Diaper Lingerie

From what I gather from the previous generation of moms, diapers have come a long way. Cloth diapers of today are far more user-friendly, and disposable diapers are far more effective at preventing leaks. I definitely appreciate the advancements in diaper science. What I want to know, though, is who decided these effective poo-catchers also had to be pretty.

In the last 10.5 months, Harper has been through four diaper sizes, and each size has looked exactly the same: white with a strip of Sesame Street characters across the top. I've often wondered how much Pampers pays to license those characters and how much of that cost gets passed on to me. I'm sure it's not much per diaper, since they can spread that cost out over the many, many cases of diapers I will buy, but I do think it's (mildly) interesting that there's not a "plain" option. If I want Pampers, I'm paying for the cute little characters on this item that will be worn for about an hour, covered that entire time by clothes, and end up in a landfill with poop on it.

Then this weekend Harper finally upgraded to size 3 diapers. After nearly 11 months of white diapers, I was pretty surprised to open the size 3 pack and find fancy purple and green diapers. All I could think was, "Why?!"

Who's idea was it to add a graphic design element to a poo-catcher? I think he's probably related to the dude who designs the lines of women's lingerie that include bras with fur on them. There's no practical purpose and in fact it's more counterproductive than anything else: the little yellow markings around the leg holes through me into a panic until I realized they were "design elements" rather than an indication that my specially designed diapers hadn't done their job holding in the poo.

And just when I thought the concept of fashionable diapers couldn't get any more ridiculous, I saw an ad this afternoon for diaper jeans. I guess I've been buying the "plain" diapers after all.