So here’s a can of worms for Enterprise readers to discuss: It’s Diaper Need Awareness Week in New York City, Massachusetts, Connecticut, 22 other states, and 70 other cities across the country, and diaper banks are soliciting disposable diapers and money. Is diaper need a social issue to be addressed, or is it (another?) excuse for a handout? Are the worms wriggling out of the can yet?

A public service announcement from the National Diaper Bank Network came across my desk this week, but I thought it was spam. A hoax. Seriously, diapers? I did a quick Google, and found several real, tangible diaper banks scattered across the country — not-for-profit organizations that proclaim a serious social need.

I did a quick survey of a few local previous diaperers, i.e. moms, and the response was one of incredulous skepticism. Why claim a need, when cloth diapers can be purchased once and washed out in a bathtub?

I was one of the neo-cloth users, buying expensive soft, thick cotton baby dipes that could go straight into a washing machine and then into an electric dryer. My grandmother clicked her tongue when she saw them — they were too thick to dry quickly on a line, she said.

She’d lived in a log cabin in Arkansas when she had four babies, and she had used large, thin diapers that were easy to wash by hand, quick to line dry, and easy to fold into the proper shape for diapering.

Why, now, the emergency to fill landfills faster?

The NDBN website, www.nationaldiaperbanknetwork.org, lists many reasons. I’ll summarize:

With costs of nearly $100 per month per baby for disposable diapers, low-income families often use only one diaper per day, leaving young children soiled and open to “potential health risks.” According to the website, and common knowledge, babies use about 12 diapers per day, and toddlers use eight.

Many Laundromats do not allow cloth diapers to be washed “for sanitary reasons,” according to the diaper bank network. This kind of argument should be gushing worms from the can at this point. Similar arguments strike me when I visit public restrooms or public drinking fountains with signs about “sanitary” restrictions on what can be washed in a sink or poured down the drain.

Follow me here: A person can wash her hands after using a restroom, thereby exposing the sink and faucet surfaces to — egads! — all sorts of nasty unmentionable human-related bacteria, but a person cannot brush her teeth or rinse her mouth in a sink because an epidemic might break out. If there is spinach in your teeth, suck it up, Cupcake, and try not to smile.

So, if there are coin-operated Laundromats that are not allowing cloth diapers for health-related reasons, are they banning underwear, sheets, children’s sweater sleeves (you know what I’m talking about), and — in my mind, the worst offender on the list — winter gloves? Who’s policing these Laundromats?

According to www.smallthingsnyc.com/cloth-diapers-in-a-laundromat, no one is bothering young mothers in New York City. The blogger at that site has some simple tips on how to haul those dipes around town. But, you say, she is a blogger, and, therefore, must be in a different socio-economic tier than those experiencing need and, subsequently, is unable to give an unbiased viewpoint. Now who’s judging?

The organizations favoring diaper banks and diaper drives are linking a lack of disposable diapers to early childhood education and continued poverty. They say that 5.8 million poor or low-income babies under 3 years old use diapers, and day-care and childhood-education centers require disposable diapers, not cloth.

“Without diapers, babies cannot participate in early childhood education,” the NDBN site states. But, could you argue that children in preschool must be toilet-trained, anyway? You could argue it, but I spent the last year as my daughter’s preschool teacher’s assistant, and I helped with a lot of Pull-Ups, those disposable pull-on diapers parents think no one will notice. The worms keep coming, right?

“Many parents cannot go to work or school if they can’t leave their babies at child care,” the site states. There are readers out there who will say: Don’t go. Or don’t have the child. Was there really a surprise in the majority of pregnancies? Do the majority of Americans say, “I was going to go to school, but — Surprise! A random baby has appeared and I guess I’d better ask for some diapers?”

Other readers might argue that such a conservative viewpoint is unrealistic. One parent quoted on the NDBN site sums up an alternative view this way:

“I am fixing to move in two weeks, and am starting a new job tomorrow. [My baby] starts daycare on the Monday, and I am in desperate need of diapers to help get us through. I am just a single mom looking for a little help. I would ask family, but I grew up in foster care and don’t have any family to ask.”

But, there are further points to ponder. Do you know how expensive daycare is? Diapers are cheaper. If adults are leaving their babies in one diaper per day, shouldn’t we worry more about educating parents than about having diapers available for preschool? Or, maybe we should worry about all of it?