$115 for diapers and wipes - how do they afford?

they make a lot of money. in my day, we used cloth diapers and safety pins, gross!

but let's keep filling up the landfill

 

plenty of methane inside

 

My parents didn't. It was cloth diapers and a washing machine.

But that was a different era.

 

Yeah we first used flannel cloth diapers; the disposable diapers were a luxury, in a pinch item. I liked the flannel diapers for car polishing, eventually couldn’t find them for sale.

 

there used to be a cloth diaper pick up and delivery service for wealthy

 

In perspective, $115 a month for diapers + wipes is less than one Latte per day from Starbucks. It's 1/2 of the $7 a day smoking habit. Raising kids aint cheap. Mom says is was not cheap when we were kids either.

 

That doesn't help people who don't drink coffee and don't smoke.

Very long ago, a local county executive justified a certain proposed tax increase by pointing out "how little" a person could give up in order to pay the tax. E.g. cutting out just one latte or movie night or restaurant meal or baseball game or some other indulgent pleasure over whatever applicable interval. The problem was, I either never did or had cut back on all his listed choices, to the extent that completely cutting out the remainder of everything on his list, was insufficient to pay the tax he was promoting.

The tax passed.

A decade later, another politician made the same appeal for yet another tax, with essentially the same list of personal cutbacks to pay for it ...

(I don't claim to not spend anything in indulgent pleasures that could be trimmed. But both these politicians batted 0%.)

 

My post was not meant to indicate that you could give up a habit to pay the price of raising kids. I was putting it in perspective by comparing it to the cost of other disposables that we might frequently buy.

Compounded sacrifices are a touchstone for politicians. In our area we are having another drought. Just like 4 years ago, we are mandated to reduce water use by 15%. The problem is that 4 years ago we automated the lawn and garden irrigation, changed out all faucets and also replaced the toilets with low flow versions. 4 years ago we cut our water use by more than 30%. In order to cut water use another 15% we need to resort to an outhouse in the yard.

 

Time for more restrictions!! Showers only on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Toilet flushing only on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, unless you live in one of the areas where you can just take care of your business on the nearest sidewalk....

 

nyc?

 

remember the lucky diaper service people? And those yucky things called hampers?

these days we get recycle bins filled half to full with garbage. Gotta love all the new conveniences that everyone takes advantage of !

'Oh wait, was that sarcasm?

 

@dbstoo I put a 1 gal low flow toilet in out 100 year old home, and wouldn't ya guess. it doesn't work so well with the 100 year old plumbing, especially in the summer. I adjusted using extra water per flush from buckets under a tub faucet that I let continue to drip / leak.
Surprising even me, I was able to reduce bi monthly water useage 20 years ago by 45% from 15k gals to 8k gals. But I experiment a lot with what I can do as an individual to reduce stuff like that. Coincidentally, the first bill at 8k gals was the same cost as the previous 15k gals bill. Go figger !

 

Oh Lord, does my OCD kick in, walking the dog on recycle day. You see all this sand-pounding stuff. For starters stuff that "is" recyclable, but geez Louis, a tightly capped gallon milk bottle with a oz or two sloshing in the bottom, on a hot day? Or: a used furnace filter?

 

Mendel brings up another point of irritation; cleaning recyclables.

Years ago it was determined that the local recycling center could most effectively / efficiently clean the bottles, cans, etc. That was part of the pitch given by the garbage company when they were given the exclusive contract for the area. When China required clean materials for recycling, the garbage company changed the rules so that the homeowners are responsible for washing all recyclables. In effect, they have shifted a large water wasting process back on the same homes that are supposed to reduce their water use. Sigh.

 

What parents? If I recall, birthrate has been going down for quite some time.

Also seems like a lot of younger folks these days don't want kids. I wonder if the average age of parents will keep going up.

 

Yep... Capitalism and greed has ruined the future for young people big time!!!

Kids are graduating college with enough debt to be equivalent to a home loan and they don't even own a home, nor will they be able to afford one now. And if you can't afford a home, how are you going to afford to raise a kid?

Meanwhile they tell us it's just normal "inflation" due to Pandemic yet corporate profits are the highest they've been in 70 years because it's price gouging not inflation and all the ancient senior citizens elected to run the government could care less because they spend most of their time fundraising from the corporations who are doing the price gouging. What part of ensuring the future is livable for the next generation matters?

And why do they still pretend like they don't have to take climate change seriously? Could it be because the oil companies give them money? It's a complete and total failure of leadership in every way possible right now from people in elected office!

 

Such comparisons need to be aware of just who the "we" audience is. People on lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder will react very differently from people on middle-income and higher rungs of that ladder.

Despite that, our country's population continues to grow. 2.8M deaths in pre-Covid years, 3.3M deaths in Covid years, replaced by 3.6M births last year, and averaging about 1.1M legal immigrants per year.

Distinct from pandemics, annual deaths should be increasing as more Baby Boomers reach 'transition' age. But that bubble of deaths shouldn't ever exceed 4.3M per year, and might not exceed 4.0M per year. So births+immigration would have to drop quite significantly from current levels to halt or reverse population growth.

 

Something those on the higher rungs may not be aware. Stores selling baby formula in poor areas often have it looked up.