To wrap up cloth diapering week:

Cloth mommies: 1 Proctor and Gamble: 0

Pampers removed their anti-cloth propaganda page from their site! We won! We raised enough valid points, and enough of us did it that it was loud enough for even the corporate giant to hear!

I know what you're thinking. What does it matter if Pampers has anti-cloth stuff on their site? Certainly we have anti-disposable stuff on the sites for the brands of cloth diapers we use, right? True on both counts, but the difference is that the facts on the cloth sites are actually facts. The things on the Pampers site were blatantly false. Anything that seeks to prove that a use-once-and-throw-away product is superior from an environmental standpoint to an indefinitely reusable product, is a blatant lie. Anything that claims caustic chemicals are better for your baby's skin than organic cotton is a blatant lie. That's not all there was on there, but it was all just as stupid. I'm glad it's gone. I actually had some moms try to use that propaganda as ammo to tell me I was harming Orren and the planet by cloth diapering. It was a pain, and we got it removed. It is a small victory indeed, but a victory none the less.

Another positive thing that's come from this Pampers Dry Max scandal is that the cloth love is growing. I'm a member of one of the more popular cloth diapering communities on the web, and our membership has exploded this week with moms (and even a few dads!) jumping ship on Pampers, and wanting to know how to get started in cloth. I have a feeling we're going to have some Huggies converts before long. I heard the other day that Huggies dyed their diapers blue to look like jeans (looks like blue plastic to me...), and the dyes have been discoloring babies' skin. I smell scandal #2, no pun intended. It's all the better as far as I'm concerned. The more you know about disposable diapers, the worse they seem. Anything that gets people to try cloth is a great thing in the long run.

That's another thing. I think a lot that's wrong with the world is misinformation, or total lack of information. If I walked up to 10000 random people on the street, and asked, "I want to get started in cloth diapering. What do I need to buy, and from where?" at least 95% of them would tell me flat diapers, plastic pants, and pins. The other 5% would be cloth diapering families. (That's a real statistic, by the way. 5% of families use cloth, about the same percentage as do non-hospital births. I found that interesting, and bet there's at least 75% crossover between the two minority groups.) That's the problem, and it's the thing that really pissed those of us in the cloth diapering community off about the Pampers propaganda page. People have no idea what cloth diapers are these days. Sure, the old stuff is still available. I even know some people who use it. It's not the majority, though. The majority of CD families use some form of modern cloth on at least a part time basis. (I do about 50% modern cloth, and 50% prefolds, which are pretty old-school, but my covers are very new millennium, NO plastic pants here!) The propaganda on the Pampers site was based on 1950's-style cloth diapers. I'm going to bet Pampers have changed since their debut in the 50's or 60's, yet they assume cloth has remained the same? It's a ridiculous and completely unrealistic assumption!

The real problem with it, though, is that people believe that crap. It shocks me how many people actually buy what they're fed by the corporations. Why would a giant corporation whose sole purpose is to make money off of you actually have your best interest in mind? It's up to you to not be blind as a consumer, and to truly research your options for yourself, ask around, and no buy into baseless propaganda generated by corporate giants. I only hope the Pampers Dry Max scandal has served to teach some people this the hard way. I'd surely hate to have had my baby get chemical burns and blistering rashes before learning my lesson about trusting corporate giants, but sometimes it takes a bigger hammer. I think this will have a positive outcome, with more people than ever finding the cloth love, and more dispersion of knowledge about modern cloth diapering options. We're actually working on something currently that would get cloth diapers shown on a very popular TV show. (The host had wanted to do a show about cloth diapering, but Huggies paid her a lot of money not to do it, so the cloth community is currently rallying for donations from our favorite diaper companies for audience gifts, and petitioning the show's producers and host to do the cloth show anyhow. We're making significant progress, and may get it done.)

In short, cloth is soft, it is gentle, and it is hanging on my clothesline flapping gracefully in the West Texas wind. It is peaceful, and kind to people because most all cloth diapering products are made in the US, UK, or Canada, by well-paid Union employees or contracted Work-at-Home-Moms. It is truly a decision any parent can feel good about, and I'm really happy that the knowledge is spreading. Knowledge is power! Power to the parents!