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Whenever the subject of old-fashioned baby care comes up, one detail tends to surprise younger people more than almost anything else.
It is not the lack of smartphones.
It is not the absence of baby monitors with cameras.
It is not even the idea of warming bottles without modern appliances.
It is the cloth diaper.
More specifically, it is what parents sometimes had to do with that cloth diaper after a particularly difficult change.
For families who relied on traditional cloth diapers, there was no button that made the unpleasant part disappear.
There was fabric.
There was water.
There was laundry.
And there was another diaper waiting almost immediately afterward.
One family story describes a mother handling that routine so regularly that it eventually seemed completely ordinary to her children.
A heavily soiled diaper could not simply be rolled up, sealed and placed in the trash.
The solid waste first had to be removed.
The cloth then had to be prepared for washing.
Modern pediatric guidance still advises removing stool from cloth diapers before laundering them and thoroughly washing heavily soiled diapers.
Today, however, parents who choose cloth have equipment and designs that earlier generations generally did not.
Modern cloth diaper systems can include fitted covers, removable absorbent inserts, snap closures, waterproof storage bags and specialized accessories.
Earlier systems could be much simpler.
For much of the first half of the twentieth century, cloth diapering often meant folding absorbent fabric around a baby and securing it with safety pins.
A waterproof cover might then be added.
The method worked.
But convenient was not always the word parents would have chosen.
There were folds to master.