they fail to become self-reliant, thus get used to leeching and are expecting from the government to help them. You have people purposely living on food stamps and government help, even though they're capable of finding work. If you're not aware of this you might want to check your filters as well.


I want to get rid of income qualifications for any and all government program. In fact, I want to make it illegal to ask for income information when providing government services. If Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos want their kids to get free lunch at school, the school shouldn't be able to say you make too much money to qualify.

It is disgusting that we create these perverse incentives and demonize people for dancing to our tune.


I would support this - but who would pay to the school? That would mean taxing the income at 50% or more?


You'll be able to afford it with all the free lunches!


You seem to think first world means everyone is happy, content, and without struggle. No country such as that has ever existed.

The common concept of first world is so misconstrued by people who live in it that those from second and third world countries would ridicule you for your comment.

Perspective, don't forget it.


No, but there's a lot that the US (which, remember, is THE RICHEST AND MOST POWERFUL COUNTRY IN THE WORLD (caps for the people in the back)) can do as a country to improve the basic standards of living. Basic things like affordable health care for everyone (and free health care for those that can't afford it), education and equal opportunities for everyone (so that kids whose parents are poor can still go to university if they have that drive / intelligence - I'm saying that because I had that opportunity), etc.

The cost of disposable nappies is not the issue here. Neither is happiness or contentness. It's being the richest country in the world while 13.5% of its population is living below the poverty line, while people are literally dying on the streets due to being neglected by both the government, their neighbours, and a lack of acceptable health care. With the poor staying poor due to no social mobility, access to education, or normal jobs that don't involve having to scrounge the bottom of the barrel looking for e.g. passengers to drive around.


“It's being the richest country in the world while 13.5% of its population is living below the poverty line,“

I don’t want to get into the political or moral issues, but I just want to point out that this is almost a non sequitur. The USA’s dominance is relative to other countries, but the poverty line is intra-USA. The single poorest person in the USA could be richer than everyone outside it and there could still very well be a poverty line - and people below it - in the USA.


There is such a thing as "absolute poverty" - rather than relative poverty [0]

"a condition characterized by severe deprivation of basic human needs, including food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information. It depends not only on income but also on access to services"

I don't know, if the statistic for the USA is as high as the 13.5% cited by GP, but based on what I read about, and some small amount of personal experience, it is unusually high for such a wealthy, proud nation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_poverty


It would bebizarre If you would be billionaire and your brother don't have enough money for diapers. A month of diapers would cost the same than Whole Foods fancy meal.

That's how bizarre this things looks.

I live in Argentina, not first world by any means, and we have a lots welfare programs.


Switzerland is a third world country (look it up [0]).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_World


I never wore disposable diapers; my mom raised me in cloth diapers. They were two young parents, trying to get my dad's little one-room bicycle shop off the ground in a time of 25+% interest rates. I'm sure that scrubbing my shit out of cloth diapers wasn't fun but my mom did it.

Please, spare me the privilege argument. I've been so poor as a kid that I walked to my grandmother's house to ask for food. I've been so poor that I shared all-you-can-drink small size sodas at Taco Bell to make it to pay day. When you're poor and motivated, you do what you have to do.


Nothing is guaranteed when we are born into this world. Nature is out to get us, and it's survival of the fittest.

People who are born into wealth have it way easier, but they can still lose it all and go broke. Then they'll adapt and try to overcome it, and the ones that can adapt survive. Just like nature's always been.


I'm from a first world country and grew up (in the 80s) woth washable diapers. Surely the privilege is expecting everyone deserves cheap disposable products?


That's one way of looking at it. Another is that the privilege is having time and energy with which to apply to cleaning diapers. We're increasingly time-poor these days, in particular when we're working multiple jobs to make ends meet.


My parents used cloth nappies with my oldest brother in 1990, we weren't poor, and we lived in a developed nation.

Disposable nappies are horrible for the environment.


But people are lazy. A child is work seemingly very few people are willing to put into.


Hm, can i afford a child, can i raise a child? Should i have a child.


Wow, struck a nerve, did he?

Please keep this vitriol and personal attacks off of HN. OP was polite and posted a well-reasoned response. You making personal attacks out of ignorance that may not even hold true in the OP’s case is just petty.


I'm really tired of hearing the argument "we're the richest country on Earth and "X" still happens!"

Of course "X" still happens. "X" is lower on our priorities list than other more pressing issues. Are diapers really the cross we're going to die on now?

