← New Books Network
New Books Network
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
00:41:27
Loading summary
Transcript50 lines
- [00:01]
Celsius Energy Advertiser
5:00am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change, and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold, refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com
- [00:25]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Spring
- [00:25]
Starbucks Advertiser
is here, and there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness. Dial it up or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender. Because this season there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks.
- [00:46]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Ugh.
- [00:47]
Depop Advertiser
You said you were over him, but his hoodie's still in your rotation. It's time. Grab your phone, snap a few pics and sell it on Depop. Listed in minutes with no selling fees. And just like that, a guy 500 miles away just paid full price for your closure. And right on cue.
- [01:04]
Roku Ads Manager Advertiser
Still got my hoodie. Nope.
- [01:05]
Depop Advertiser
But I've got tonight's dinner paid for. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste list. Now with no selling fees, payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.
- [01:17]
Lowe's Advertiser
Welcome to the New Books Network.
- [01:21]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Hello, and welcome to another episode on the New Books Network. I'm one of your hosts, Dr. Miranda Melcher, and I'm very pleased today to be speaking with Dr. Jennifer Randalls about her book titled Living Diaper to Diaper the Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood, published by the University of California Press in 2026. Now, this book is pretty clear what it's about from the title, right? The idea that diapers are an incredibly crucial thing to have is not particularly controversial, Right. They are absolutely necessary for so many people at quite an intense level, and yet we don't necessarily think about them kind of with that level of like, wait a second, you must have them or else. And yet that is what they are. And there are a surprising perhaps number of people, an important number of people, as this book discusses, that do not have access to diapers or do not have certain aspects to access to diapers. And that has a lot of consequences. So it may not be a topic that tends to get a lot of coverage, but that's not because it's not important. So I think this is going to be both an interesting and really useful discussion for us to have. Jennifer, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
- [02:36]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Thank you for having me. I'm Delighted to be here.
- [02:38]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Could you start us off by introducing yourself a little bit and tell us why you decided to write a book investigating who does and doesn't have access to diapers?
- [02:47]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Of course, yeah. So as you noted, I'm Dr. Jennifer Randles. I am a sociologist by training. My work has tended to focus on family inequalities and I've looked a lot at parenting and specifically policies that are directed at parenting. And I did a few previous research projects looking at government programs for couples like marriage promotion policy. And before starting to study diapers, I was studying a fatherhood program. And one of the things that I discovered was that a lot of dads were going to these fatherhood programs because they gave diapers as incentives for participation. And so it just happened to come up in an interview here and there. And I thought, this is really interesting. Let me go find, you know, a citation about diapers so I can write this up in my work. And at the time this was in about 2017, there was really nothing on what has often been called diaper need, but it's also called diaper insecurity. So like food insecurity, where people don't have access to enough food, diaper insecurity is very similar. So not having access to enough diapers to keep your child clean and comfortable and healthy, especially without sacrificing other basic needs. And I started interviewing parents who were struggling with this problem and really discovered that there was a book length story to tell here about parents experiences struggling to get enough diapers. And also some really interesting things about how at the community level and at the government level, there are a lot of people out there trying to work to address this issue by providing free or low cost diapers through what are called diaper banks. And there's also been a lot of policy activity in the last decade. So the book really combines those three strands, looking at parents experiences with diaper insecurity, what folks are doing on the ground to try to provide community based resources to get more diapers in the hands of families in need. And also a lot of the policy at the state and federal level about trying to provide some support for diapers.
- [04:52]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
So that is a really helpful introduction because those are all themes that I think we're going to discuss in more detail through the rest of our conversation, starting with sort of how did we get to this point of there being a problem?
- [05:04]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Right.
- [05:04]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
It's a personal problem, obviously, but as you mentioned, there's policy implications too. So how did the US get to a point where this Is something that both individual families are concerned about and policy officials do.
