{"id":1073,"date":"2005-10-17T10:04:16","date_gmt":"2005-10-17T10:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/barely-there.html"},"modified":"2005-10-17T10:04:16","modified_gmt":"2005-10-17T10:04:16","slug":"barely-there","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/barely-there.html","title":{"rendered":"Barely there"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been some discussion of the so-called "Diaper-Free" movement. Otherwise known as Elimination Communication. Diaper-Free Baby is one website dedicated to the cause.<\/a> There was a Newsweek article, I believe, then a NYTimes article, then a NYTimes op-ed.<\/p>\n

Today, a Slate article sums up the issue<\/a>. By the way, I love <\/em>the graphic on the Slate piece. It’s adorable.<\/p>\n

The piece shifts, immediately into Parent War mode, since EC requires, as you could imagine, rather constant and close attention, something that, say a parent working outside the home can’t do. And off we go!<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\n

In fact, elimination communication sounds a lot like another name for ever-present mothering: attachment parenting, the theory of child rearing that holds that kids are best off emotionally and cognitively if they’re always with a single caregiver in their early years. Here’s how babies become toilet trained by the age of 6 months among the Digo people of East Africa, according to the American Family Physician<\/em>: "The child spends the first few months of life exclusively in the company of the mother." Here’s the modern-day Manhattan version as reported by the Times<\/em>: "Some parents sleep next to their children and keep a potty at arm’s reach." So much for an evening away. And forget about a day at the office.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s fascinating to watch the twists and turns in American parenting practices. Early training used to be suggested, earlier in the 20th century, along with very early eating of solid foods – via the bottle, no less. Be assured that the percentage of parents interested in EC would be very small, even among proponents of attachment parenting, I would think. It’s just not….necessary. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the past couple of weeks, there has been some discussion of the so-called "Diaper-Free" movement. Otherwise known as Elimination Communication. Diaper-Free Baby is one website dedicated to the cause. There was a Newsweek article, I believe, then a NYTimes article, then a NYTimes op-ed. Today, a Slate article sums up the issue. By the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":180,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nBarely there - Via Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2005\/10\/barely-there.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barely there - Via Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the past couple of weeks, there has been some discussion of the so-called "Diaper-Free" movement. Otherwise known as Elimination Communication. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1073\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}