We spend ~$3tn helping people every year (federal, state, and local). I think its safe to assume the "richest country on Earth" is trying.


More pressing issues like building yachts for rich people to make sure they're still "incentivised" to produce wealth?


We can at least discuss how the 3tn are allocated, and yes, lament that what we consider the bare minimum is not met in some cases.


Yes of course but that's not the argument I'm responding too. I'm responding to the idea that "there's always more in the piggy bank". For an example of the mentality please reference aninhumer's response to me.


Okay, real talk. My time, according to society, is worth $300ish per hour. Hers is probably worth $10 an hour. I didn't do anything special to earn this and I'm a very lazy person. I would much rather have people like me pay more taxes and this lady not have to spend her whole day cleaning diapers.


Some of us whose time is worth a lot per hour may not want to give it to everyone else, because some of us did have to do special things and work very hard to get it. I see very little daylight each day, get very little exercise, and so on because I'm trying to provide for my family. For my sacrifices in many other areas, my time has become valuable.

If you feel guilty about earning money easily, feel free to give it away. Personally, after already high taxes (40%+ not counting sales tax) I feel that I would like to give what's left to my own family rather than involuntarily donating it to random people.

Are YOU going to send my kids to college? Buy them cars? A house?

It's easy for some who may feel they have enough, or "got theirs" to say that people who "earn a lot" (aka still climbing the ladder) need to give more.

Nobody is preventing you from donating your money to a nonprofit.


The problem with this point of view is that there are other people who also work in dark places and make many sacrifices for their families in the $10 an hour group and perhaps the only difference between them and you is their parents weren't able to buy them a car and a college and a house. Considering we live in the present and cannot make people work harder in the past, is it better for us to have a "got mine" attitude in either direction?


That doesn't take into account the hedonic treadmill.

The research is pretty clear - the difference in happiness and stress levels between making 300k and 400k as a family is pretty much nothing on average. The difference in happiness and stress levels between a family making 20k-40k is enormous.


Just because someone else would be happier with money currently in my pockets isn't a morally legitimate reason to take my money and give it to them, in my opinion, all else being equal.

I'm all for designing some kind of social contract, but I would like it to consider more than just relative wealth.

Also, in general I think it's a good idea to segment the population by net worth rather than income, not that I would advocate taking from those with high net worth either...


If money was originally distributed magically - by an amoral higher entity of some sort - would you be in favor of some democratically decided redistribution afterward to make it a little more fair? What if you had to decide the answer to that before you found out how much in lifetime earnings you'd be randomly assigned?

The unfortunate fact of our world is that, statistically, very few people escape their demographic and psychographic destiny. You can predict a 6 year old kids earnings as an adult fairly well from a mix of their birth geography, parents income, an iq test, and the marshmallow test. Some level of redistribution, that still rewards capitalist endeavors, makes sense in a society as unfair as ours.


I would argue that my 40% tax rate already qualifies as "some level of redistribution".

Like I said, I'd be happy to discuss some kind of social contract, but I get nervous about people saying "well he makes a lot of money, let's take it from him". That's too simplistic.


We completely agree there!


You and I both.

How many of us would have to chip in another $10-$20 in taxes to cover those without, so a parent and his/her children can take a shit and dispose of it in a way that meats their commitments as appropriate?


As others have said, it's not a question of "having diapers" vs "not having diapers". It's a question of convenience for the parents to not use another cheap alternative -- cloth diapers. Also, we already have many assistance programs and I would like to understand the specifics of a situation that leaves someone without enough money to buy even disposable diapers if they're already on assistance.

Further, where does it end?

"I want a good brand of disposable diapers, not the cheap ones" (Note: a lot of working families are buying those cheap diapers!)

"I want a $1000 stroller with an easy-collapse handle and nice tires so my kids don't get jostled as I take them over bumps in the park"

"I need a subsidy for a minivan because a small car is very inconvenient with kids"

"I need a subsidy for ORGANIC food, not just any food for my babies."

etc.

The standard could easily become more than the average US household income, without even trying hard to grow the list.

Remember, it's not about ability to have any diapers at all, they're arguing that they deserve a higher standard of convenience.

Meanwhile, I need to commute to work an obscene distance because NIMBYs won't allow more housing to be built, keeping me away from my children for many more hours than I would otherwise need to. But please, prioritize taxing me even more to pay for conveniences for people who are home with their kids while I work to feed mine.


