With EC in the news lately I have been hearing a lot of negative comments…
First of all.. If you don’t want to do it then don’t do it!!
These people seem to think that EC kids are just eliminating all around the house and soiling everything… Don’t they know that kids are intelligent and KNOW when they need to eliminate and when you use diapers you are teaching them to eliminate in their diaper and soil themselves??!! My 3 yo was a diaper baby.. Cotton and pampers all of the way… He didn’t want to have anything to do with the toilet until just before he turned 3.. His toilet was the thing that he wore everywhere.. I taught him as a baby that he needed to eliminate in his diaper and it has been hard to get him to unlearn that habit!
Don’t they know that many mom’s use diapers as a backup and instead of changing a soiled diaper they just bring their child to the potty and then put the clean diaper back on… Why is it that people say that they don’t have the time… Pottying means no messy clothes, no messy cleanups, no diaper rash, no fighting etc… It actually saves time…
Don’t they know that there are some moms that use EC even though they work full time, are out of the house often, want to go out sometimes etc?… As with many things… a little can be better then none at all and at least the child knows both ways… As for leaving the house… There are many solutions and kids CAN hold it in!!! Do people not leave the house with their 4 years olds cause they might have to stop to go to the bathroom?
Colin has been EC’d since he was about 3 months old… Next time I am starting at birth… I have to admit that he was doing great until he started to walk and went on a major potty strike and lost the habit of telling us as often and then we lost the habit also… However, he didn’t lose the feeling of going and everyday he is going potty more and more and can even go and sit on the potty by himself… and is using less and less diapers as the days go by….
I think the real reason that people speak so negatively about EC is that they are not/don’t want to be that tuned in to their kids.. they want to use pampers that absorb 1000 times their weight in moisture because they don’t want to be inconvenienced by changing a diaper often… (I have too many times seen moms that leave their kid in a poo soiled diaper because “they ‘just’ changed them”) I think people are also jealous or feel guilty about not being tuned into their children’s cues as much…
Some people use the argument that it is just the parent being ‘trained’… If that is true then I we are also ‘trained’ to feed our children when they tell us they are hungry, ‘trained’ to bath them when they are dirty or ‘trained’ to comfort them when they are need comfort… (OH YEAH!!! they also probably don’t agree with that either and need an object to do that for them too)
What is it about EC that makes people freak out..
About the Author: melissa
I am "a hippie with a minivan". A mom of four who has chosen to take the less travelled roads in parenting. We are a unschooling family and learn through life without punishments or rewards. I am a Needle Felting Artist, I love being in the Kitchen, and love to share my passion of Natural Parenting through Workshops and Mentoring. We have a big dream of living on the road and we are in the process of converting a bus!
What freaks me out about EC? Hard to explain, but it does rankle me somehow. I am a feminist. I love my work. And something about the folks who EC . . . well, they are the same folks who claim to be progressive, liberal, new-age folks, but, in truth, they advocate and champion a way of parenting that would absolutely hobble me as a woman and an individual.
For those SAHM who do EC and like it – BRAVO!!!!! But the EC folks I know seem to be a wee bit evangelical about it.
And like you, they make rather insulting assumptions that folks who don’t want to EC must be neglectful, out-of-tune parents who would rather keep their kids sitting in their own crap than lift a finger.
I think there is a huge distinction between Natural Family stuff and AP. There are folks out there who do both, but there are also lots of super AP folks who just don’t care for the NF stuff.
Reasonable minds may differ.
PS BTW – great blog! Really 🙂
“And like you, they make rather insulting assumptions that folks who don’t want to EC must be neglectful, out-of-tune parents who would rather keep their kids sitting in their own crap than lift a finger.”
I don’t thave any insinuations against those that don’t do it… Heck I didn’t do it and thought it was weird until ds#2 was born… However… Like I said, it is the ones that HAVE to put it down and HAVE to give tons of UNTRUE reasons for why they don’t WANT to do it… that I may make assumptions about…
I just wish people would be honest and say… “It’s just not for me”…
I have a lot more repect for that then giving all the crap (no pun intended ;)) reasons that they come up with and do their best to put the other people down by making it out as a weird and gross practice….
I think it’s GUILT. So many of the excuses for not doing it just don’t hold much weight.
For the record, I didn’t EC my first daughter until she was 8 months old, but as soon as I heard about it, when she was 6 months, it felt absolutely right. I’d never been comfortable with diapering. I just didn’t know there was an alternative. It took some unconditioning time for me to work up the courage to do it.
I think EC’ing parents sometimes get excited (perhaps evangelical) because ECing is great for babies and parents on so many levels. And you can’t really know until you try it.