It makes me so mad.

I don't know why disposable diapering parents seem to get so defensive with me and Thak when we mention anything about how much we like cloth diapering. We make no secret of the fact that we're converts. We used disposables with Erin (although we kick ourselves for it now! Cloth is so much better!) and since we did, we can tell people from personal experience how much better cloth is. We save a ton of money, have no guilt about filling up the landfills with disposable diapers which never fully biodegrade, Orren has never had ANY trace of rash what so ever, and plus, cloth diapers are so cute!! We also have found it very easy to wash our own diapers at home. We thought it would be difficult to get used to, but it wasn't.

We tell people about this stuff because we want to encourage other parents to try cloth, because they will quite possibly like it, and stand to save themselves a ton of money. Actually, it generally comes up in conversation when the topic is money saving tips. This one is a total no-brainer.

Somehow, though, when we mention it, there's about a 25% chance that someone will pipe up with some garbage about how we have fecal matter on our clothes because we wash diapers in the same washing machine we wash our clothes in. (Not at the same time, genius!) I wonder, for the people who think that, do they just throw away every article of clothing their babies get any type of urine, spit-up, or fecal matter on? I'm betting the answer is no, and that they use the same washing machine to launder those clothes as they do to launder the rest of the clothes in the household. If that's the case, then what's the difference between that and washing diapers? Absolutely nothing.

I wonder if these people have any idea how stupid they sound. Don't they know that there's really good odds that they, themselves, were cloth diapered babies? Would they say the same things to their own mothers as they do to me about this stuff?

When I think about it, though, these are the same people who roll their eyes when we talk about our choice to have Orren at a birth center, and why avoiding hospitals is very important to us. They're probably also the same people who think organic food is a hoax.

Why can't we find just one family to befriend in this big bad military of ours who is just as crunchy as we are? I'm just so tired of getting the backlash from the junk food eating, hospital birthing, disposable diapering masses. If that's the way they want to be, that's fine with me, but don't be an ass about it... (Yes, I know I'm being one in return, but never to their faces. It wouldn't accomplish anything. Plus, I am as entitled to be annoyed with this as they are to think I'm a dirty hippie.)