As a middle class white couple we have never had a problem affording diapers mostly because between showers, grandparents, and other middle class friends with babies, most everything else from strollers to clothing for the first two years has been provided to us for free. Perhaps another unrecognized perk of living in certain social circles?


It's a question of convenience for the parents to not use another cheap alternative -- cloth diapers

Time spent cleaning cloth diapers is time not spent working and earning money.

Being poor is expensive. Being poor means you are on an hourly wage in shift work not a salary. That means half an hour late for work means half an hour less money.


> It's a question of convenience for the parents to not use another cheap alternative -- cloth diapers.

I wouldn't mind a subsidy on cloth diapers to be honest. The landfill waste from disposables is insane.


Or a subsidy on diaper cleaning services. Cloth diapers with a service are price-comparable to disposables currently and otherwise better in several other ways.


That'd be great for anyone who doesn't have access to a washing machine as well.


Isn't it hand washable ?


Yes, but time is always a factor. No washing machine makes it harder.


How is time a factor when you don't work ?


I have to assume you've never looked after a baby full time, or your babies have been exceptionally well behaved. It's easily a full-time job, especially if you have another child already.


I'd rather my taxes go to fund paid maternity leave, free higher education, and free health care. Those are my priorities not buying someone diapers because they can't be bothered washing cloth diapers.


CHARITY. You can already give money to help the less fortunate. I don’t want to go on your taxation guilt trip.


Sometimes it's not even about paying more taxes, it's mainly about how the money is distributed back into society. People like this lady are in an awkward spot where opportunities and benefits are rather low.

Not saying everything is fixed with tossing more money at it, simply setting priorities and building value for more people without always looking at the short term profits. And in some countries perhaps closing questionable cash flows towards those who clearly are benefiting unnecessarily.


> I would much rather have people like me pay more taxes

Then pay more taxes if you will, or donate to some charity, just don't force other people to do so.


Taxes are just the minimum required, always free to send the government more if you think that’s the best use of your money.


Can you do that? In my country they would send extra tax back to you next year.


Just because somebody pays you 300 you are not necessarily worth it. And just because someone else doesn’t have the luck to be able to access such a job she’s not automatically worth only a 1/30 of you.

The question is not what someone pays you but what worth do you really bring to the society that also feeds and supports you.

So while doing your wellpaid job, you probably pay only 5 or 10 an hour to the persons cleaning your toilet so you can do your „human business“ in a conveniently clean place. Don’t you think this person is responsible for a big and relevant part of your life quality?


How about you pay her the $290 per hour excess? Go ahead, send it to her today. You won’t will you?

I make a pretty fair amount of money, but unlike you, I am not a lazy person; I worked my ass off to get where I am and I made sacrifices along the way. I strongly object to paying more taxes just so you can assuage your personal guilt. Contact the reporter for the story, explain you are a guilt-ridden rich person who wants to help that woman out. Then send the woman $290 per hour of your money. Do it for a month. Until you do that, then I’ll invite you not to suggest that we should pay more taxes to support someone because you feel guilty. Taxes aren’t for solving your guilt — charity is. Forcing people to help someone because YOU feel that you don’t work hard enough? That’s ridiculous. Charities were invented for exactly that purpose — people can voluntarily give to their heart’s content.


If you can't stop crossing into personal swipes with your comments, we're going to ban you. We've cut you a ton of slack already, as I explained just a few days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16719584.


Oh give it a break you holier than thou fool


Personal attacks are not allowed on HN, regardless of how wrong or annoying another comment may be. We ban accounts that do this, so would you please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and not do this again?


He might be an asshole, but he's not entirely wrong. I think conservatives tend to be more heartless, but liberals tend to be more apathetic (very generally speaking). Is it worse to not care at all or to care but not enough to actually do anything to change the situation?

Just imagine if every liberal person freely donated some amount that would be taken by the government in plans they can't get passed? We have the power as a people to organize, fund, etc. Maybe conservatives would see the good that these donations do and be impressed to contribute in kind.

I just think we could all do better as a people collectively in every aspect.


As someone from a country with a decent welfare system, this comment is utterly repugnant to me. Welfare should not be viewed as a "dependency web" that trap people. It should be a safety net for when people have no other choice.


I'd also add:

- If you'd really prefer modern style cloth diapers (prefold, pocket etc) instead of the cheap old-school flat diapers, often you can buy second-hand ones that are hardly used (or not used at all!).

- If you have any more children, your cost for buying diapers is now $0 because you already have them.


