6 year old: “Can I help you change B’s diaper?”
Me: “Of course you can.”
6 year old: “I’ll throw it away for you.”
Me: “No, we don’t throw these diapers away. We wash them.”
6 year old: “Why?”
I then explained the mechanics behind waste (on her level) and landfills. You know that our trash goes to a landfill which is a big hole in the ground. That our trash will still be there in hundreds of years. And that when her children have children that disposable diapers would still be in the landfill. So I use cloth diapers on our baby to reduce the amount of trash in the landfill. When we take them off the baby we wash them and use them again.
6 yr old: “But why don’t you throw them away?”
We have to remember that cloth diapering is not the norm. People don’t understand why we choose to use them. Hopefully by teaching our youth to care for the environment future generations of children will be more aware of their choices.
My own child thinks that this is the way the world works. It’s all he knows. He was breastfed but not cloth diapered. Of course they don’t really remember all that far back. I wonder if one day he’ll ask me why I didn’t use cloth on him. He knows that he was breastfed and he understands that babies drink from mommies boobies. I don’t hide any of these things from him. Afterall, I want him to be able to make good decisions when he has his own children.
We have to take these moments to educate the youth so that they won’t have to fight so hard for Mother Earth (and their own health).
This same wonderful young lady has learned about pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding from me this past year. It feels pretty good to be able to share these things with her (and with my own son) because she’s curious and wants to know how things work…and why I do things ‘differently’ than what she’s learned.
If we don’t teach our children about these issues how will we ever change the future? Thanks M for sharing your beautiful daughter with me….otherwise how would I know what to do with a girl! Love you!
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