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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is Molly and I'm Kristen. You know

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Speaker 1: christ So one of the I would say most popular

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Speaker 1: and one of my favorite podcasts we've done is, of course,

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Speaker 1: what's the scoop on Lady Poop? Yes, the poop episode,

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Speaker 1: the poop episode, and today where you're going to talk

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Speaker 1: about baby poop? Yes, well more more the collection and

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Speaker 1: disposal of baby poop, not necessarily digging into the diaper

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Speaker 1: to see what's there. Very true, very true. But I

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Speaker 1: still wanted to make a connection because today we're gonna

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Speaker 1: talk about all of the options that new mothers have

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Speaker 1: and Father's sorry it means to be so emails centric

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Speaker 1: and Molly geez. And so you bring home your new

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Speaker 1: bundle of joy, and pretty soon as as soon as

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Speaker 1: you bring them home, there's gonna be some choy says

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Speaker 1: to make. Yeah, the question is to diaper or not

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Speaker 1: to diaper? Because I don't know if everyone out there

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Speaker 1: knows it, because it seems like the natural course of

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Speaker 1: events that you would bring baby home and wrap baby

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Speaker 1: up in a diaper, and you know, three years later,

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Speaker 1: hopefully those diapers will come off and you start potty training.

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Speaker 1: But you do have an option to not diaper baby

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Speaker 1: at all, and that is through a technique called elimination communication. Right,

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Speaker 1: And you know, I think that it will sound very

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Speaker 1: strange to our American ears because the idea of babies

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Speaker 1: running around without diapers, it's just so contrary to what

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Speaker 1: we know. But it is a very common thing around

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Speaker 1: the world, mostly in Asia and Africa, where diapers are

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Speaker 1: unaffordable and where the children tend to be with the

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Speaker 1: mothers much more often they might be here and in

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Speaker 1: the West when the mothers are going to work. In fact,

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Speaker 1: about half of the world's children never wear diapers and

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Speaker 1: are fully toilet trained by the time they're a year old.

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Speaker 1: All right, So when I heard of this, it's sort

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Speaker 1: of like, you know, the kid kick can't talk. How

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Speaker 1: are we gonna communicate from child to parents that it

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Speaker 1: is time to go the bathroom. Well, first of all,

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Speaker 1: baby's kind of poop on a schedule. It seems like

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Speaker 1: the poop and pe at certain certain times. Um, for instance,

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Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of them will go minutes

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Speaker 1: after waking up or eating. Not surprisingly uh and some

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Speaker 1: elimination communication practitioners say that you end up developing a

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Speaker 1: feel you for when your child needs to go. You

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Speaker 1: actually become tuned into your baby's bells. Yeah, it's like

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Speaker 1: a second since there was one uh we were looking

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Speaker 1: at diaper free baby dot com and one uh bullet

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Speaker 1: point there was that you'll just it's like your own

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Speaker 1: lap will feel warm even though your baby is dry,

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Speaker 1: and it's like, you know, you gotta get that baby

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Speaker 1: right to go. And when you develop these verbal cues,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of like a Pavlov and his dogs that

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Speaker 1: will get the baby to sort of poop and p

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Speaker 1: on command around these certain times. Well, it's sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, if you recognize your baby needs to go

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Speaker 1: after learning these cues, then you're gonna say, okay, baby,

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna position you. Or the baby might not know

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Speaker 1: what a toilet is yet, so you position the baby

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Speaker 1: and then yeah, you give it the command that it

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Speaker 1: is in a safe place to go. Yeah. And a

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Speaker 1: lot of times those commands will be For instance, if

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Speaker 1: the baby needs to go number one, you would do

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Speaker 1: something like, I really hope that we didn't make all

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Speaker 1: of our listeners pe themselves right now, Molly, that was

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Speaker 1: my number one goal at this podcast is that if

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Speaker 1: you hold your baby up, your your baby foods practicing

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Speaker 1: elimination communication, if at that moment did it work? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: Or is are we totally throwing some schedules off? I

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Speaker 1: hope not um. But experts say that the best time

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Speaker 1: to start this infant potty training is before the baby

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Speaker 1: is six months old, and after that it's still possible,

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Speaker 1: but the kid will be used to wearing diapers and

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Speaker 1: it's gonna have a harder time learning new have It's

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Speaker 1: kind of like when you know you're learning a foreign language.

