wash your hands....

Have you noticed that people are getting more and more compulsive about things that really don’t matter? In the name of thorough mothering or good parenting they are elevating odd things to high levels of importance. Let’s take a look at hand washing, for example.

I am going to just go ahead and rock the internet and say that I never wash my hands. Never is a strong word, and of course I’m exaggerating, but I only wash my hands when they are yucky or dirty. Here are some examples of when I might wash my hands. I wash them when I come in from the garden and have dirt/mud all up in my fingernails and I need to get a splinter out of someone’s eye. I wash my hands when I am dealing with raw meat excessively. Not because I think I’m going to die of a bacterial situation, but because it’s sticky and my phone is probably ringing. Back in the day, I might have washed after changing an explosive diaper. I think I might have washed them after this situation, but it was a symbolic washing. As in, ‘I have an unusual feeling in my gut right now and it’s time to move forward with a clean slate'.

I have never encouraged my children to wash their hands that much. I don’t believe that the invisible germ force is our worst enemy. I can’t cede them that much power. We are meant to live together harmoniously, because neither of us is going anywhere. I’m not stupid. I get how germs, viruses, and such are spread, but I don’t think we’re that fragile. I don’t want to become that fragile. Hand sanitizer is effective for two minutes (fact), and is recommended after contact with a foreign surface, which would make us all neurotic freaks if used as indicated. I touched a door knob, or a keyboard at the library, or that bag of groceries, or your welcoming hand, or a hug from a friend. No thanks. In the name of strengthening my immune system, I’ll politely decline.

These days, everything is ‘dirty’. I went on a field trip with Della and it was sweet, but at the same time a veritable minefield of impending doom. I wanted to bitch slap one of the other parents. (Never a good feeling, except that I can embrace the fantasy and run with it.) You’ve held a barn yard animal? God forbid! A darling yellow chick? #&*@&! WHERE IS THE HAND SANITIZER?!? Oh wait, it’s in a dispenser on that jack-wipes fanny pack. Kids line up for absolution. Because baby chicks are filthy? I herd my precious child away from the neurotic daddy so she can be mauled by baby goats with no associated guilt. This trip to the farm was brought to you by Purell, Germ-X, and the CDC.

When I was growing up, we didn’t talk much about hand washing. You washed them if they were dirty. I have had to write letters to teachers forbidding my child from using hand sanitizer because it was used so excessively. Just teach them how to use punctuation, alright already? I didn’t say that, but it’s what I was thinking.

Someone said that cleanliness is next to Godliness. I don’t think it’s biblical and I don’t care enough to google it, but what I think they meant was that we should be reasonably clean, that the plague was unpleasant and total squalor might contribute to your chances of contracting it. They weren’t giving permission for OCD behaviors.

I teach loads of children in many different arenas. They sniff and snuffle. I’m pretty darn healthy. Every now and then I get a bug. Same with my kids. I think we're average. I like to think that our immune systems are in cahoots with our environmental factors.

Which is to say, that me and my grubby little family are just fine, thanks.