Diaper Rush
Today's cloth diapers are high-tech, high-priced — and collectible.
by Amy Goetzman
May 7, 2007
It's two a.m. The teething baby and the needy toddler are asleep at last. The spouse is snoozing and the dishes are done. It's time to indulge in what the parenting magazines call "me time." But my hobby is, you might say, a bit dirty: I'm into diapers. Naturally, I get online.
First, I cruise a few message boards to see if anyone is posting any photos. Then, I head over to eBay and list an auction: four used diapers, very slightly stained. Before I go to bed, my listing garners eight "watchers," fellow night owls who have checked out my diapers, deemed them attractive and decided that, of the 987 available cloth diaper listings, mine is worth bookmarking.
Before the sun rises, one tentative soul places a bid. Yes, she hopes to put these diapers my child has repeatedly insulted upon the precious bottom of her own sweet baby. But she won't. Seven nights later, in a frenzied last-minute smackdown, she is outbid eleven times over. The diapers sell for $42.
"It's completely insane," says Millie Adelsheim, owner of Peapods in St. Paul, Minnesota, one of the few bricks-and-mortar stores in the country to carry a sizable cloth diaper selection. "Used cloth diapers are selling for sometimes ninety percent of what they cost new."
Until recently, only the most eco-minded or penny-pinching parents chose to cloth-diaper their babies, but within the past decade, design innovations have led to a renewal of interest in cloth. In fact, cloth diapering is now, freakishly, cool. On parenting message boards, the same moms who buy thousand-dollar strollers get giddy about "fluffy mail" — slang for a fresh package of web-ordered cloth diapers. And the market for used cloth diapers is remarkable. In fact, some highly coveted "designer" brands actually appreciate in value, and, depending on the maker, fabric, and design, new cloth diapers can fetch as much as $40 each, although the ones I sold — Kissluvs, purchased new at Peapods — were only $12 new.
Clearly, these are not my mother's cloth diapers. My mother, in fact, would say that the white cotton diapers
Diapers are now gear, designed for what you might call the elimination round. (called prefolds) she used on five kids were perfectly fine, and maybe ten cents each. And then she'd marvel at my idiocy for paying so much for such a mundane item. But the retro diapers I stewed in as a tot were a soggy, saggy drag, while the sleek, high-tech diapers my babies wear perform in rain or shine.
"Diapers have a come a long way," says Adelsheim. "Even just ten years ago, if you were doing cloth diapers, you were doing prefolds. But now there are more sophisticated products that really give people the performance they need."
Performance? Yes, diapers are now gear, designed for what you might call the elimination round. To score a dry butt and a chic, trim fit, you can package your kid in fitted, multi-layer diaper systems that are as easy to use as disposables. With soft fleece interiors and water-repellent outer shells, they resemble REI's most practical foul-weather gear. The truly crunchy breeder, however, may opt for virtuous hemp fleece diapers, more absorbent than cotton, boasting natural anti-bacterial properties, and as earth-friendly as all get-out.
But it's the diapers made by WAHMs (work-at-home-moms, and at least one dad, a crusader who wants to educate the world about disposable diapers and dangerously high scrotal temperatures) that inspire bidding wars, devoted fans, and a collect-them-all mentality. On diaper blogs and sites such as Mothering.com, the Diaper Pin, and the Diaper Hyena, parents research, review, and brag about their latest WAHM acquisitions.
©2007 Amy Goetzman and Nerve Media
About the Author
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Amy Goetzman has written about music, books, travel and culture for
numerous online and print publications. She lives in Minneapolis with
her two young sons and husband, and is currently at work on a novel. |
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