It's better for the environment, too.


Interesting point, what is the carbon footprint in washing a soiled nappy compared to making and disposing of disposable ones. I don't know, be interesting to see if there is a difference. Thinking for washing them you would need high temperatures and a lot of water.


I've looked this up before. Some sources claim it comes out just as bad (or worse!) to use cloth, but when I looked into it further they were considering hot water washes and drying in a dryer. Whereas in reality you can usually cold or warm wash cloth nappies and line dry them. They also seem to consider them being used on only one child, when they can usually be reused for more than one child.

Looks like Wikipedia actually has a decent section on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaper#Debate


Add to that the added plastic going into circulation and I think cloth is still much more environmentally friendly.


Thanks for that link, looks like where is some good information in there.


Yes. In fact I don't agree with the post I'm replying to in the sense that anyone should have to go back to washing diapers in a bucket 1930s style. But I do really think everyone who has access to a washing machine should be using cloth diapers given the insane amount of landfill disposables generate.


Please post a link to the modern style diapers...


Sure.

These are prefolds, with outers: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LR8VC4

Prefolds are similar to the old flat nappies but they're thicker so you don't have to fold them so much. They work well but they're not as simple as the other options:

These are pocket: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SWIA5LQ

They have a pocket in them where the absorbent insert goes. Easier to use but usually not quite as absorbent as prefold.

Then there are other variations, e.g. Ones where the absorbent inner clips onto the outer ("snap-in"), or even simpler ones that are one outer and inner combined ("all-in-one").


Here you go: https://www.grovia.com/pages/diapers

Pricey new, we bought 30 of them used for $50 bucks on craigslist and soak/cleaned/sun dried them for a few cycles.

I loved the all-in-ones.


Just the first one that came up, I'm sure there are cheaper options.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/free-shipping-100-cotton-wat...


https://duckduckgo.com/?q=cloth+diapers

The top result I got was a Walmart ad. The "Gerber It's a Snap All-in-One" is $9.98 for 3, so about $3.33 each.

I've seen them in physical stores as well.


One my friend actually counted the total price of both and it came out as quite the same all counted in (water, "soap", etc).

But also, it is not all hygienic enough to wash them in bucket with soap. Back when my mother had kids, they had to went through boiling water and were ironed. You basically spent whole day dealing with diapers. Literally whole day, it is ridiculous amount of work.

Also, cloth diapers cause more rashes and that costs money too.


I used cloth diapers for my 2 kids. You save a lot of money, especially when they are less than 1 year old because it happens so frequently but it is just urine and liquid poop. Rinse and soak them in a pail of water with detergent for a few hours. It will be stain free. Wash in washing machine afterward once you accumulate enough pieces. Forget about ironing and boiling water. It is unnecessary. Since they are pretty thin, they dry quickly too. Reuse!


But she has no job in the first place or possibility to find one now with the baby - so why would that prevent her from washing/ironing?


I like this notion that a new baby isn't a 16+ hour a day exhausting job in itself.


I apologize if it sounded like that - a baby is definitely 16+ hours of work a day if not more, that's why I said that no other job is possible, but I was saying that maybe the person can squeeze in a couple of hours to wash the diapers while the baby is asleep.


I am not saying it is impossible and how easy it is depends on what the baby is like (some are easy other are hard). However, the old stereotype of sleep deprived overworked new mom come from here somewhere. For first weeks, when the women is still possibly injured and even walking hurts some of them, I would definitely not demand anything that adds work as universal expectation. Yes, sometimes she feels good and hyperactive and bored to death. Sometimes not.

What I definitely don't like is sanctimonious knee jerking about how parents should do everything the hardest possible way, or else omg end of world happen and everybody will become super lazy. And if they don't do everything the most effective way from day one or dare to talk about their opinions, then the civilization will fall.


My first child screamed whenever she was not on a human for the first six months. She slept, but only on a person.


She wouldve slept out of exhaustion too if you were willing to try. There's no such thing as screaming to death.


There is such thing as screaming to hernia.

Our son was just like GP's one, screaming all the damn time and hardly sleeping for the first 6 months. Undiagnosed digestion problem, which 10 years after was finally pinned on a milk protein intolerance (not lactose).


I have seen a baby cry for three hours straight. His sleep deprived mom slept, nobody else did.


I don't understand your point.


Sure, at around six months she did. Now she sleeps great.


And when does she sleep? Surely not while the baby is awake.


