Diaper Duty Quotes

The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.

All the years of ritual—undressing and dressing, diaper changes, potty time, bath time, tooth brushing, reading, hugs and kisses—are so exhausting. If they don’t fall asleep beside him, whoever is on bedtime duty stumbles downstairs, announces wearily, “And that concludes today’s parenting.” Until the next day, and the next and the next. As if it were a curse and not a blessing. As if it really were forever.

HOW DO THEY RECEIVE ME? They call me “little girl,” “dear daughter,” “dear child.” Probably if I was of their generation they would behave differently with me. Calmly and as equals. Without joy and amazement, which are the gifts of the meeting between youth and age. It is a very important point, that then they were young and now, as they remember, they are old. They remember across their life—across forty years. They open their world to me cautiously, to spare me: “I got married right after the war. I hid behind my husband. Behind the humdrum, behind baby diapers. I wanted to hide. My mother also begged: ‘Be quiet! Be quiet! Don’t tell.’ I fulfilled my duty to the Motherland, but it makes me sad that I was there. That I know about it…And you are very young. I feel sorry for you…” I often see how they sit and listen to themselves. To the sound of their own soul. They check it against the words. After long years a person understands that this was life, but now it’s time to resign yourself and get ready to go. You don’t want to, and it’s too bad to vanish just like that. Casually. In passing. And when you look back you feel a wish not only to tell about your life, but also to fathom the mystery of life itself. To answer your own question: Why did all this happen to me? You gaze at everything with a parting and slightly sorrowful look…Almost from the other side…No longer any need to deceive anyone or yourself. It’s already clear to you that without the thought of death it is impossible to make out anything in a human being. Its mystery hangs over everything. War is an all too intimate experience. And as boundless as human life… Once a woman (a pilot) refused to meet with me. She explained on the phone: “I can’t…I don’t want to remember. I spent three years at war…And for three years I didn’t feel myself a woman. My organism was dead. I had no periods, almost no woman’s desires. And I was beautiful…When my future husband proposed to me…that was already in Berlin, by the Reichstag…He said: ‘The war’s over. We’re still alive. We’re lucky. Let’s get married.’ I wanted to cry. To shout. To hit him! What do you mean, married? Now? In the midst of all this—married? In the midst of black soot and black bricks…Look at me…Look how I am! Begin by making me a woman: give me flowers, court me, say beautiful words. I want it so much! I wait for it! I almost hit him…I was about to…He had one cheek burned, purple, and I see: he understood everything, tears are running down that cheek. On the still-fresh scars…And I myself can’t believe I’m saying to him: ‘Yes, I’ll marry you.’ “Forgive me…I can’t…” I understood her.

They call me “little girl,” “dear daughter,” “dear child.” Probably if I was of their generation they would behave differently with me. Calmly and as equals. Without joy and amazement, which are the gifts of the meeting between youth and age. It is a very important point, that then they were young and now, as they remember, they are old. They remember across their life—across forty years. They open their world to me cautiously, to spare me: “I got married right after the war. I hid behind my husband. Behind the humdrum, behind baby diapers. I wanted to hide. My mother also begged: ‘Be quiet! Be quiet! Don’t tell.’ I fulfilled my duty to the Motherland, but it makes me sad that I was there. That I know about it… And you are very young. I feel sorry for you…” I often see how they sit and listen to themselves. To the sound of their own soul. They check it against the words.

She could envision Shakespeare's sister. But she imagined a violent, an apocalyptic end for Shakespeare's sister, whereas I know that isn't what happened. You see, it isn't necessary. I know that lots of Chinese women, given in marriage to men they abhorred and lives they despised, killed themselves by throwing themselves down the family well. I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I'm only saying that isn't what usually happens. It it were, we wouldn't be having a population problem. And there are so much easier ways to destroy a woman. You don't have to rape or kill her; you don't even have to beat her. You can just marry her. You don't even have to do that. You can just let her work in your office for thirty-five dollars a week. Shakespeare's sister did...follow her brother to London, but she never got there. She was raped the first night out, and bleeding and inwardly wounded, she stumbled for shelter into the next village she found. Realizing before too long that she was pregnant, she sought a way to keep herself and her child safe. She found some guy with the hots for her, realized he was credulous, and screwed him. When she announced her pregnancy to him, a couple months later, he dutifully married her. The child, born a bit early, makes him suspicious: they fight, he beats her, but in the end he submits. Because there is something in the situation that pleases him: he has all the comforts of home including something Mother didn't provide, and if he has to put up with a screaming kid he isn't sure is his, he feels now like one of the boys down at the village pub, none of whom is sure they are the children of the fathers or the fathers of their children. But Shakespeare's sister has learned the lesson all women learn: men are the ultimate enemy. At the same time she knows she cannot get along in the world without one. So she uses her genius, the genius she might have used to make plays and poems with, in speaking, not writing. She handles the man with language: she carps, cajoles, teases, seduces, calculates, and controls this creature to whom God saw fit to give power over her, this hulking idiot whom she despises because he is dense and fears because he can do her harm. So much for the natural relation between the sexes. But you see, he doesn't have to beat her much, he surely doesn't have to kill her: if he did, he'd lose his maidservant. The pounds and pence by themselves are a great weapon. They matter to men, of course, but they matter more to women, although their labor is generally unpaid. Because women, even unmarried ones, are required to do the same kind of labor regardless of their training or inclinations, and they can't get away from it without those glittering pounds and pence. Years spent scraping shit out of diapers with a kitchen knife, finding places where string beans are two cents less a pound, intelligence in figuring the most efficient, least time-consuming way to iron men's white shirts or to wash and wax the kitchen floor or take care of the house and kids and work at the same time and save money, hiding it from the boozer so the kid can go to college -- these not only take energy and courage and mind, but they may constitute the very essence of a life. They may, you say wearily, but who's interested?...Truthfully, I hate these grimy details as much as you do....They are always there in the back ground, like Time's winged chariot. But grimy details are not in the background of the lives of most women; they are the entire surface.

