The making of a WAHM business starts when a thrifty mom decides to make her own diapers. She comes up with a great design and a noxiously cute name inspired by butts (Fuzzibunz, Loveybums, Ecobunz, Bitty Bums, Happy Heinys), bugs (Fireflys, Little Beetle, Swaddlebees, Dragonfly Boutique) or tooth decay (SugarPlumBaby, Sugar Britches, Sugar Bums, Sweet Cheeks Boutique). The cloth diapering demographic embraces yuppies (Clothmopolitan, G Diapers, Bijou Baby Gear, Bella Bottoms) as well as hippies (Sage Mama Designs, Kindhearted Woman, Slightly Crunchy.)
Others are named after children, like Luke's Drawers, Ella's Diapers or Wild Oats Diaperz, a WAHM-diaper business owned by Andrea Marrapodi. Marrapodi estimates that there are a few hundred serious home-based diaper-making businesses worldwide. She became one after Otis ("Oats") was born. "We knew paper diapers in the U.S. have traces of dioxin in them and tons of other horrible crap, and didn't want them on our kid," she said. "So I bought a serger and made some diapers for him, and people said, 'Wow, you should sell those.'" And another WAHM website was born.
In addition to fitted diapers, Marrapodi sews custom appliqued wool and cashmere diaper covers for romantic types who want "the diaper you can put in a shadow box as a keepsake." These art diapers put her in a small subset of WAHMs who make diapers both absorbent and transcendent. Although Marrapodi's business is a modest supplement to her family's income, and most WAHMs barely break even, she says a few, like FussyButt Diapers, do very well. In a FussyButt, your child is a walking, aromatic art gallery, displaying fine embroidery. They sell for around $70. Each. Even more dear is the work of Storm in the Attic, a Dutch WAHM who knits elaborate stories about fairies and wild animals onto waterproof wool pants.
A handful of larger diaper makers exist, but the cloth market remains mostly an underground, mom-to-mom economy, which somehow adds to the allure of the product. Many of the WAHMs take on a celebrity status, and collectors of their work discuss them as if they were friends — or enemies, as in the case of a diaper-maker whose work became shoddy, and whose husband started threatening customers who complained on public message boards. On the Diaper Hyena website, a regular feature called "Behind the Diapers" profiles hot diaper makers about their lives and work. It's not the cover of Rolling Stone, but for some parents (who may be years away from seeing another a rock show),
Yes, but these diapers are loaded — as are the people who buy them. it's even better.
"In all honesty, I think some people take it way too seriously. It's very trend- driven. The hot thing this week is the old thing next week," says Adelsheim. "At the end of the day, it's a diaper."
Yes, but these diapers are loaded — as are the people who buy them. Although $100 will cover a simple trousseau of quality covers and prefolds that are easy on the environment and leave a little bit of cash leftover for the college fund, the truly couture diapers come at a price. A fitted designer diaper can cost between $10-30 each, which could still be a deal compared to disposables, when factoring in use by subsequent children and an eBay afterlife. But diapers — like the creatures that wear them — are a highly emotional, fickle, and volatile market.
And it's not just the babies hanging their psyches out to dry. On message boards, cloth-diapering moms refer to themselves as "addicted," and many engage in the conceal-and-deny behavior associated with compulsive gamblers or alcoholics, such as hiding the amount of money they spend on this supposedly budget-minded product from their spouses. On a recent Mothering.com discussion forum, the addicts gathered. "I actually spent a whole hour talking to my therapist trying to figure out why I am so obsessed with everything cloth diaper," one mother wrote. "I spent three hours surfing the web looking for my next fix this morning instead of cleaning up the house or doing my paperwork," said another. "If my husband only knew how much time I spend dreaming about diapers, organizing diapers, debating different diapers, planning a newborn diaper stash for a baby that isn't even in the works yet," admitted another poor soul.
But despite the legions of sleepless cloth-diaper fans trolling the internet on what Marrapodi calls "the hunt for Red Dipetober," cloth is still the underdog. An estimated ninety-five percent of babies wear disposables. Of course, whether parents choose cloth or disposables, they'll eventually come together at the toddler underwear display, staring down the rows of Dora, Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine underpants. These have virtually no resale value. And yet, even the most avid diaper collector is happy to see them.