- [05:17]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Yeah, that's a really great question. So in terms of the personal problem, one of the things I talk about in the book, there's a whole chapter on just the history of diapering, which admittedly was one of my favorite parts of the book to write. I never thought I could write an entire, really an entire chapter length manuscript about diapers, much less a book. But if you get into the history of diapers, it's really, it's really fascinating history. What people have used historically for what we now call diapers, how they were invented, and then just the important role they've come to play in families lives. So up until about the 1960s, so what we think of is like disposable diapers now. So that the first precursor to the modern disposable diaper, 1950s, 1960s, the vast majority of families in the United States were still using cloth diapers. Kind of those. If you think about like a muslin square that you can still get in stores now, most people use them for things like burp cloths. So most American, most children in the United States were exclusively diapered using those kind of materials. And then several things happen. And you can check in, readers can check in chapter two to go deeper into the history of this. But we started having a lot of technological advancements. And one of the things I write about in the book is the modern disposable diaper is really a stunning feat of technology. Just how much liquid it absorbs, leg cuffs, the materials it's made of, how you have an inner liner that wicks the moisture away from baby skin, but an outer liner that keeps everything contained. But all of those features have made the modern disposable diaper really expensive. And several things were coming together to really make disposable diapers specifically a necessity for families. So the first being that increasingly starting in the 1960s, 1970s, but especially in the 80s and 90s, daycare facilities, caregivers started to require disposable diapers as a matter of convenience, but also because of things like laws around sanitation and the vast majority of daycare centers now still either just don't accept cloth diapers as a matter of their policies or are very reluctant to do so. And those that do tend to be more expensive. We had a lot more mothers of very young children, especially mothers of children of diapering age, and that 0 to 1 and then 0 to 3 age groups. The influx of mothers of young children into the paid workforce. So you had daycare centers that were requiring disposable diapers as well as more families needing to rely on them because more mothers were working outside of the home for pay. And so now we have about 95% of children in the United States that are at least partially or exclusively diapered using disposable diapers. And they cost the average American family about 100 to $120 a month just for the diapers alone. That's including the wipes, diaper cream. And so what that means is that's over $1,000 a year that are just, that's just spent on diapers, which is a pretty significant chunk of money for a lot of families in the United States. So they become necessary and also increasingly expensive for families at a personal level. And then publicly, you know, we really have, if you think about it, a society that's built up around the assumption that one children will wear diapers. There are things like some families practice what's called elimination communication. I won't go into too much detail there, but I do talk about it in the book. Some families do still use cloth diapers, but these are families where, if you look at the kind of average cloth diapering family tends to be more affluent families, homeowners, right? People who own homes with in home washers and dryers, and also two parent married families where there's a parent who can stay home full time during that early period of a child's life, which just makes cloth diapering more feasible. So you have now the vast majority of families that rely on disposable diapers and they're more expensive and they're really required. And I'll often ask people to think about this. You know, what would people say if a child is out in public not wearing a diaper and they're of a certain age? I mean, it's almost just like we don't think about it, right? It's unfathomable. And so this has really become a public issue because about half of American families now with children under the age of three struggle to get enough diapers because they're so expensive and because there's very little public support for them. Wic. So one of the programs that almost universally, if families are eligible for wic, which is the Women Infants Children Special Supplemental Nutrition Program, it's a compliment to what we usually call food stamps in the US it doesn't cover diapers systematically. Families can use what we call welfare or direct cash aid. But for our listeners who know Anything about the welfare state and what's happened over the past couple of decades. And even for those who don't, I'll tell you very quickly, it's really being dismantled. We've really chipped away at the social safety net, especially the direct aid, direct cash aid social safety net. In the United States, only a portion, a very small portion, about 1 in 5 families in poverty even qualify for any welfare cash assistance. And for those who do, benefits are often so low that just the average diaper bill of $100 a month would take up between 8 to 50% of an average welfare benefit for a family of three. And that's just on diapers. So there's a lot of things, that confluence of a lot of things that have come together to make diaper insecurity both a personal and public problem.
- [11:15]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's really quite an alarming picture that you've painted there. And especially the points about kind of how necessary disposable diapers are. Why then are they not a part of the social safety net? Like, why hasn't that been addressed before now?
- [11:31]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
That's a great question. It's one that a lot of diaper advocates have asked. It's one that a lot of policymakers are increasingly asking. In my research, when I've talked to advocates and even some policymakers, there's an assumption that a lot of families can still use cloth diapers. I talked to a lot of people who said, oh, they can just, you know, they can use cloth diapers. They're cheaper. Or as some people have even told me, they're free. To which I respond, well, they're free only if you think, you know, a parent's and specifically a mother's labor has no value. You. They're certainly not free. And in fact, the mothers I talked to had told me that almost all of them had tried to use cloth diapers at some point and found them to be more expensive. By the time you invest startup cost, the materials you need to wash them, store them, they just end up being more expensive. And like I noted before, daycare centers won't take them, or most many of them won't. You can't wash them in public laundry facilities in a lot of states. So it just makes it really, really hard, especially if you're a family of limited means.