WHEN MACKEY was ten and Cheever had been in diapers, Kell had been stuck with babysitting duty while their mom was working nights. Grant and Stevie often came over to keep the boys company, both of them playing fast and loose with the truth of “Are there adults there to supervise?

Let me begin by saying that no, I am not crazy. I had no intention of initiating this little trauma with one child while giving birth to another. In fact, I was thinking middle school was probably a good target for the whole process. But he, apparently, had other plans. "I go potty!" he said. We were standing at the sink brushing our teeth. "What?" I asked, looking around to see if there was someone else in the room. "I go potty!" he said again. He got down from his little stepstool and stood adamantly before the toilet. "Well, OK, little guy," I replied, hesitantly, "I mean, sure, if that's what you want to do . . . " I certainly couldn't discourage him without being the focus of therapy for years to come. And besides, what kind of mother says, "No, honey, I'd really rather you stayed in diapers until you're old enough to date"? I dutifully took off his diaper and pants, popped in his little potty seat, and lifted him up. "All done!" he squealed with delight. "What?" I practically screamed. "What do you mean, all done? You haven't been up there ten seconds!" "All done!" he said again, and started to hop down. He stood there in the middle of the bathroom, looking very proud of himself, and proceeded to pee on the floor. OK, I said to myself. It's just going to take some time. "Good job, honey! Nice try! We'll get 'em next time!" I said cheerfully. I then put a clean diaper on him, put his pants back on, cleaned up the floor, and started down the stairs. "I go potty!" he called after me. "I go potty again!

I’d wait for her to pick up a spoon, a sponge or whatever, but she didn’t.” At one point Sylvia realized that Jillian was in the middle of changing Nick’s dirty diaper and said, “Now that’s really beyond the call of duty. Let me do it.”47 But it was already done. Despite some chronological

I returned the glass to the table and stubbed out my cigarette. There was nothing left of my feelings for those I had just spent several hours with. The whole crowd of them could have burned in hell for all I cared. This was a rule in my life. When I was with other people I was bound to them, the nearness I felt was immense, the empathy great. Indeed, so great that their well-being was always more important than my own. I subordinated myself, almost to the verge of self-effacement; some uncontrollable internal mechanism caused me to put their thoughts and opinions before mine. But the moment I was alone others meant nothing to me . . . Between these two perspectives there was no halfway point. There was just the small, self-effacing one and the large, distance-creating one. And in between them was where my daily life lay. Perhaps that was why I had such a hard time living it. Everyday life, with its duties and routines, was something I endured, not a thing I enjoyed, nor something that was meaningful or that made me happy. This had nothing to do with a lack of desire to wash floors or change diapers but rather with something more fundamental: the life around me was not meaningful. I always longed to be away from it. So the life I led was not my own. I tried to make it mine, this was my struggle, because of course I wanted it, but I failed, the longing for something else undermined all my efforts.

THAT'S NOT A DIRTY DIAPER - THAT'S THE SMELL OF DUTY Stark Raving Dad

Why must women be continually surprised that their male partners disappoint them? That we feel a distinct lack of support, or that the support we receive is both patronizing and conditional: I will applaud your job, your vision, your goals, if you continue to uphold your domestic duties. Cook the dinners, change the diapers, clean the house, and then you can have your “fun.” Why do women, natural sharers, natural empathizers, yoke themselves to men, who are by their own nature nonreflective, nonverbal, noncommunicative? Why do women, natural nurturers, find themselves hollowed out as years of marriage pass, having drained themselves of emotions that continually are fed to partners who have no interest in reciprocating? Partners who tend to say the same damning words, meant as praise: She knows how to handle me. As if a woman’s primary duty was to use all her brains and empathy to manage a man, as if she were some plumber of the psyche. Or how about this one, which men often say when praising a relationship: It’s just easy. Would a man say this about his job? Certainly not. But the key relationship in his life? He shouldn’t have to work at it. That’s because the woman is spending all her time trying to figure him out, trying to handle him. And she wonders why she is so confused about her own emotions: She has no time to ponder them. This sad situation is not the fault of men any more than it is the fault of women. The two are simply incompatible beings.