Diapers, frugality, and poverty (open topic)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"As often seems to be the case, the comments section in this Slate article are more interesting than the article itself, about poor mothers who reuse\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/10\/diapers-frugality-and-poverty-open-topic.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Diapers, frugality, and poverty (open topic)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As often seems to be the case, the comments section in this Slate article are more interesting than the article itself, about poor mothers who reuse\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" 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{"id":765,"date":"2013-10-29T13:02:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-29T13:02:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/10\/diapers-frugality-and-poverty-open-topic.html"},"modified":"2013-10-29T13:02:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-29T13:02:00","slug":"diapers-frugality-and-poverty-open-topic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2013\/10\/diapers-frugality-and-poverty-open-topic.html","title":{"rendered":"Diapers, frugality, and poverty (open topic)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

As often seems to be the case, the comments section in this Slate article<\/a> are more interesting than the article itself, about poor mothers who reuse diapers because they can\u2019t afford new ones.\u00a0 Specifically, the dump the poop out and rediaper the child until it\u2019s full of pee.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Now, the article has a few holes \u2014 the author says that cloth diapers aren\u2019t an option because the daycare won\u2019t accept them, but clearly the diaper re-using is happening at home, not at daycare.\u00a0 She points out that diapers can\u2019t be bought with food stamps, and, even if it were possible, food stamps aren\u2019t even enough to pay for the family\u2019s food, so there\u2019s not enough cash left for diapers.\u00a0 (I\u2019m doubtful of that \u2014 at the full benefit level, it seems very doable, especially for infants who aren\u2019t actually eating much if anything, and are getting WIC in addition, or school kids getting breakfast and lunch for free at school.\u00a0 The \u201cfood stamp money runs out\u201d issue is for those working families who only get partial benefits, because they\u2019re supposed to only need supplemental help.)<\/p>\n

And the comments are full of discussions of whether daycare is really an impediment to using diapers, with one mom describing her system for cloth-diapering at daycare, and others disputing whether the \u201ccan\u2019t afford diapers\u201d crowd really has kids in daycare.\u00a0 (Most likely, we\u2019re talking about home daycares rather than daycare centers.)\u00a0 And then there\u2019s another discussion about whether the effort of cleaning diapers is prohibitive or not, especially if the home doesn\u2019t have a washer and laundromats may or may not prohibit washing diapers there, so hand-washing may be necessary.\u00a0 (Side note:\u00a0 apparently, the spell-checker thinks laundromat is a proper noun \u2014 was it a trademarked term that moved into general usage?)\u00a0 <\/p>\n

(My own reaction:\u00a0 is it really such an awful thing to \u201creuse\u201d an otherwise dry diaper?\u00a0 Are these kids getting rashes by keeping wet diapers on, or is this just\u00a0that bit of practicality that comes from sufficient time spent diapering, so that you\u2019re no longer grossed out by poop?)<\/p>\n

But the largest majority of comments are of the \u201cif you can\u2019t afford to take care of your kids, don\u2019t have \u2019em\u201d variety, leading me to wonder whether some conservative blogger linked to this piece.<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s really the far bigger question:\u00a0 how much assistance (financial and in-kind) does society (that is, the government) have a responsibility to provide to the poor, and, in particular, to single mothers?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There\u2019s the frequent argument that the pro-life movement should support significant quantities of support to the poor, so that no woman feels she needs to choose abortion out of poverty \u2014 but \u201cenough money that no woman feels she needs to get an abortion\u201d is a pretty high threshold, given that there are woman all along the financial spectrum who get abortions for financial reasons and I suspect this is really more of a \u201cfragile middle class\u201d issue than one for women in poverty.<\/p>\n

But the bigger question is, how do you minimize the cost of welfare, maximize the likelihood that the mom will be the mythical Julia (who does, after all, end up supporting herself) rather than on welfare perpetually, and neither punish the kid nor perpetuate the cycle of poverty?\u00a0 Of course, mandatory sterilization is not an option in the year 2013.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m still trying to figure out how I can make an argument against single parenting and a proposal to decrease it \u2014 and this fits in there.\u00a0 As always, comments welcome.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"