This website has been active since July 07, 2000. The surveys were closed on November 09, 2001. When the survey was closed 970 people participated in the survey. I want to express my sincerest thank you for everyone that contributed to this effort. The goal of this website has been to help educate parents, kids and even professionals with a non-biased approach to this behavior. By doing this it is my hope that a parent will have a tool to help them better deal with a child that is coming to terms with infantilism. I must admit that while some answers didn't surprize me at all, some results were different than expected. With a base of nearly 1000 people, it was possible to capture a fairly accurate feel for catagories that matter most to your child's well being. Having said that some factors are out there that can cause some of the data to be a little misleading. One example is some people were not aware that multiple answers could be used in some catagories. The survey was also set up for adults and there was no way of screening everyone that took the survey. In the future I plan on doing surveys for other groups such as parents and teen babies. Being a teen baby today is another world from being a teen baby of yesteryear. Now onto the results thus far------ What we are dealing with is the four basic approaches parents take with their children who love wearing diapers.
How My Parents Dealt With My Infantilism
1 NO WAY- A parent has knowledge of diapers or has been asked by the child to let them wear them and it has been made verbally clear that this behavior is not acceptable 2-NO SEE-A parent has found something but has ignored it as the child's private matter or the kid has been successful in hiding their diapers. Either way the child assumes this behavior is unacceptable. The only difference is they are not verbally aware and often wonder if it really would be OK. 3-PROFESSIONAL HELP- A parent thinks this is beyond them and seeks an expert to help them with answers and solutions. 4-LET KIDS WEAR-These parents don't see it as a big deal and allow their kids to wear them. Now for the math--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NO WAY- (508) had parents that made it plain diapers on older children are unacceptable. NO SEE-(223) had parents that they felt would not accept their diapers. PROFESSIONAL help was sought by (60) parents and (179) had parents that understood and accepted this behavior. Less than 20 percent of parents see this as allowable. Over 50 percent have strong feelings that it is unacceptable.
How Did You Get Diapers?
The first question dealt with HOW DID KIDS OBTAIN DIAPERS? What we are concerned with here is WAS IT RISKY TO THE KID? Taking diapers when around a baby is very common. Not exactly risky but not desirable either. NO WAY 21%, NO SEE 23% PROF 22% LET 14%. Shoplifting is criminal. Rumaging through trash can be unhealthy. Meeting someone can be dangerous. So I'm classifying those together as risky ways of obtaining. NO WAY 19%, NO SEE 15% PROF 19% LET 12% As we can the first three options have remarkably similar results. Kids that are allowed to wear diapers freely still engage in bad ways of acquiring them but certainly the percentages are down quite a bit compared to the others.
My Grades
The second question dealt with SCHOOL GRADES. It was interesting to me that the NO WAY and NO SEE kids were close and the PROF and LET kids were close. What really surprized me was that in every option grades improved. The number of kids that had grades that declined were similar in all four options. NO WAY 6%, NO SEE 6% PROF 5% LET 4%. For the most part diapers didn't affect grades at all was well over 60% in every catagory maintained their averages. In my own personal experience my grades fell horribly. NO WAY had 27% improvements. NO SEE 17%, PROF 33%. LET 34%.
Vices/Destructive Behavior
The third question dealt with VICES. These are known behaviors that have damaging effects, such as drinking, drugs and gambling. Children who are infantilists appear to fair much better than most kids their age as far as not acquiring hamful habits. I'm not sure what the numbers are there, but I would expect one in five kids or 20% at any given school to have a serious problem with at least one of these vices. NO WAY 11%, NO SEE 14% PROF 8% LET 4%. The NO WAY parents are likely to be involved and alert to a potential problem so that probably explains the lower number than the NO SEE parents. The parents that LET their kid wear diapers has a tremendous success record here. People who suffer addictions will usually admit "something was missing in their life." They point to root causes. If diapers are not allowed and is thus missing in a kid's life that needs them they may seek another behavior to fill that void.
Talking About Problems/Vices
The fourth question dealt with TALKING ABOUT VICES. Naturally a parent wants a kid to come to them with such a problem. The results are mixed on this one. The only two that really jump out at you are TALKING TO PARENTS. NO WAY 6%, NO SEE 3%, PROF 8% but a whopping 31% of kids with a vice problem that is allowed to wear diapers feel as if they can ask for help from their parents. That speaks a lot about trust and that is what you need to be an effective parent.CAN'T CONFIDE IN ANYONE. NO WAY 53%, NO SEE 66% PROF 61% LET 33%. It is interesting that kids seeing professionals can't even confide a vice problem to them. The parents who let their children wear diapers can take comfort in knowing that if a real vice problem should occur there is a good chance that they can talk to someone who can point them back in the right direction. Couple that with these kids being unlikely to get a harmful vice and you are way ahead of most parents with teens in the home.