- [12:38]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
So there's.
- [12:39]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
There's a working assumption that a lot of families can just rely on cloth diapers. I think, you know, as you mentioned at the beginning of our conversation, Miranda, I think there's just, there's there's, there's just a vacuum in many ways around this issue. Not a lot of people think about diapers. I think it's not something that unless you've walked down a diaper aisle and been paying attention to diaper prices, a lot of people don't know that in the US I'm not sure how this would, would translate into other currency, but in the US you're at 50 to 60 dollars US dollars for a box of diapers and that's only going to last about maybe a week and a half, two weeks. So I think a lot of people don't know how expensive they are. I actually had one policy maker ask me, how expensive can a diaper actually be? I also think that even among policymakers, and this really surprised me, there is assumption that, that existing public programs already cover diapers like wic. And I get it, people think, oh, Women, Infants, Children, that's what, you know, WIC stands for. Surely they provide diapers if they're going to provide food. Right? But that's just not the case. So there's really been a vacuum around this issue. It's something we. Like I said, when I was doing research on low income fathers, just even a decade ago, there was hardly anything published on this. So I think there was just a lack of awareness. And Even in the 10 years I've been studying it, there have been a lot more stuff. States. Almost every state in the country has devoted at least some public funding to public diaper provisions. A few states, and this number is slowly but surely growing, are now offering diaper vouchers. I'm based in California and in our state, if you have what's called a qualified work plan and you need diapers for your child as a work support so you can go to work, you get at $30 cash added to your welfare benefit. Now California is one of the few states that has that now, but I think we're going to see more states continue to pass policies as more people recognize this as an issue. But it's still something that not everyone knows about. Diapers are still taxed in about half of states. So in terms of tax policy in the United States, we don't tend to tax things that we recognize as a basic necessity. Um, so even practically having, Even if it's a 2,5 7% tax, you're literally increasing the cost of diapers for families that are already struggling to afford them. And it's symbolically sending the message that diapers are not an absolute necessity.
- [15:15]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, this is painting a pretty Dire picture then, for families that don't have enough diapers. What sorts of work do parents do then when they're faced with these gaps?
- [15:28]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
That is a great question and one that, you know, may be hard for listeners to hear. It was certainly hard for me to hear when I was talking with mothers about, you know, what, what, what have you done when you didn't have enough diapers for your baby? I first want to start off by saying that mothers that are struggling with diaper insecurity are incredibly creative. I write about this concept in the book called Inventive Mothering, and I talk about a concept called diaper work. The actual mental, physical and emotional labor that parents invest in trying to manage this problem. I have an 11 year old daughter. When I was diapering her, there was work involved with diapering. I had to go to the store, buy them, bring them home, get them out of the car, take the diapers on and off. Sometimes it was messy and not the most pleasant aspect of parenting. But parents that are struggling with this problem, there's a whole extra layer of work that has to be invested in diapering their children. It's the physical labor of trying to kind of figure out how you stretch diapers, what other items can maybe be used to create makeshift diapers, and also just the constant worrying. I talked to moms who use diaper budgets. One of the things from interviews that still haunts me to this day, and I think it's so telling about this issue. If you had asked me when my daughter was in diapers at any given point, how many diapers I had on hand, I would have said, oh, gosh, I don't know. I have a couple boxes in the closet, I have 10 or so in the, you know, every diaper bag. We've got like 30 at daycare. You know, I would have given you a very round number. When I asked mothers struggling with diaper insecurity how many diapers they had, they said 3, 7, 13. So it wasn't just the few diapers that they had. Those numbers are very low. They're not going to last them much longer. It was the specificity with which these mothers answered, which I think is so telling about what it means to manage this problem day in and day out. They could tell me exactly how many diapers they had on hand and exactly how long those diapers would last them. Because if you don't know where your baby's next diaper's coming from, you have to know exactly how much time you have to Figure out how to get more. And so mothers did a lot of things. They let their babies go without diapers. And that usually meant staying home a lot more and avoiding going to the doctor, sometimes even going to work, not going to school, not going shopping, not, you know, if they were people of faith, not going to worship or other community events. They used every imaginable household good newspapers, paper towels, menstrual products, toilet paper sheets, old T shirts secured with duct tape and rubber bands. They would reuse diapers or leave diapers on longer than they would have preferred. They borrowed diapers. They had diaper swap groups. Just really, really creative strategies. And I know there is a tendency to. Well, there's a tendency in general to judge parents that are struggling in poverty. But one of the things I wanted to highlight with this is just the lengths to which mothers would go to stretch their diapers and to manage this problem because they were going to make sure that their babies had diapers. And probably the most common strategy they used was sacrificing their own needs, going without their own food, going without their own medicine so they could use that money on diapers instead.