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Speaker 1: Experts say that it's best to start as young as possible,

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Speaker 1: when your brain is still so malleable and plastic and

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Speaker 1: just absorbs new information more easily. So if you had

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Speaker 1: to pick between teaching your kid of foreign language or

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Speaker 1: teaching it how to be toilet trained years I had

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Speaker 1: of schedule, which which would you pick? Kristen, I would

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Speaker 1: toilet train my child in a foreign language and knock

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Speaker 1: out two birds with one stone, very clever. I can't

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Speaker 1: can't wait till your mother now, as you may imagine.

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Speaker 1: Not everyone is on board with elimination communication. Uh. The

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Speaker 1: American Academy of Pediatric says that babies really can't fully

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Speaker 1: control bladder and bowel movements until they're about eighteen months old.

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Speaker 1: That's the age they say you should start toilet training,

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Speaker 1: and that anything before that is just sort of like

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Speaker 1: a bonus. It may not stick, it may you know,

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Speaker 1: just be a waste of time for the parents. However,

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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Paris, who's a spokesperson for Diaper Free Baby dot Org,

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Speaker 1: says that infants can initiate bowel movements on que as

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Speaker 1: young as three to four months, and this has been

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Speaker 1: the elimination communication has been a growing thing, particularly in

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Speaker 1: the United States, in large part, i'd say, due to

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Speaker 1: the environmental impact of diapers. And that's why we tile

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Speaker 1: this podcast to diaper or Not to diaper, because a

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Speaker 1: lot of you know, green minded parents, once they have

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Speaker 1: their child, they're wondering, you know, do I go, Do

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Speaker 1: I go with disposal diapers obviously, which you will end

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Speaker 1: up in landfills, or do I go with cloth diapers

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Speaker 1: where you know, it's kind of messy and you have

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Speaker 1: to wash them, and you know, then you have brown

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Speaker 1: stains on cloth, you all that stuff, and then you

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Speaker 1: can just eliminate all of it by just getting your

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Speaker 1: your child to to poop or pe on command. Now,

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Speaker 1: there was a pretty interesting article we were reading in Slate.

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Speaker 1: There was a criticism of this method because the success

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Speaker 1: of elimination communication involves basically being able to read your

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Speaker 1: baby's mind and to interpret every single signal that they

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Speaker 1: give out, so that that requires basically twenty four hours

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Speaker 1: a day with your baby. And uh, you know, this

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Speaker 1: article was sort of going into the fact that the

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Speaker 1: whole reason we had diapers was to give women, you know,

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Speaker 1: a chance us to work if they wanted to, to

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Speaker 1: give women some times that they didn't have to devote

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Speaker 1: their entire life the baby. And the author of that

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Speaker 1: piece was sort of arguing that this would set women

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Speaker 1: back in terms of the amount of parenting that they

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Speaker 1: would have to do. Now, that's just a whole other

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Speaker 1: argument on its own in terms of how much time

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Speaker 1: should you spend with a baby. But if you are

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Speaker 1: expending the time with the baby, maybe elimination communication is

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Speaker 1: something you should try. There are some daycares that won't

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Speaker 1: accept children who are practicing elimination communication with their parents.

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Speaker 1: But I think we should also point out because I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm sure that parents out there listening would point this

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Speaker 1: out to us if we don't. UM, there are kind

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Speaker 1: of different scales of elimination communication that parents can practice.

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Speaker 1: For instance, you can have the more full time EC

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Speaker 1: elimination communication, uh if you want to wear that's more

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Speaker 1: of what the Slate writer is talking about, kind of

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Speaker 1: the full time staying in tuned and the baby is

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Speaker 1: never gonna wear a diaper, and it's it's far more intensive.

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Speaker 1: Or you can do more of a part time EC

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Speaker 1: where parents will practice elimination communication to whatever extent they

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Speaker 1: feel capable to accommodate. And a lot of times these

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Speaker 1: elimination communication websites will point out that it's you know,

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Speaker 1: it's if you put a diaper on a baby. It's

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Speaker 1: not going to say if you're on a road trip

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Speaker 1: or you know, you're at some kind of event where

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Speaker 1: it would be really bad if uh, if the baby

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Speaker 1: you know, had to poop, there might not be a

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Speaker 1: place for it to go. UM, if you do that,

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Speaker 1: it's not going to reverse all of the EC training

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Speaker 1: the baby has has gone through. So you can do

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Speaker 1: more of a part time or you can even do

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Speaker 1: occasional ec but obviously the most effective form of it

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Speaker 1: will would probably be the full time. Now, it's also

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Speaker 1: worth noting that in countries where it is really popular.

