My Big Brother Summary: Growing up with a big brother in diapers. I am the second of 4 boys, Joey, Steve (me), Jimmy, and Donnie. We are all about 2 years apart. We are all grown now, so this is a look back at the years that we were growing up. Specifically, how it relates to diapers and my older brother. He suggested that I write this from my perspective. We were all potty trained at the appropriate age of 2-3 years old, with some occasional bedwetting for a few years after that-- except for Joey, who was a chronic bedwetter. When he was 8 years old, my parents decided to put him back into diapers at night to control the effects of his bedwetting. He wasn’t very happy about that, but he didn’t have much choice. Joey and I shared a room, and I remember hearing him cry as my parents put the diapers and plastic pants on him at bedtime. When I came into the room, he was already in his pajamas, so I didn’t see his diapers. The routine was for one of my parents to take him to our room to change him for bed a little early. In the morning he came to breakfast with his diapers still on under his pajamas. Honestly, it was hard to even tell he was wearing them. It took awhile for my little brothers to even catch on the Joey wore diapers to bed. It was a few weeks after he started wearing diapers again that I first saw him in a diaper. He had gone to our room to get ready for bed, and a few minutes later I ran into the room to get something. He was lying on his bed wearing just his diapers and my dad was slipping his plastic pants on him. He yelled when I came in and I said, “Sorry”, but my dad said “It’s OK, Steve was bound to see you in your diapers sooner or later since you share a room.” Joey especially hated it when my parents went out for the evening and got us a babysitter. He had the choice of being diapered before my parents left or letting the babysitter diaper him. He liked the first option except that he had to spend the evening in his diapers and pajamas while his younger brothers were still dressed. It also meant that he had to spend more time diapered, and he worried that it looked to the babysitter like he was always diapered. After a few times he usually let the babysitter diaper him. He gradually became more comfortable about me seeing him in his diapers, although I think it was a few years before my younger brothers ever saw him without his pajamas covering them up. I felt sorry for Joey. I know that he didn’t like the fact that he still needed diapers, while his younger brothers didn’t. Five years later, Joey was still wetting at night, and still being diapered. I was about 11 when my mom asked me to start helping out by getting Joey out of his diapers in the morning after breakfast. By this time I had seen her or my dad take Joey’s diapers off of him many times. That first morning was kind of awkward for us, but when we got to our room Joey took his pajamas off and lay on his bed. I walked over and pulled his plastic pants off and dropped them on the floor. Then I unpinned each diaper pin and removed his wet diapers and set them on top of his plastic pants. He stood up, grabbed his wet diapers and plastic pants, put them in his diaper pail and got ready for school. It wasn’t long after that, on a busy night when my dad wasn’t home and mom was helping one of my younger brothers with something, that she asked me if I thought that I could change Joey into his diapers for bed. Joey started to protest, but my mom gave him a look and he quieted down. We went to our room and Joey slowly got undressed while I went to his dresser and got out some diapers and a pair of plastic pants. I folded the diapers like I had seen my parents do many times and lay them on his bed. He came over and lay down on the diapers. I took the baby powder from his night stand and sprinkled some on him. I then took two diaper pins, opened them up and held them in my mouth while I pulled the diapers up between his legs. As I fastened the first diaper pin and looked down at my older brother, I suddenly felt like the big brother. Before I had always seen him as my bigger, older brother, but as I pinned him into his diapers I saw our roles differently. I think he sensed something too as I slipped his plastic pants up over his diapers. Later that year we went on vacation to visit relatives for a family reunion. It was about two days by car which was exciting for us, except that Joey knew that he would have to wear diapers for the whole trip since we sometimes fell asleep while riding in the car. This wasn’t new for Joey, but still he hated having to wear diapers all day. I still have memories of mom laying Joey down on the back seat of the car at rest areas to change his diapers, or my dad taking him to the men’s room at a restaurant and laying him on the counter to change him. Joey had just turned 14 and was still in diapers. It was on trips like this that my younger brothers saw Joey in his diapers most often. At the reunion, most of the cousins soon heard that Joey still wore diapers to bed, and a few started to tease him, but the parents put a stop to it. One evening all the adults were going out to dinner and left two other 14-year-old cousins in charge. We all had fun together and about 8:00, one of them said, “OK, time to put the toddlers to bed.” They each picked up a 2 year old boy and headed to a bedroom. My boy cousin, Ken, turned to Joey and said, “You better come along too.” Some of the cousins laughed a little as Joey followed them to the bedroom. When they got to the bedroom, Ken told Joey to start getting undressed and he and Lisa started to undress the toddlers. Joey was shaking as he got completely undressed and lay down on the bed. Ken then came over to Joey carrying Joey’s diapers and slipped them under him. Lisa lay the toddlers down next to Joey and started to change their diapers, as Ken pulled Joey’s diapers up between his legs and started to pin them on. As he was fastening the diaper pins he said, “I can’t believe that I am diapering someone my own age, I don’t remember wearing diapers, and you still wear diapers everyday.” When he finished pinning Joey’s diapers, he started helping Lisa with the toddlers diaper changes. A 12-year-old girl cousin came in and asked if she could help diaper the babies. Ken said, “Sure, here, put Joey’s plastic pants on him.” It wasn’t what she had in mind, and she hesitated for a minute before taking them from Ken and walking over to Joey. Joey closed his eyes in embarrassment as the 12 year old snapped his plastic pants on him. When they were done, the toddlers were put into cribs and Joey was given the choice of staying up, obviously diapered, or being put to bed. He chose to be put to bed with the toddlers. For a while, the role of diapering Joey stayed mostly with my parents. That changed when I was 12 and Joey 14. We had a babysitter that turned out to be a 15-year-old boy from our school. Joey was mortified when my parents were giving the