- [19:11]
Lowe's Advertiser
Want consistent color for every job. Milo's Pro Rewards members get a 20% paint discount on future purchases after paint Annual qualifying spend reaches $3,000 plus order eligible in stock paint and paint supplies by 2pm for free. Same day delivery by 8pm Improving is easy at Lowe's. Exclude spray paint and mistints. More exclusions. Terms and conditions apply. Subject to Change details@lowes.com Terms same day delivery valve in select zip codes. Subject to driver availability details@lowe's.com Sameday delivery.
- [19:40]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
I have created the most advanced AI soldier.
- [19:43]
Disney Plus Advertiser
The wait is over. Tron Aries now streaming on Disney plus. We are looking for something, something you've discovered. And some of us will stop at nothing to get it ready. The countdown is completely complete.
- [20:01]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
There's no going back.
- [20:03]
Disney Plus Advertiser
Our directive is clear.
- [20:05]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Hang on.
- [20:06]
Disney Plus Advertiser
Tron Aries now streaming on Disney Plus. Rated PG13.
- [20:10]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, the amount of work in all of this is absolutely massive. And of course it doesn't affect all families the same.
- [20:17]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Right.
- [20:18]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
We've already talked. You mentioned fathers a little bit, but we've mainly been talking about mothers. So there's an obvious gender element to this. And if we're looking at the families that are most likely to be socioeconomically impacted, there's obviously also an issue of race as well. So can we sort of talk about those aspects of this more explicitly as part of the discussion?
- [20:36]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Absolutely. So I did not recruit the mothers that I interviewed based on racial characteristics. It just so happened that most of the mothers I ended up recruiting just through materials that asked if they were struggling to get enough diapers, if they were willing to share their diaper story with me. Most of them ended up mothers of color. And it was really interesting. Some of the differences and the stories I would hear from mothers of color versus white mothers, White mothers, you know, struggles. It's hard, all of the kind of diaper work and the diaper stretching strategies I talked about. But there was a whole other layer for the mothers of color, especially around diaper related stress, stigma, and discrimination. Especially black mothers, many of whom had had some kind of experience in the child welfare system, whether it was through their own childhood or adolescence or with previous children. You know, they were very, very concerned about if their child was seen in public with a diaper that was deemed unfit. So a diaper that maybe had been left on too long. I actually opened the book with a woman, a black woman, whose story I share, where when I had asked about cloth diaper, she said, oh, no, I can't put my baby in a cloth diaper. It's, you know, what if it. What if a. What if someone sees me call cphs and then I have to go before a judge and say, oh, I, you know, put my baby in what she called a rag. So even different diaper types, like the difference between a cloth diaper versus a disposable diaper and how that might lead people to make certain kinds of judgments about maternal fitness. And even for a lot of mothers of color, again, especially black mothers, even concerned about having their children taken away from them. And then there was also just fear of judgment. We know that mothers of color are more highly stigmatized and judged more harshly for all their parenting choices. This is also something that I talk about. I bring in a lot of my own experience. I. I'm white. I'm a white, affluent mother, and I talk about when I went in public with my daughter, you know, I never worried about if someone would see her diaper and think, oh, you know, that mother should change her diaper, or that baby's diaper is sagging. It was just something that, you know, can be taken for granted. Part of the privilege of. Of both racial and economic privilege is not having to worry about certain things. But the mothers of color that I spoke to, that was not a privilege they had. They constantly worried about what happens if I go out in public and my baby is deemed to be inappropriately Diapered. And so again, it contributes to, again, not only additional stress as part of that diaper work, it contributes to social isolation because ways, one of the main ways that a lot of families were dealing with this was just not leaving their homes, if they had homes. And again, just the discrimination of being worried about having a higher level of scrutiny of their diapering practices if they were mothers of color.
