Adam was gone from home for two days taking training in Washington.  His wife and little son, Caleb, chose to spend the Adamless night at the home of his in-laws.  Adam's brother-in-law, Joseph, was home from college for the Christmas vacation, and agreed to feed Adam's cows in his absence.

Joseph is a good uncle, likes children, and invited one-year-old Caleb to accompany him on the feeding expedition.  Feeding cows, being outdoors, and driving tractors are big adventures to Caleb.  They are daily duties that he insists on performing with his dad, so he eagerly went with Joseph.

All would have gone well, except that Caleb presented Joseph with a dirty diaper during the trip.  That should have been no great problem since Caleb's mother had sent the means to deal with just that contingency, but the problem loomed large in Joseph's mind because changing a dirty diaper was a job he'd never before performed.

This tale was told to me by Joseph's girlfriend, Ivy.  Delight was in her voice.  She was proud of him for not ignoring Caleb's problem, as he might have done; but also found secret satisfaction in this he-man's reaction to a distasteful job.  In telling Ivy of his experience, Joseph admitted to gagging and nearly throwing up.

Joseph is not the first man to react this way.  Caleb's own father used to get almost hostile when his sisters thoughtlessly changed their babies' diapers in his presence.  They'd brazenly do it right in the living room!  He'd stalk from the room leaving an angry comment behind, and was heard to frequently proclaim that he'd never be found changing diapers.  He'd leave that job to his future wife.

We felt sorry for that girl, whoever she might be; but somewhere along the line a marvelous thing happened.  Adam did, indeed, get married, and soon he had a son.  No love affair in the world was ever deeper or more evident than the love this father had for his little boy.—And Adam, the formerly militant anti-diaper changer, was thereafter observed thoughtlessly plopping down on the living room floor to change his baby's diaper.

Nor was Joseph the only he-man boyfriend to ever be repulsed by dirty diapers.  Amy brought her boyfriend, Shawn, home for the family to meet.  Her little brother, Jamie, was still in diapers.  Someone laid him out on the living room carpet to change him, too.  When the smell hit Shawn's nose, he gagged and bolted for the door.  Little Jamie didn't remember that incident when he got bigger; but he was old enough at the time to be offended, and wouldn't speak to Shawn or acknowledge his presence for the rest of the visit.  The incident didn't damage Amy's and Shawn's relationship, because they ended up getting married.  They had babies.  And guess who changes diapers without giving it a thought!

It must make a difference if the baby is one's own.  They say that love conquers all.

What one gets used to must also make a difference.

Margie asked a relevant question:  "Why do things like this bother these farm boys?  They tromp through cow manure and never give it a thought!"

"I'd rather walk through cow manure," Eli answered.

Good point.

Matt was on a train outside London, England when a pungent smell suddenly filled the car.  His companions clapped their hands to their noses, looked desperate, and claimed they couldn't breathe.  The odor wasn't unpleasant to Matt, though.  "That's just pig manure," he told them reassuringly.

They weren't reassured.  They asked how he could possibly identify the particular animal that was the source of the smell.  Matt answered that he'd grown up raising pigs.  He loved his pigs.  He was validated a few seconds later as the train passed a pig farm.

Boys aren't the only ones who can be turned off by diaper changing.  Heidi was distressed to have three children in diapers.  After yet another accident, in tears and exasperation she asked her three-and-a-half-year-old boy, “Why won't you use the toilet?"

"I will when I'm a daddy!" he replied defensively.

That helped neither her attitude nor her tears.  She was sure at that point that he was actually capable of carrying out his promise.

Very early in life Katie figured out a method whereby she could avoid diaper duty altogether while still being a mother.  She announced that when she got married she would live next door to her mother so that she could simply take the baby to her mom whenever it needed to be changed.

Life didn't work out to be that convenient for her.  She ended up having to change her own babies' diapers, but was never totally reconciled to the fact.  I guess she felt that she was too delicate.

"Women shouldn't have to do this," she declared.  "This should be a man's job!"