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Speaker 1: The Slate piece points out that essentially, you know, there

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Speaker 1: are places in China where when the baby indicates it

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Speaker 1: has to go, you can sort of just take it

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Speaker 1: over to a bush and have the baby do it's business. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and the babies will actually be wearing split pants, split

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Speaker 1: pants in the in the back, so that they already

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Speaker 1: have a little little thing. Yeah. So that's just something

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Speaker 1: to consider, is you know, if you're going to do this,

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Speaker 1: will you always be in the position to get to

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Speaker 1: a toilet, because I would say in this country where

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Speaker 1: a little a little less comfortable, which is someone running

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Speaker 1: over to a bush and doing their business right, because

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Speaker 1: it just doesn't seem sanitario, doesn't seem good for the baby.

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Speaker 1: But we really didn't run across any health advocate saying

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Speaker 1: that this would be inherently bad or unhealthy for a child.

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Speaker 1: It just takes a lot more work. But now, Molly,

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Speaker 1: I think that we need to go to the other

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Speaker 1: side of the argument, which is obviously diapers diapers, And

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Speaker 1: we've got a subset within this of cloth versus disposable

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Speaker 1: what you already alluded to when you find out you're

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Speaker 1: having a baby. Many writers have said this is the

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Speaker 1: most important environmental decision you can make because of all

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Speaker 1: the studies that have been done about disposable diapers ending

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Speaker 1: up in landfills. But you know, the jury, I would

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Speaker 1: say still kind of out. People kind of hedge their

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Speaker 1: bets over the years in terms of whether all the

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Speaker 1: energy that's expended on cloth papers all away from cotton

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Speaker 1: production to washing them, whether that can really counteract the

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Speaker 1: amount of energy that goes into a disposable diaper. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think that this argument really was ramped up a

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Speaker 1: couple of years ago when the New York Times reported

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Speaker 1: the diapers phil landfills at a rate of twenty two

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Speaker 1: billion a year and cost families up to three thousand

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Speaker 1: dollars per child. And that set of stats was widely

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Speaker 1: circulated around that time and and kind of kick started

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Speaker 1: this whole argument. And I think that we should back

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Speaker 1: up for a second and note that up until the

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Speaker 1: nineteenth century, American mothers wrapped their babies in swaddling, and

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Speaker 1: then they began putting infants in cloth diapers or pads

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Speaker 1: that gave the babies a greater range of movement and

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Speaker 1: ensure they didn't have to be held all the time,

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Speaker 1: because if a baby's swaddled, I mean, it's just kind

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Speaker 1: of like a little little tiny mummy. And there. And

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Speaker 1: then Pampers began marketing the first disposable diaper in nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty one, but these were not the super duper, you know,

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Speaker 1: disposable under rus that we might see today. The early

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Speaker 1: versions were leaky and bulky, and we're pretty inferior to

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Speaker 1: cloth diapers. But as the technology, the diaper technology, yes

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Speaker 1: there is diaper technology, believe it or not. As a

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Speaker 1: diaper technology has improved over the years. On the flip

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Speaker 1: side of that, there have been you know, more environmental

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Speaker 1: questions of what's going into these diapers, where they ending

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Speaker 1: up and really, you know, should we just stick with

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Speaker 1: the you know, the tried and true cloth. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 1: as early as nineteen seventy one, there was this highway

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Speaker 1: clean up campaign that the Pennsylvania Boy Scouts did and

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Speaker 1: they reported that diapers were the largest source of litter,

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Speaker 1: and so that was sort of the first hint back

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Speaker 1: in the seventies that this was not the most environmentally

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Speaker 1: friendly way to do things. They're finding feces in the

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Speaker 1: sanitary landfills, in the water sys um uh. And it's

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Speaker 1: early as nineteen seventy nine and Oregon Senator author to

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Speaker 1: build trying to ban the sale of disposables, and since

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Speaker 1: then there's sort of been this back and forth between

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Speaker 1: the diaper industry and environmental activists about the environmental health

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Speaker 1: of these diapers. Now, the reason why disposable diapers are

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Speaker 1: good at what they do in terms of absorbing waste