When father or other relative holds the baby?


What about single mothers who don't live near their family?


"Dependency" doesn't let her figure out that she can't wash cloth diapers in a bucket? I'm sorry, that doesn't make any sense.


"I want to help them, but the answer isn't more subsidies. I want to see her get that better job, even if it means losing the assistance. I want to see Dad stay in the home because that's so critical for developing emotional control in young adults. I want their son to grow up scrappy and industrious, with a good sense of how to get by even things are tough because tough times happen for everyone."

In other words, you want to help the person in a way that doesn't require you to pay anything or spend any of your time.


>I want to help them, but the answer isn't more subsidies. I want to see her get that better job, even if it means losing the assistance. I want to see Dad stay in the home because that's so critical for developing emotional control in young adults. I want their son to grow up scrappy and industrious, with a good sense of how to get by even things are tough because tough times happen for everyone.

What do you want to do to help them?


I didn't even had the modern diapers in USSR and all was good.


> They are difficult to clean without a washing machine at home

Am I the only one who thinks I could manage to clean some cloth diapers in a bucket or tub fairly easily?


Cloth diapers must be washed and boiled throughly to be hygienic.


This is certainly true if you are running a daycare, hospital, or similar. It's also true when diapers change ownership, for example when used ones are sold.

If you'll be putting them right back on the same kid, then no. Remember, you don't boil the kid's ass to be hygienic. You'll be putting that diaper on an unboiled ass. The diaper doesn't need to be boiled.


I think the hygiene aspect is about long-term accumulation of pathogens. You bathe the baby several times a week if not daily. Then you put on a cloth that has been exposed to many pathogens over X time. But I guess boiling shouldn't take a day, since we can pasteurize milk in a very short time.


You really don't need to boil cloth diapers, honestly.


Might depend on the age, I'd have a higher standard of sterilization for a newborn than for a 3yo.


Nonsense. Do you have kids? Kids have "blow-outs" all the time that send poop exploding out of the diaper and onto their pants and shirts (and socks...and shoes...). These clothes, they don't get boiled. We soak them in water and detergent for a few hours and then throw them in the washer with the rest of our laundry. I have two kids, including one in diapers, and I've never once had any hygiene issues and you better believe that my washer has seen some poop.


You, and probably several million (if not a billion or so) other human beings who have managed to do it well enough before nylon diapers came onto the scene...


about washing in a bucket with bar soap and other suggestions, time is money.


>I don't blame this woman. I'm not pissed at her.

Although this is kind of you and your position is likely rooted in empathy and compassion, I think this is also wrong.

At which point do we make the cut and let a person take responsibility for their lives? It's a chicken and egg problem, sure. But, who cares? I'm not saying that life isn't hard or that there aren't people who, by pure misfortune, had to endure situations which leave long-lasting scars. What I'm saying, however, is that each human being is the master of his or her destiny.

>I don't blame this woman.

Don't you, by not blaming her, contribute to reinforcing her perceived helplessness?

Where do we make a cut? At which point can we "blame" a human being for her perceived helplessness? I don't want to blame any body, of course, I just want everyone to be aware that they, alone, can do better.

Would my life be better if I was born in huge loving, rich family and I wouldn't have to worry about "surviving"? Well, perhaps. Do I care about the circumstances that were less than optimal in my life and for which some degree of fortitude and healing was needed? Hell no! It is what it is.

>I don't blame this woman.

If I ever put myself in a position of helplessness, please go ahead and blame me. Perhaps then I'd be able to realize that there are other ways.

>I'm pissed, however, at the politicians who have created this dependency web to trap people like this woman and ensure that there will always be a need for do-gooder politicians.

Nevertheless, I agree with this as much as I disagree with your other statement. Politicians who profit from certain tendencies in the most vulnerable members of our society not in order to help but to enslave are the dirty, dirty people.


> What I'm saying, however, is that each human being is the master of his or her destiny.

You have likely never been put into a situation like this, because if you had you would know that this is not true in reality. It's significantly more complicated than you make it out to be.


Politicians are in the same trap as the rest of us.


Recently I'm becoming more and more repulsed by the "everyday life is shit in the US" news.

1 in 3 families in the US cannot afford diapers? A full one third of families? The richest country in the world, indeed.


> Safety net programs are little help. Only one form of public assistance can be spent on diapers, and in Florida the average benefit hasn’t increased in more than two decades.

Why do we hate the poor so much?




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