It’s Good for the Carpet and Smells of Candy Floss

The New York Times reports on a breakthrough in cutting-edge eco-friendly parenting:

When Jada Shapiro decided to raise her daughter from birth without diapers, for the most part, not everyone was amused. Ms Shapiro scattered little bowls around the house to catch her daughter’s offerings, and her sister insisted that she use a big, dark marker to mark the bowls so that they could never find their way back to the kitchen… “Elimination communication,” as the diaper-free method of child-rearing is called, is finding an audience in the hipper precincts of New York City. Ms Shapiro, who is a doula, a birth and child-rearing coach, says it is practically now a job qualification to at least be able to offer diaper-free training as an option to clients. Caribou Baby, an “eco-friendly maternity, baby and lifestyle store,” has been drawing capacity crowds to its diaper-free “meetups,” where parents exchange tips like how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars. Parents are drawn to the method as a way of preserving the environment from the ravages of disposable diapers. Many of them like the thought that they are rediscovering an ancient practice used in other cultures.  

How daringly ethnic. Why, it’s practically like having your very own brown baby. I can’t help wondering if this, um, innovation will affect how often such parents find willing babysitters and dinner guests. To say nothing of how often they get invited round for lunch by friends who may wish to preserve their own environment.

Comments

[Anna]

After a while she could make those noises — the elimination communication — to the baby while holding him over the toilet or the sink

So she's saving the planet by getting her baby to shit in the sink. Lovely.

[David]

After a while she could make those noises — the elimination communication — to the baby while holding him over the toilet or the sink

Let’s hope there was time to remove the plates and cutlery first.

[jabrwok]

I hope she *does* get the bowls mixed up. Might remind her (assuming she survives) just *why* it's a bad idea to let people defecate and urinate wherever they please.

[sk60]

Many of them like the thought that they are rediscovering an ancient practice used in other cultures.

That's the line that gives the game away.

[David]

That’s the line that gives the game away.

It does have a whiff of ethnic fetishism.

[AC1]

Well most gaiaists emote that electricity was a bad invention, these seem to think plumbing and waste disposal are too...

I wonder would they do the same for an old peoples home?

[Trimegistus]

The baby will be brown from the waist down, anyhow.

[Chris S.]

As in many things, there is a whiff of truth behind the madness. As a culture, we have pushed back potty training futher and further to the point where it's not uncommon to have 3-4 year olds in pull-ups. Your parents and grandparents were likely fully potty trained before 2. Why you might ask? Because of those stupid cloth diapers. You had to hand wash those crap filled suckers all day every day so there was a strong push to stop that unplesant task as quickly as possible. On the plus side, with EC you don't have to re-train your child that wallowing in your own filth isn't the status quo, but on the down side you end up with parents letting their kids dump on the street or just off the path while at the zoo.

Elimination Communication definately breeds helecopter parenting as you need to watch your baby like a hawk in order to catch their "signals". I know we had read the articles on it and with our own kids the mindset was "If I see my kid about to do their business I'll try to put them on a potty" but the primary thrust was to potty train them as quick as possible as it's massively more convenient.

[Jacob]

Ahem.

[David]

Ahem.

Maybe this ‘back-to-nature-buttocks-free’ approach depends on (a), whether you can scrutinise your baby round the clock for any indication of impending output, and (b), whether your new sofa is covered with Ultrasuede®.

[Jacob]

(c) whether you can afford a full-time nanny and cleaner.

[rabbit]

And the dysentery is slimming for the whole family.

[Charlie Suet]

So it's not so much rediscovering an ancient practice as taking advantage of a highly developed and complicated capitalist system. Not many subsistence farmers / goatherds / hunter gatherers hiring child-rearing coaches, after all.

[JuliaM]

*heaves*

[pst314]

"how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars"

That's illegal in most cities...but I'm sure our Wise Leaders can create an exception for hippies and other Superior Beings.

[Mike James]

This ought to be amusing once that kid starts attending kindergarten.

[Squires]

When do urbane leftists ever tire of trying out the Emperor's latest fashions?

[Franklin]

As in many things, there is a whiff of truth behind the madness.

There will be a whiff of something, that's for sure.

[John D]

Ms. Stare watched for cues that meant her baby needed to go to the bathroom or was going to the bathroom

And by then you've got crap on the floor.

How daringly ethnic.

Good job she's got plenty of non-ethnic cleaning products.

[DocBud]

I wonder if it voids the Scotchgard guarantee.

[Dianne]

“I have absolutely been at parties and witnessed people putting their baby over the sink,” she said. One client took her baby and her bowl to a party, held her naked baby over the bowl, “and she just did it at this person’s party in the corner, but obviously they were close friends,” Ms. Shapiro said.

Sorry, we're just not that close any more. And take the bowl with you.

[Sam]

It's not just for babies.

[God_Help_Us_All]

Straight up, fcuking insane.