- [23:44]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's a really clear kind of additional, as you said, layer to all of this. That's important to keep in mind thinking about some of the solutions then to all of this. I mean, you mentioned earlier some organizations that are trying to fix this while there's still such big policy gaps. Can you tell us more about diaper banks and how they work?
- [24:04]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Absolutely. So diaper banks work much like food banks in that they collect donations, either in kind donations, like actual diapers. People can go to the store, buy diapers at retail and donate them to diaper banks or monetary donations, which are always preferred just because diaper banks usually have some sort of, they're part of a purchasing program where they can sometimes buy diapers on like for a few cents compared to what they would be bought at retail for. And so diaper banks are now in, in the United States, they're in every state, they are in every large city, and they're in most communities if you include other kinds of community based organizations or services for family that have diaper distribution as part of what they do. So a lot more doctors offices, for example, and healthcare facilities are distributing diapers. One of the things I've talked to a lot of healthcare professionals and because of interviews with mothers where they shared with me going to the pediatrician's visit, and for any parent who's done that, you know, they take that diaper, the baby's wearing off. So they can weigh the baby based on the assumption that the parent has a diaper bag full of, you know, clean diapers. And a lot of parents share with me how devastating that was because that was their last clean diaper. So when I've talked to healthcare facilities or doctors, nurses about these kind of issues, they said, okay, well, we can start distributing diapers as part of what we do and the healthcare we provide. But diaper banks usually do distribution not directly to parents, but to community organizations, schools, colleges. I was part of helping create a diaper bank that's on my university campus. So now a lot of universities and colleges and even some high schools that they have, like a parenting support program will sometimes have a diaper like A diaper pantry set up as part of what they do. And then a lot of community organizations become what we call community partners of diaper banks. They get their diapers in bulk. I mean, like thousands upon thousands of diapers. There are some diaper banks in the United States that have distributed, like, diapers, I mean, millions and millions of diapers per month. So it's, it's. It's quite astounding how large some of these are. Some are very small. I talked to people who. I talked to this one woman who. She was actually. She worked in a bank, a bank bank, a monetary bank, and actually just decided because she had struggled with this issue when her son was an infant, she was just gonna take so much money out of her personal income and support 50 families per month and just buy them diapers. So there's a wide array in terms of how diaper distribution organizations work and in terms of size and scope. And I know many of your listeners are probably not based in the U.S. chances are this is not a problem that's limited to the US I would say that it's worse in the US because of the minimal support we have for families with very young children. But I've talked to people who run diaper banks in Australia, Germany, you know, various other countries. And so it's something. It's a community benefit organization that's really proliferating not only across the United States, but in many ways across the world, especially in contexts where children typically wear disposable diapers.
- [27:28]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, that's good to understand. If we're thinking then about all these different kinds of diaper banks, I mean, you talk in the book that we can sort of think of it as a diaper bank movement, I suppose, with kind of the attendant. And ways as sociologists or historians, we might look at movement.
- [27:43]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Right.
- [27:43]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Like, maybe the end goal is the same of trying to help families access diapers. But there's lots of different ideas about sort of how to go about that and who to focus on and what sort of strategies to use. So can you give us a sense of some of those kind of differences across the range of options you've just described? Excuse me.