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Speaker 1: products is largely due to a superant absorbent chemical gel,

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Speaker 1: which is sodium polyac relate. Now, studies have been done

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Speaker 1: on this chemical and it has been linked to allergic reactions,

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Speaker 1: toxic shock syndrome, and also may have the potential to

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Speaker 1: harm your household pets if they start chewing up your

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Speaker 1: baby's diapers. So that sounds terrible, of course, But of course,

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Speaker 1: with with every study finding, there is yet another study

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Speaker 1: to counteract all that. Because large companies like Procter and

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Speaker 1: Gamble that are marketing all of these diapers are not

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Speaker 1: going to say, oh, yeah, they cause toxic toxic shock. No, no, no,

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Speaker 1: they they're gonna go back and they're gonna look at

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Speaker 1: it again. So there have been some conflicting findings. For instance,

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Speaker 1: Molly and I found an article in Wired that reported

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Speaker 1: on the follow up to that toxic shock allergic reaction information,

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Speaker 1: and an environmental scientist with Procter and Gamble later went

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Speaker 1: back and studied the sodium polyacrolyte a little closer and

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Speaker 1: and found that there was no connection between toxic shock

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Speaker 1: and outerwear for instance, like the you know, the babies

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Speaker 1: are wearing it on the outside because the same chemical

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Speaker 1: was removed from tampons in because of that link to

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Speaker 1: toxic shock syndrome, which is a bacteria caused illness. But

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Speaker 1: there have been no studies indicating that materials containing the

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Speaker 1: chemical that are worn on the outside of the body,

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Speaker 1: including you know, feminine napkins and all that might cause

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Speaker 1: any kind of health problem. Now here's one study that

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Speaker 1: the diaper industry has not been able to explain away yet,

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Speaker 1: and that is when it comes to baby boys and

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Speaker 1: diapers in this uh, there's an article in October two

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Speaker 1: thousand in the Issue of Disease in Childhood, and this

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Speaker 1: article they found that the scrotal skin temperatures of boys

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Speaker 1: were significantly higher when they wore disposable diapers than when

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Speaker 1: they wore cloth diapers, and so they were saying that

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Speaker 1: prolonged exposure of these disposable diapers as infants could at

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Speaker 1: some point lead to the decline of sperm production among

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Speaker 1: adult males. Procter and Gamble has done their own study

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Speaker 1: and found that there was a slight increase, but not

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Speaker 1: as much as the German researchers found. And so I

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Speaker 1: think whenever you're reading any of these studies about diapers,

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Speaker 1: you've got to look at who's putting them out. There's

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Speaker 1: one big study in when Procter and Gamble commissioned to

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Speaker 1: study by Arthur D. Little consulting firm about the cost

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Speaker 1: of laundering a cloth diaper over its lifetime, and they

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Speaker 1: found that it was going to take six times the

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Speaker 1: amount of water over the lifetime that it would take

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Speaker 1: to make one single use diapers. So they were able

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Speaker 1: to come out in the nineties and say, oh, no,

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Speaker 1: you know, all that washing is just as bad for

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Speaker 1: the environment. But then people criticize and say, well, you're

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Speaker 1: not using the latest washing machine specs, or you're not

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Speaker 1: using the correct cost of diaper, So it's it's a

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Speaker 1: lot of back and forth. Yeah, and you know, like

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Speaker 1: you pointed out, cloth diapers are not entirely off the

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Speaker 1: hook also in terms of these industrial chemicals that are

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Speaker 1: being used. For instance, in an article from how stuff

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Speaker 1: works dot com points out that with advances and cloth diapers,

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Speaker 1: there are still some polymer chemicals that are showing up

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Speaker 1: in the more newfangled kinds of cloth diapers, including vinyl

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Speaker 1: polyester and water repellent finishes. And in addition, if you

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Speaker 1: are laundering your cloth diapers, you might end up using

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Speaker 1: things like chlorine bleach, which could which could be irritating

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Speaker 1: to a baby's skin as l and you know, they're

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Speaker 1: saying that if you use a laundry service to do

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Speaker 1: that as well, you may not be able to keep

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Speaker 1: as close eye on how they're washing your diapers. Now,

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Speaker 1: let's go into some pros and cons, because there are

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Speaker 1: a few. They're saying that cloth diapers and no diapers

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Speaker 1: might prevent diaper rash better than wearing a disposable diaper. Mike.

