Among the many interesting cultural phenomenons we have come across in our time here, one of my all-time favorites is the butt-less baby pants. Perhaps you’ve seen them before — all manner of clothes, from baby-snugglies to cargo shorts to girls’ leggings (a personal favorite, see photo above), simply missing their middle.
To me it started as a comical site — adorable children, running around with their baby butts hanging out. What could be cuter? But I have grown increasingly curious about this custom, including its cultural background, its health implications, and its impact on the economy of diapers.
Though it seems that the trend might be slowing, particularly among the upper-middle class, the butt-less pants are still incredibly prevalent almost everywhere in China we’ve traveled, on children ranging in age from zero to three. To me one of the most fascinating things is the implications the clothes have on the rearing and potty-training of children. Where most parents in the U.S. slap a diaper on their kids and wait until they are around 24 months to start potty training, it seems many Chinese parents begin this conditioning right after birth. (Except it’s not really potty training, it’s often training to potty in the most public of places). Probably my favorite viewing of this in action was atop the Summer Palace, where a mother was encouraging her diaper-less, semi-clad infant to pee in front of a crowd of dozens and dozens of people passing by. Besides trying not to step in his pee, I was mostly in awe that this several week old child was being conditioned to go to the bathroom on command.
Perhaps I am amaze by these things because I was a late bloomer when it came to potty training (I stubbornly refused to take off diapers until my preschool threatened to not enroll me at the age of over three…). Nevertheless, it has made me question our insistence on diapers and makes me wonder at the capabilities of children to absorb conditioning and knowledge from such an early age.
Also, I think it will just be one of those cultural differences that never fails to make me smile.