- [28:02]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Absolutely. And that's a great question, because it is definitely a social movement. Like, if you look at the sociological definition of a social movement or how we think about what a social movement is, it can be about providing direct support to people who need it. It can also be, and this is certainly true of diaper banks, drawing attention to and increasing the public awareness of diaper insecurity as a problem. And a lot of diaper banks, I mean, they, in terms of size that they're being, you know, all along the spectrum of very small kind of diaper pantries or individuals distributing diapers out of the backs of their cars to these diaper banks that are distributing 25 million per month. The political ideas that are reflected in the work of diaper banks and pantries are also all along the spectrum. There are a lot of people who see diaper distribution efforts as it's about getting parents to work and it's about personal responsibility and we're going to give parents kind of a hand up or a handout to get them back to work. There are other diaper banks that see this largely as a social justice issue, as a reflection of race and class and gender inequalities, and really see diaper distribution as an issue of diversity and social access and social inclusion, and are really trying to really use diapers as an entree point into talking about the inequities that really shape our society. And so they see diapers as one way of talking about these issues, as well as providing something that a lot of families need that's often overlooked. And so they really see their work as about promoting social justice and addressing inequities. And those aren't really mutually exclusive. You can see giving out diapers as both helping people get to work and also addressing structural inequalities. But a lot of people who are on the ground doing the work of what I call diaper banking, and they often refer to themselves as diaper bankers, are the primary people who have been diaper policy advocates. They're the reason that we don't have diaper taxes in a lot of states that used to have them. They're a reason that there's been more public funding. I talked to 45 people who were involved in diaper distribution at the community level, and most of them, over two thirds, had some kind of experience with lobbying to legislators about more diaper support or testifying to legislative committees. And so diaper banking is about getting diapers into the hands of families that need them, but it's also about really helping people see that this is a structural issue. So going back to your question earlier about the personal and the social or political. So their work is really multifaceted. It's giving out diapers, but it's also about really trying to understand why this problem exists in the first place and
- [31:00]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
is this movement a way forward sustainably to address some of the gaps we talked about. At the beginning, yes.
- [31:07]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
And that is a question that I wouldn't say the answer is controversial, but there are different, different opinions about that. As I write in the book. I, you know, and, and diaper bankers will be the first people to tell you this. Even if you know diaper banks, they work very hard. It's a very labor intensive kind of basic needs distribution. And they know they're only scratching the surface. If you have, you know, half of the families with children under the age of three struggling, we're talking about millions and millions of families that need help. And diaper banks, no matter how hard they work, can meet a small, only really a small fraction of that need. So they'll be the first to tell you that there needs to be more systematic support, whether it's something like WIC, but for diapers specifically, or having some kind of public program that systematically allows families who need diapers to be able to get them at very low cost or free. And part of the issue with diaper banks is it's very hard work and it tends to be, like I said, very labor intensive. But, and then some people have kind of not critiqued, but said they're only kind of minimally helpful because it's a band aid solution to a much larger problem. That is one of the main diaper advocates that I interviewed said, you know, to a bleeding person, a band aid looks pretty good. And I would say that was definitely true for the parents that I interviewed having some access to some kind of diaper support where they know they could go, they could count on, you know, getting diapers at least to, to cover any gaps they had. Or in some cases, some diaper banks will provide a full month's supply of diapers. So is it helping everyone who needs it? Absolutely not. And diaper bankers know that, but they're working very hard to try to get those more systematic, widespread policies and programs in place so that we can address more of this need.
- [33:13]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah. So what would that look like? What would be sort of other ways forward beyond just diaper banks forever?
- [33:18]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Yeah, it's a great question. One of the ideas I talk about in the book is having, you know, a program like Wiccan WIC is really interesting. So in the United States, WIC purchases about half of all formula that is bought in the US half. And what formula companies do is they basically put out contracts with WIC to say, you know, we're going to provide this much formula at a discounted cost. And it's really beneficial to formula companies because one, if they have this big government contract. They know they're going to sell a lot of their product. And two, they know they're going to create brand loyalty among the people that get their particular formula through wic. So the government ends up getting formula at significantly reduced prices. Because of the way that this contract system works, I think we could do something with diapers, maybe contract with diaper companies to maybe allow the government to buy just massive amounts of diapers that can be distributed in WIC offices or similar offices or welfare offices. And it would again be beneficial to the diaper company's bottom line, but it would also allow the government to buy more diapers at much cheaper per unit prices that allow them to get more diapers to the families who need them. I think public funding for diaper banks is also really good. Add the diaper voucher program that I mentioned before, just, you know, adding a certain amount of cash aid. We are very reluctant in the United States to give people like actual money through welfare programs. There's a, there's kind of a built in fundamental mistrust of people, especially people who are poor, about how they spend their money though. As I've always said, you want to talk to someone who can budget, go talk to a single mom of three who's raising, you know, their family on a minimum wage. They know how to budget. But just allowing some kind of systematic support, whether it's through diaper vouchers, public funding for diaper banks. I think we could have a WIC program. There's a big federal evaluation right now that's looked at distributing some federal monies to different diaper banks across the country. States are doing some really interesting things like Tennessee, you can, if you're on, I believe it's their state Medicaid program. Healthcare coverage, State healthcare coverage for low income families. You can go basically to like pharmacies where people who qualify for this program would get their medicine free or discounted. They could go and get diapers in the same way. So there's a lot of really interesting things that are already happening out there. We just need to have more of it and more support going towards these programs so they can serve more families.