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Speaker 1: They're also saying that if you have a cloth diaper

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Speaker 1: as possible that your baby will want to toilet train earlier,

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Speaker 1: because when he or she wets himself, it's they feel

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Speaker 1: the wet, whereas it's in a disposable diaper, all that's

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Speaker 1: being sucked up. They aren't as conscious of the fact

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Speaker 1: that they are urinating, and they may not go for

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Speaker 1: the toilet training idea quite as quite as easily. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and I think that's Some critics also point to the

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Speaker 1: fact that companies have marketed disposable diapers that are more

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Speaker 1: like disposable underwear for toddlers, although a lot of times

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Speaker 1: that's to prevent things like bed wedding in that transitional

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Speaker 1: phase between diapering and potty training. But you know, at

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Speaker 1: the end of the day, obviously these companies, you know,

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Speaker 1: they wanna probably want to make a buck, so they

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Speaker 1: they keep coming out with uh with more and supposedly

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Speaker 1: better products. But we we went to the New Parents

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Speaker 1: Guide online and their consensus was that, you know, it's

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Speaker 1: really up to the parent and also up to the

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Speaker 1: baby's needs whether or not it has sensitive skin, and

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Speaker 1: talk to your doctor if you're concerned about whether or

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Speaker 1: not you should diaper. In terms of the environmental impact,

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Speaker 1: um we found an article from the Green Lantern column

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Speaker 1: on Slate that analyzes the environmental impact of different products,

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Speaker 1: and he was looking at the environmental impact of you know,

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Speaker 1: cloth diapers versus disposable diapers, and it's really if you

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Speaker 1: compare the washing, like you pointed out in the study earlier, Molly,

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Speaker 1: and then the production that goes into production in ways

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Speaker 1: that goes into the disposable diapers, and the environmental difference

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Speaker 1: is kind of negligible. It's kind of negligible. And he

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Speaker 1: kind of goes into the same issue we were talking

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Speaker 1: about earlier in terms of elimination communication that it may

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Speaker 1: just come down to time. If your time is money,

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Speaker 1: then disposables are more convenient. So no one ever wants

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Speaker 1: to have to make a choice of you know, convenience

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Speaker 1: in their own life. Verst is what's good for the planet.

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Speaker 1: But we all do that every day, whether we you know,

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Speaker 1: like it or not. So they're saying, you know, if

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Speaker 1: you are a new parent, it's a stressful time. Perhaps

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Speaker 1: you know, if a disposable is what will save your sanity,

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Speaker 1: that might be the way to go. But I did

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Speaker 1: like one way that he closed out this article, Kristen,

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Speaker 1: which is how you know we have this diaper debate.

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Speaker 1: It leads to a lot of environmental back and forth

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Speaker 1: about what's the best thing for a new parent to do.

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Speaker 1: And he said that it's curious how people feel so

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Speaker 1: guilty about using Huggies, but not about all the fossil

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Speaker 1: fuels that went into making and transporting their brand new bouncers, swings,

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Speaker 1: and diaper pails. And he pointed out, you know that

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Speaker 1: secondhand baby gifts of that sort are often frowned upon,

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Speaker 1: that you always want the newest and the best thing

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Speaker 1: for your baby, and that maybe if we looked at

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Speaker 1: babies a little bit more holistically in terms of the

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Speaker 1: ways they produce and use secondhand things, that may be

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Speaker 1: the disposable diaper choice wouldn't be the worst thing that

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Speaker 1: you could do, right. And I'm sure that you know

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Speaker 1: they're gonna be parents on all three sides of this

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Speaker 1: diapering and not diapering argument. And the thing is, it

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Speaker 1: seems like from our research, each of those different arguments

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Speaker 1: are completely fine and valid as long as you know

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Speaker 1: it takes into account the baby's needs and the parents

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Speaker 1: time and doctor recommendations and all of that kind of

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Speaker 1: like conversations that we've had about breastfeeding and other issues

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Speaker 1: that are very important that a lot of parents feel

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Speaker 1: very strongly about. But it does seem like another one

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Speaker 1: of those fields where it's not really a black and

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Speaker 1: white right or wrong situation. Um. But but Molly, I

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Speaker 1: think that it would be nice to maybe in this

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Speaker 1: discussion instead of just on a on a debate or

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Speaker 1: an argument, let's let's tell a little story, a little

