Huge Surprise

As promised, I've begun to buy American again.  American!  I promise!  Of course, I went shopping again today for some groceries and forgot to look at the labels...but looking at them now, everything was made in America.  Whew!

I realized my mistake while we were making dinner tonight and rushed around checking at labels, when I suddenly remembered that I'd sent Shannon out to get diapers last night.  (Killian actually uses cloth diapers, but we've been running low on the ones that fit him, so we occasionally supplement with disposables when he's been especially prolific.)  I was horrified by the thought that he might have bought something made anywhere else, which would mean that I would have broken my promise only two days after making it.  So I ran to to diaper box, and here's what I found.

Parent's Choice is the brand he selected (he said it was the cheapest), and it happens to be the Wal-Mart brand.  I don't know how many of you were aware, but during at least one part of their history, Wal-Mart sold only American goods - that was the way they chose to do business, and I wish more businesses would think like that.  However, Wal-Mart has also promised the lowest prices, and buying American isn't always the cheapest way to go, being as how even the most poorly paid Americans have pretty high wages compared to workers other parts of the world.  In the end, it came down to keeping the promise to sell only goods made in America, or keeping the promise to sell goods at the lowest price.  Guess which won.  So lately it's been easier to find products made in Indonesia than in America.

Anyway, when I saw that they were the Wal-Mart brand, my heart sank.  Made in China for sure.  Still, I searched the box and I found that the diapers are, in fact, made in the good old USA.  I was flabbergasted, and relieved.  Noticing an old diaper box - Pamper's Snugglers, as a matter of fact - I decided to search it as well.  Surely if a company like Wal-Mart can produce diapers in America, then a diapering giant like Pamper's can.

Nope.  Made in Mexico.