Talking About Diapers/Infantilism
The fifth question dealt about TALKING ABOUT DIAPERS. Overall the results were very similar to being able to being able to talk about vices. It might be easier if you just view the survey itself if you want more detail here. Being able to talk about wearing diapers is obviously a good indicator of reduced shame. A kid that can't talk about something they love is obviously racked with guilt. Guilt lowers self esteem. Reduced self esteem and lack of confidence is the recipe for an underachiever. Almost every kid I hear from is highly intelligent and I want them to realize their full potential. TALKING ABOUT DIPES TO PARENTS-NO WAY 8%, NO SEE 4%, PROF 11% and LET 36% NOT TALKING ABOUT IT TO ANYONE EXCEPT NET FRIENDS NO WAY 66%, NO SEE 79%, PROF 63%, LET 32% Surprizingly even if you manage to get your child professional help there is a better chance that he/she will not discuss his/her feelings surrounding diapers honestly and completely with them. That speaks volumes to the fact if a child feels their trust has been betrayed they may clam up.
Social Life
The sixth question dealth with SOCIALITY. Only around 5% started hanging with the wrong crowd in all options. Roughly 60% reported that socially nothing really changed after re-discovering diapers no matter which parental option was used. We need to be concerned most with WITHDRAWING from peers. NO WAY 20%, NO SEE 22%, PROF 22%, LET 17%. Getting involved with postive activities such as sports and clubs is vital to having a happy teen. NO WAY 12%, NO SEE 10%, PROF 15% and LET 22%. Kids that wear diapers seem to have a natural tendacy to withdraw from peers although most get along well and make friends easily. Only the parents that have allowed their kids to wear diapers are more likely to have a child leaning more towards becoming more social. The NO WAY and NO SEE methods will get you 2 kids becoming withdrawn for every one that becomes more involved.
Sexual Orientation
The seventh question dealt with SEXUALITY. I expected these to remain stable no matter how a parent dealt with a child wanting to return to diapers. I was right on target with my thinking. Kids that were flat confused about what diapers meant to their sexual being was NO WAY 14% NO SEE 17% while PROF was 6% and LET 8%. It sounds like the last two options provided a confused kid with answers where many of us had to live and learn along the way. STRAIGHT+DIAPERS NO WAY 56%, NO SEE 54%, PROF 50%, LET 54%. GAY+DIAPERS was 5% each across the board except for PROF which was 15 percent. The same pattern held true for Bi-Sexual +Diapers which was 5% in all methods except PROF which was 11%. I concluded from this that the sexuality itself may have been the single most reason a parent sought a professionals help. Just like with infantilism many gay kids end up going this route as their parents desperately seek a "cure" that simply just don't exist. The only other deviation was that 16% of kids with LET parents reported that for them they were straight and diapers were not sexual. That is double the percenatge with the first three options. From this I concluded that more of the LET kids obviously have a physical need for wearing diapers.
Depression
The eighth question is the BIGGIE. This involves DEPRESSION. Kids that want to return to wearing diapers seem to be more at risk for depression than other kids their age. This can range from a child simply being habitually unhappy, to a fluxuation of extreme good and bad moods to thoughts of suicide depending how severe the depression. Even 27% of kids that are allowed to act out wearing diapers with full parental support are subject to depression. Think that's bad. It gets worse. NO WAY 38%, NO SEE 42% and PROF 39%. Being a teen baby is not all fun and games. Challenges and worries about the future go with the territory. It has a serious side that needs to be handled with care.
Adulthood Lifestyle
The ninth and tenth question dealt with BEING AN ADULT. This is meant to show what is going on now with those of us who are no longer scared teen babies of the past. The overall results start to even out once you are an adult and become self sufficient. It is obvious from the top eight questions that simply allowing a kid to wear diapers if they feel they need them seems to have best results during the teen years, however it don't make you better or worse as an adult in most cases. I guess those of us who were made to feel diapers are totally unacceptable realize they are perfectly fine. Even if you had the most accomodating parents you still have the challenge of finding an accepting mate. The only number that seems to jump out from the others is kids who were allowed to wear diapers at home do have a greater chance at marriage, but even that number is not staggering. The good news is close to 90 percent are happy or at least OK with their lives while 10% are disappointed. Of those only 6% of NO WAY ranging down to 2% of LET feel that diapers are the sole reason for having a disappointing life. It sounds like adult infantilists do pretty good once they survive those tough teen years.
I hope you found this summary helpful. One thing to keep in mind as a parent is that while this should give you an idea as to the typical feelings of the average teen baby, your kid is an individual with his/her own feelings. You know your kid the best and there is no substitute for just having a good talk with them in a non threatening enviroment and making the best decision possible based on your child's needs. Lots of luck. I wish you and your family the best.