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Speaker 1: bit of a diaper story, if you will, And can

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Speaker 1: we praise a female at the same time, because if

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Speaker 1: we're not doing that, I don't know if I want

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Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah. No, let's praise a female inventor. Okay,

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Speaker 1: let's talk about old Marian Donovan. Yeah, she's really the

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Speaker 1: reason why we're having this conversation to begin with, because

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Speaker 1: Marian Donovan was the inventor of disposable diapers. Yes, did

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Speaker 1: not get a lot of credit for it, but basically,

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Speaker 1: she spent a lot of her childhood hanging around a

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Speaker 1: manufacturing plant run by her father and uncle, and so

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Speaker 1: she learned a lot about how to uh be you know,

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Speaker 1: crafty with what she had laying around, and when she

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Speaker 1: became a mother that helped her a lot. Yeah, she

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Speaker 1: became kind of frustrated at the repetition of changing her

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Speaker 1: youngest child's dirty nappies, cloth nappies and bedsheets and clothing.

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Speaker 1: And Marian Donovan just got tired one day and she

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Speaker 1: said to herself, she said, Marian, you and I we

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Speaker 1: together are going to craft a disposable diaper. And she

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Speaker 1: used a shower curtain. I love this because she was

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Speaker 1: trying to think of something, you know, that would be

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Speaker 1: absorbent that you know, you wouldn't have lots of lots

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Speaker 1: of leaks, the the waste wouldn't just seep right through

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Speaker 1: like it would, um, like it might on cloth diapers.

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Speaker 1: Although I don't you know, it's not like their paper

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Speaker 1: towels or anything like that. I'm not trying to point

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Speaker 1: that out. Um, but yeah, she came up with this

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Speaker 1: waterproof diaper cover. Now, there were already rubber baby pants

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Speaker 1: on the market, but they caused diaper rash. They're very pinching.

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Speaker 1: And so what she does is she just perfects the

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Speaker 1: invention over and over again. She gets rid of the

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Speaker 1: safety pins, which can stab a baby if you're clumsy

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Speaker 1: like me, and she put the snap fasteners in place

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Speaker 1: that would soon become the sticky convenient stickers on diapers,

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Speaker 1: and she called her cover the Boater because she said,

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Speaker 1: I thought it looked like a boat. What inspiration. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the Boater was a huge success from the time

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Speaker 1: that it debuted at Sacks Fifth Avenue in nineteen nine.

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Speaker 1: So obviously disposable diapers really for the masses at first, um.

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Speaker 1: But then she received a pattern in nineteen fifty one

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Speaker 1: and then sold the rights to the Kiko Corporation, and

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Speaker 1: then we have snowballed into today's vast diapering products from

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Speaker 1: all sorts of manufacturers and companies. Yeah, she went from

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Speaker 1: just having a diaper cover to figuring out what what

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Speaker 1: she could put into that cover, what kind of paper

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Speaker 1: absorbency she could put in there to make a holy

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Speaker 1: functioning unit, the disposable diaper. She sold that to Pampers

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Speaker 1: and they were on the market in one So there's

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Speaker 1: your history lesson women's history, lesson for today. And of course,

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Speaker 1: as always, if you have any comments or perspectives on diapering,

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00:21:45,640 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 1: Molly and I would love to hear about them, because

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Speaker 1: you know, Molly and I aren't exactly speaking from first

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Speaker 1: hand experience, although I have changed a lot of diapers

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Speaker 1: in my time. UM, So you know I'm not I'm

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Speaker 1: not completely winging it here, but we want to hear

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Speaker 1: or mean parents out there. What do you think? Do

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Speaker 1: you care? Is it a big deal as time important?

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00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: Any elimination communication practitioners out there, let us know your

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00:22:09,520 --> 00:22:12,680
Speaker 1: thoughts are addressed. Is mom stuff at how stuff works

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Speaker 1: dot com? And in the meantime, Molly, won't we read

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Speaker 1: a few listener mails. Okay, I'm gonna I have two

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Speaker 1: here because they're talking about the same thing. One is

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Speaker 1: from Kim and one is from Stephen, and it's about

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Speaker 1: our political quotas episode. Both of these emails relate to

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Speaker 1: the situation in New Zealand, so let's start first with Kim.