sitter instructions and pointed to Joey and said, “This is Joey, and he’s the one that you will need to change into diapers at bed time.” The sitter had a puzzled look on his face as he looked at Joey. But at Joey’s bedtime (he went to bed first because he was still in diapers) the sitter said, “OK Joey let’s go put you to bed.” I followed them and watched from the hallway. My mom had left Joey’s diapers and plastic pants laid out on his bed. Joey hesitated doing anything and the sitter finally said, “Do you get undressed by yourself or am I supposed to get you undressed?” Joey said, “I can do it” and got himself undressed. He went and lay down on his diapers and the sitter pinned the diapers on him. The sitter asked him, “Why are you still wearing diapers to bed at your age?” Joey explained that he still wet the bed. The sitter then slipped the plastic pants onto Joey and finished putting him to bed. After that experience Joey complained to my parents that he was too old to still have a babysitter. My parents said that they agreed, but that as long as he still needed diapers he would have to have a babysitter. He was silent for a minute, and then he looked at me and said, “Why can’t Steve be the babysitter? He knows how to diaper me and when we were younger we used to have babysitters that are his age.” My parents asked me if I was willing and I said “Sure, I could do it.” From then on, I was the babysitter for my brothers. Joey liked it better because even though I changed him for bed at his bedtime, I usually let him stay up later with me. Sometimes if we were watching something good on TV, I would send him to his room during a commercial to get his diapers and I would diaper him on the floor in front of the TV. It got so that he didn’t always put his pajamas on, and was comfortable sitting with us in just his diapers, plastic pants and a t-shirt. Even if he slept in just his diapers, he always put his pajamas on before coming to breakfast so that we wouldn’t see that he had wet his diapers. One summer morning we were surprised to see him walk into the kitchen in his diapers, plastic pants, and white t-shirt. He walked around, had breakfast and talked to us as if this was normal for him. Pretty soon this was usually how he came to breakfast. My dad always had a funny look on his face seeing his teenage son walk in with just baby diapers and plastic pants on. One Saturday morning when I was 13 and Joey was 15, as I got out of bed Joey said, ‘Steve, would you change my diapers, I want to sleep in a little and I’m really wet?” I thought that it was a little strange that he wanted a diaper change, but I went ahead and did it for him. About an hour later he came in for breakfast, again with just his diapers and plastic pants on, and then sat and watched TV with us. He spent most of the morning sitting around in just his diapers until mom finally told him to go get dressed. This started happening more frequently, where he would ask me for a diaper change and then spend many hours hanging out in just his diapers. One Saturday morning I came into our room after he had been sent to get dressed and I saw him pulling his pants up over his diapers and plastic pants. I startled him and said, “What are you doing, why are you keeping your diapers on?” He got all red and flustered. Then I said, ‘Do you want to wear your diapers all day?” He nodded yes, and then asked me not to tell mom and dad. I didn’t know what to think, but I agreed. Later when we were playing outside, he was getting a little mean to me and our younger brothers. I yelled out, “What’s the matter do you need your diapers changed?” My brothers laughed, not thinking that he was wearing his diapers during the day. But that made him back off. That afternoon we were in our room and I asked him if his diapers were wet. He said that it was none of my business. I reminded him that even though he was 15, I was his babysitter, and that I diapered him for bed most nights. I walked over to him and told him that I was going to check his diapers. He told me to back off. I started to yell for mom, but he quickly agreed to let me check to see if he was wet. He was, and I said, “Looks like you need a diaper change.” He said, no, that he didn’t want the diapers on anymore. I asked him, “Do you want me to tell mom that you chose to keep your diapers on today, or that you ask me to change your diapers some mornings?” He said, ‘No, if you will be quiet, you can go ahead and change me.” He pulled his pants all the way off and lay down on his bed. As I was getting some diapers out of his dresser, the two younger boys came in and were surprised to see Joey in his diapers in the middle of the day. They asked what was going on and I said, “Joey wanted to stay in his diapers all day, and now he is wet and needs to be changed. Can you help me change him?” Joey gave me a dirty look, but didn’t say anything. Donny said, “Joey, why do you want to wear your diapers all day?” Joey didn’t answer. I said, “It doesn’t matter, but he does need to be changed.” Jimmy said, ”Can I change his diapers? I’m 11 and that’s how old you were when you first started diapering Joey.” I said, “Sure, go ahead.” Donny and I watched as Jimmy did a pretty good job of changing his older brother’s diapers. I know that Joey sometimes kept his diapers on during the day after that, but I think that he just took them off once they were wet. Joey continued to stay in diapers through high school, with me changing him into his diapers most nights. I thought it was strange when he would come home from hanging out with friends or from being on a date, and then lay down and tell me what a good time he had while I changed him into his diapers and plastic pants. After high school, Joey went to a local college and lived at home. He took over his own diapering at age 18, although I helped him with his diaper pins occasionally. When I finished high school we went away to college together and shared a dorm room. He still slept in his diapers, and a few mornings each week he would change into dry diapers and get dressed for class. I knew that he had grown to like something about staying in diapers. He said that they made him feel safe and secure. A few times a month, he would ask me to change him between classes. We would go to our car and I would change him on the back seat just like I had seen mom do when we were younger. He always seemed happy to get changed into dry diapers. The next year we got our own apartment and it seemed as if Joey was spending more and more time dressed in his diapers. He spent most of the time in the apartment in just diapers, plastic pants, and a t- shirt. He would pull some pants on if someone came over. One weekend our younger brothers came to visit for the weekend and were surprised to see that Joey almost always wore diapers. He even got himself some of the baby style pajamas with the feet in them for colder nights. I know that he still wears diapers to this day.