[sk60]

Ms Shapiro scattered little bowls around the house to catch her daughter’s offerings

If these people are willing to spend money on doulas someone should sell them designer shitting bowls too. $300 each.

[David]

Yes, but would they be ethnic designer shitting bowls, as used by other cultures in ancient practices?

[brinster]

Bowels to bowls? Gawdamighty, e. coli is happy as shit!

[Simon Williams]

Yes, but would they be ethnic designer shitting bowls, as used by other cultures in ancient practices?

Hmm, bit of Humbrol enamel and a paintbrush, some badly daubed designs on the side, a made-up story about the authentic, at-one-with-nature infant potty trainiing of the (insert name of fictional ethnic peoples here) of Africa, or somewhere, you know, non-European, and yes,they would be "ethnic" designer shitting bowls. Truly, there is one born every minute...

[brinster]

And gee w(h)iz, when your kid pisses in the street, where the f*** do you think it goes? To some magical sanitary cleanup center?

[rxc]

"how to get a baby to urinate on the street between parked cars"

Back when everyone used to throw their waste products out into the street, they used to have some very interesting "population control events", where large swathes of the populace would get sick and die. They still have these events in places where the children eliminate in the streets. It is the reason we have sewers, one of the most important public health initiatives ever invented.

Also, where do these people think their shit in the streets goes? Into public waterways. If I tred to do this when I am on my boat, I could get a serious fine for poluting the public waters of the United States. To think nothing of getting arrested for public indencency.

[Dom]

David, here's something's for your next post

http://www.avoiceformen.com/georgetown-university-and-men/georgetown-university-in-a-cover-up/

[David]

Dom,

Thanks, I saw the story a few days ago. It seemed a little fishy to me and I assumed the person in question was a troll. That, or unwell. In light of this update, it seems unwise to comment.

[Tim Newman]

Many of them like the thought that they are rediscovering an ancient practice used in other cultures.

Like grown men do outside my office in Lagos?

[Dom]

David, I didn't see the update. Good for you for being careful.

[in_awe]

Recruitment and training for future members of Occupy Wall Street.

[Watcher]

This 'ancient practice' should include living in huts with earthen floors, perhaps sharing the living space with cows and goats. If so, then no problem.

[Miguel]

"And gee w(h)iz, when your kid pisses in the street, where the f*** do you think it goes? To some magical sanitary cleanup center?

Posted by: brinster | April 24, 2013 at 12:21"

They probably have no clue where it goes. Just like my lefty friend who does not know how electricity is generated. "But, it's clean energry. Wait, what? Coal? Oil? To make electricity? Can't be true."

[Reed]

In practice, it doesn't look good...

http://tinyurl.com/bz49oa3

[David Davis]

The name "Jada" says it all. How, furthermore, can a modern firm seriously give a job to someone called "Jada"?

[David Davis]

When I shall have been offered the position of Principal-Secretary-of-State-for-War, and (as we all know) War Begins At Home Just Like Charity, names will have been pre-taken, so that arses can be post-kicked.

All these awful people probably do, really, truly, realise how and why they so, so deeply, badly, get up the noses (sorry about the smell) of ordinary people.

Anybody..._anybody_ who has so much as thought about talking to one of these public-baby-defaecatorists, let alone been one, will be "resettled". I often talk on facebook about the "resettlement" of GramscoFabiaNazis, of which this is a new sort which I had not previously had the pleasure of reporting - you got there first.

I don't mean it in the LeninoStaliNazi sense, of "finalising a solution". No: I mean resettlement. Actual resettlement. These people, these particular ones, can be resettled on a special island, different from the main cold windy one without much if anything in the way of food and fuels. This one will have no sanitation-provision either (not that the other one, for the main body of GFNs, would have done anyway...)

And any woman who admits publicly to being called "Jada" will be sent there too.

[Rob]

Hopefully she will not soon also experience the ancient and authentic massive child mortality rate Tom easily avoidable disease.

Shitting and pissing on the public street - a perfect metaphor for Progressivism's attitude to other people.

[WTP]

In somewhat related news, Orlando has had its first whooping cough death in decades...
http://www.wftv.com/news/news/local/baby-dies-whooping-cough-orange-co/nXXqP/

Yes, there was no vaccination. Yay nature. /facetious sarcasm

[Rich Rostrom]

As General Auguste-Alexandre Ducrot said during the battle of Sedan in 1870:

"Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes."

[Oliver Martini]

They'll be eating it next.

[jones]

"They'll be eating it next."

The equivalent in Japan will anyway...

http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=japanese%20faecal%20meat&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&ved=0CC4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.foxnews.com%2Fscitech%2F2011%2F06%2F17%2Fjapanese-scientists-create-meat-from-poop%2F&ei=udp8UcGhMYGtiAfK1oHQDQ&usg=AFQjCNH7v_P5HP3FRqgmQCzCkvJZedbkoA&bvm=bv.45645796,d.dGI