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Speaker 1: She writes, our country was the first in the world

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Speaker 1: to enable women to vote, and perhaps it is this

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Speaker 1: groundbreaking achievement that has made women feel just as entitled

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Speaker 1: to positions in our governmental system as men in Helen

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Speaker 1: Clark became the first elective female Prime minister of our

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Speaker 1: country and only lost her position when her party lost

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Speaker 1: the two thousand and eight election. After the election, novelty

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Speaker 1: of our first female Prime Minister war off. No one

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Speaker 1: saw hers fighting for women's issues. She was simply a

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Speaker 1: brilliant leader, improving the lives of those on welfare, and

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Speaker 1: you see spending on healthcare and education. She was just

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Speaker 1: a politician. People loved or hated her or didn't care

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Speaker 1: based on her party's policies, and not because of her gender.

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Speaker 1: Now and then a small debate with darting the media

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Speaker 1: about why she didn't have children or about the role

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Speaker 1: of her husband, but she never seemed to let it

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Speaker 1: get to her, handling it all with poise and dignity.

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Speaker 1: She was labeled by Forbes the twentieth most powerful woman

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Speaker 1: in the world in two thousand six while still in office,

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Speaker 1: and now she is the administrator of the United Nations

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Speaker 1: Development Program, so that is a little bit about Helen

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Speaker 1: Clark and Stevens sort of made the same point that

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Speaker 1: New Zealand is the only country in the world in

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Speaker 1: which all the highest offices in the land had been

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Speaker 1: occupied occupied simultaneously by women. Between March thousand five and

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Speaker 1: August two thousand six, the following women held the following

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Speaker 1: positions Queen Elizabeth the Second, Governor General, Dame Celia Cartwright,

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Speaker 1: Prime Minister, Helen Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives,

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Speaker 1: Margaret Wilson, Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias. All right, well,

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Speaker 1: I've got one here from Brenda, and this is on

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Speaker 1: our podcast about whether there's a female equivalent to the

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Speaker 1: word bachelor. She says, first, I want to say that

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Speaker 1: I'm a forty two year old single, never married, child

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Speaker 1: free woman, the great job, a comfortable lifestyle, and a

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Speaker 1: truckload of amazing friends. I've been in my share of

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Speaker 1: relationships and can honestly say that at this point in

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Speaker 1: my life, I'm the happiest I've ever been. Unlike most

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Speaker 1: women my age who are settled with children and a husband,

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Speaker 1: or who are single, divorced and miserable, I have managed

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Speaker 1: to buck the system and live the life I want

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Speaker 1: with no regrets. I feel fortunate to have had the

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Speaker 1: choices and the independence to design my own life, regardless

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Speaker 1: of the societal pressures that are out there to pair

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Speaker 1: up and settle down. Remember, you don't need anything to

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Speaker 1: be happy, but you need something to be unhappy. Wise words, Brenda. Now,

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Speaker 1: she says, my idea is for a female equivalent to

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Speaker 1: the word bachelor are indie film, which is a play

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Speaker 1: on words independent and female and or freedom. And I'm

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Speaker 1: not expect to share whether she would want to be

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Speaker 1: like for edom or free anyway freedom, which is a

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Speaker 1: play on the word freedom O m any with an

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Speaker 1: O M, but with the d a M at the end,

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Speaker 1: as in Madam so freedom creative choices. Brenda, thank you

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Speaker 1: keep sending those our way. UM. If you want to

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00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:17,560
Speaker 1: post them on our Facebook fan page, go over there

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00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:21,879
Speaker 1: and like us and post your thoughts on our site

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00:25:21,920 --> 00:25:23,920
Speaker 1: over there, And you can also follow me and Molly

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00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,400
Speaker 1: on Twitter. We're at mom Stuff Podcast if you want

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00:25:27,440 --> 00:25:32,360
Speaker 1: to join us in the Twitter verse. UM. And then finally,

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00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 1: we have a blog which you can check out during

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00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:37,320
Speaker 1: the week, and it's stuff I've Never told you and

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00:25:37,359 --> 00:25:42,520
Speaker 1: you can find it and how stuff works dot com

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00:25:42,560 --> 00:25:45,000
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because

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00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 1: at how stuff works dot com. Want more house stuff Works,

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00:25:49,520 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 1: check out our blogs on the house stuff works dot

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Speaker 1: com home page. Brought to you by the reinvented two

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Speaker 1: thousand twelve camera. It's Reddy, are you