- [36:12]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Okay, that's good to know that there's different auctions kind of already coming up in different places. Is there anything else you hope readers take away from all of this?
- [36:20]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Absolutely. One, just knowing that diaper insecurity exist. Two, knowing that there's probably something in your community, your state that's happening in your country. If we have non US based Listeners, which I'm hoping we do. There's already probably some kind of diaper distribution effort if you want to contribute either again through an in kind donation, going and buying a box of diapers, or a monetary donation, which is usually preferred because diaper banks can buy diapers at discounted prices. Also just, you know, recognizing that this is happening and maybe being not so judgmental, I feel like every week I see a story in the media about, you know, diaper theft, which is really common, where an article will paint a picture of a parent who, you know, did what they had to do. Diaper insecurity forces parents into some really impossible choices. And so in some cases, if that's their only option, parents shared with me. And I've also read stories of parents who did have to resort to diaper theft. So I think being understanding of the problem, also recognizing the privilege of not having to struggle with it. I have often said, you know, diapers are a basic need, they're not a luxury. But not having to worry about running out and where your baby's next diaper is coming from, that is right. So it's a privilege to kind of recognizing that, you know, advocating for diaper support programs, there are a lot of community benefit organizations that do diaper drives. I have an appendix in the book that if a reader is inspired to work on this issue, I provide really like some step by step descriptions of things they can do. Everything from donating diapers or money to a diaper bank to really creating their own diaper bank. And I provide some resources in there. So there's a whole section of the book that if readers are really interested in addressing this problem in their own communities, some ideas for how they can get started.
- [38:32]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yes, that's definitely worth flagging to listeners. And this is clearly something you've spent a lot of time working on, both in the book and kind of beyond that as well. Is this something you're continuing to work on or do you have other kind of current projects you want to give us a sneak preview of?
- [38:47]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
That is a great question. I have been working on this project for so long, like I said, 10 years. I can't ever imagine not being involved in the diaper insecurity conversation or diaper distribution system. I still work with my local community diaper banks, whether it's through donations. I also am working with a local network of hospitals to try to get some diaper banks started in all of their sites. And so I'm still doing work. It's mostly at the community level, but Right now, as with this project, I often tell folks I never thought I would do a whole project on diapers. And it wasn't until I talked to those fathers who shared with me that they were coming in this program to get diapers. And actually there was one particular father who, when I asked him just about his experience being a dad and he had been previously incarcerated, I asked him why he was incarcerated and he said, well, I. I didn't make a good decision, but I made the right one. My baby needed both diapers and milk and we only had enough money for one. And so I had to do what I had to do. And it ended up he was arrested in front of his son for that. And I remember thinking at that moment my next project had found me. We needed to talk more about diapers if these were the kinds of consequences that were happening when families didn't have access to them. So I keep thinking to myself, my next project is waiting to find me. It hasn't yet, but I think it'll come when the time is right.
- [40:28]
Dr. Miranda Melcher
Yeah, I'm sure it absolutely will. And of course, in the meantime, listeners can read the book we've been discussing titled Living Diaper to Diaper the Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood, published by the University of California Press in 2026. Jennifer, thank you so much for speaking with me on the podcast.
- [40:43]
Dr. Jennifer Randles
Thank you. I was delighted to be here. I appreciate the time.
- [40:59]
Roku Ads Manager Advertiser
Want to see your brand on tv? Roku Ads Manager makes it easy to launch targeted ad campaigns in minutes, track results in real time, and drive on screen purchases with just a click of the Roku remote. Get a $500 match on your first $500 spent with code ROKU500@ads.roku.com that's code ROKU500s.roku.com Terms apply.