It's a Lifestyle Choice

This is something you hear quite often.  People get harrassed enough about a certain decision they have made about the way they live, and after defending it time and time again, begin to just say "it's a lifestyle choice".  It's usually an unconventional or contraversial decision, and you have some real nay-sayers and some real supporters.  We have had some "lifestyle choices" we've made in the our times as a couple, a family, and as individuals.  We had children before we were married; we moved to a small town far from the city limits; we've chosen to have 4 children...the list goes on.  Most recently, we started cloth diapering.

The may or may not come as a big surprise to you, but this happens to be seen as a lifestyle choice.  Some people are completely supportive of our decision, other's give a smirk or roll the eyes a little.  The nay-sayers think it's hippy-ish, that we are doing this as a way of showing we are superior in some way, or that we are actually subjecting our child to sitting in a sopping wet piece of cloth that will ultimately result in a wrinkled little butt with terrible diaper rash.  Cloth diapering is something I feel passionately enough about that I'm not going to sit and defend this as being a "lifestyle choice".  I'll tell you exactly why we* have chosen to use cloth diapering:

1. Disposable diapers are the 5th largest contributor to landfill garbage.  It is expected that a single disposable diaper takes over 500 years to decompose.
2. Disposal of human waste in a landfill is actually illegal and cause for a fine.  You are supposed to scrape the poop out of a diaper before tossing it in the garbage.
3. Disposable diapers are laden with carcinogens and chemicals with hormonal ramifications.
4. Nothing feels as good on the skin as natural fibres.
5. Diaper rash is almost non-existent with cloth.
6. Cloth is so much cheaper!  $300-500 for a child's lifetime in cloth diapers...  $2500-3000 for a child's lifetime in disposables.
7. I love looking at Graysen in those cute little fuzzy diapers :)  Shopping for diapers has become a bit of an addiction.
8. Graysen loves his cute little fuzzy diapers... maybe not for the same reasons as me, but he is visibly more comfortable in cloth.

There are actually many more reasons, but those are the biggest.  To me it's not a personal lifestyle choice... that would imply it only affects us/me.  It's a choice we made with everyone in mind.  Granted, we have the most to gain from doing this, I'm also hoping that by being a big proponent for cloth diapering, I can influence somebody else to make this change.  In Graysen's lifetime we will have kept approximately 4,500 diapers from hitting the landfill.  Now, if only we had made this decision when Aurora was a baby - nearly 20,000 diapers is a lot!

Here's a picture of our stash :)

And one of the little cutie that wears them

*by we, I mean I :)  Thankfully Reno is completely supportive and involved in carrying out this decision.