Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Nov
18
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“I Didn’t Know White People Did That.”
“I didn’t know white people did that.” – Pediatrician to mother who shared that she was going to use elimination communication with her newborn.
There are 20 comments to this post.
I actually take this (most likely) as more of a veiled insult to people of color. White people are supposed to be more evolved than that, or more able to afford diapers, or whatever. Why do something so primitive, etc.?
Kind of like the term “white trash”– the fact that “white” needs to be added to “trash” implies that typical “human trash” is not white.
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Dreamy Reply:
November 18th, 2012 at 5:24 pm (Quote)
Honestly, though, if this came from a doctor of color, especially an immigrant or child of immigrants, I would not be offended. White people worldwide are much less likely to do anything like EC/infant potty training than POC worldwide… mainly because it is looked-down-upon in “developed” white countries and widely misunderstood.
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j_holmes09 had this to say,
Nov 18, 2012 @ 5:47 pm (Quote)
Dont want to steal the thread but anyone have any tips…planning to srart this next month
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Sara Reply:
November 18th, 2012 at 6:00 pm (Quote)
Get the book diaper-free baby. And relax!! 
I’ve actually only had nice comments from friends and docs alike. I have one 2.5 year old who has been in underwear from 17 months and an 8 month old in the process of EC, but once you start, you can’t stop!
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pittsburgh mama had this to say,
Nov 18, 2012 @ 7:41 pm (Quote)
This one is mine. Our pediatrician is in general awesome – he hasn’t been exposed much to non-mainstream ideas but he is open to learning more (when we were looking for a ped one big point in his favor was how interested he was in the fact that I was going to a midwifery practice – and not in a “you belong in a museum” way.)
The only reason it came up was because he asked me about diaper numbers, so I told him it wouldn’t help because we were having our son go on his little pot. Then our ped had this highly uncharacteristic brain fart. He must have seen the shocked look on my face, because he did go on to explain that he did have other patients who did the same, but they were all Asian (we have a large Asian immigrant population in our area) and he didn’t know that anybody outside that community would EC their kids. He was interested though and after we explained how we did it, he thanked us.
So we’re still with him a year and a half later, but I was just shocked that anybody would say such a thing!
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Sephia Reply:
November 19th, 2012 at 6:33 pm (Quote)
See this was my suspicion, That either the doctor was Asian or that there was an Asian influence to the comment, and I was right. Because THEY really do not use diapers over there.
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Liz Reply:
November 19th, 2012 at 8:13 pm (Quote)
erm… yea, we do, actually. I’m from Malaysia, and people do use diapers here.
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pittsburgh mama Reply:
November 20th, 2012 at 8:23 am (Quote)
Hi Liz – I think your response was mostly to Sephia, but I did want to clarify that I don’t think my son’s ped was saying every Asian patient of his was ECed, just that the only people he knew of who didn’t use diapers were from Asia.
To be honest, I don’t know of anyone else nearby who ECs their kids, but part of that is that we’re young parents (statistically speaking) and only a few of our friends have had kids. I learned about EC on an Internet forum. It does interest people when it comes up (especially elderly relatives who remember potty training very differently than it’s done today, and our methods are different even from that.)
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Liz Reply:
November 21st, 2012 at 7:47 am (Quote)
Yes, I was replying to Sephia. I have to say that diapers are very common in Asia, especially in towns and cities. Most people these days do use them to some degree, the only people who might not could be folks who live in very rural areas where they aren’t as available. I guess wanted to point out that some folks over here do use diapers!
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Lizzie K Reply:
November 19th, 2012 at 8:53 pm (Quote)
Then why did the stores in Okinawa have diapers? I remember going to Justco and looking at the baby things they had there when I was pregnant with my oldest. I never bought anything, except a maternity dress, although I wish I had because it would be cool to have as a keepsake now.
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Little Fellas Mumma had this to say,
Mar 21, 2013 @ 11:26 pm (Quote)
My mum had a nurse say something similar to this to her when she had me, But it was in relation to co-sleeping and was in the early 80′s. The nurse then went on to explain that she’d only seen the aboriginal women co-sleep but hadn’t ever seen a white woman do it. She was suppriesed but supportive. My Mum said she wanted to co-sleep with me becasue I’d been born early and in the special care nursery (NICU?) for a few days and she’d been bed-ridden for 40 days before I was born so had very little lower body strength. She said she’d missed out on the bonding time and thats why she co-slept. I think she taught the nurse something ‘new’
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Add Your Comment.
I never knew race was a factor for that. If anything, the only people I ever knew to try it were middle-class white SAHMs. Anecdotal evidence is great!
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