Well this doesn't bode well

[Katyusha]

I don't use all those wipes, sprays, etc. I refuse to. Getting dirty didn't hurt the five of us at all, and hasn't seemed to hurt any of my three, either.

Me either. We don't have kids, but if we did that wouldn't change things. I'm with you, getting dirty and using soap and water to wash our hands and such never hurt any of us either.

I often wonder where overparenting, of which I believe trying to keep our kids from being exposed to germs is part, comes from.

 

[Katyusha]

Nor, unfortunately, can you tell patients to shut up and sleep something off when they come whining to the GP for antibiotics when what they have is patently a virus that won't be affected by them in any way--except to start a resistant strain of something otherwise trivial in their systems.

Oh good god...don't even get me started on THAT!! There's a local supermarket chain that put out dispensers of generic anti-bacterial wipes near the carts when H1N1 became a concern. I know someone who works at one of the stores in the chain...when I asked him what the hell those were for, he said, "To kill the swine flu germs, obviously!"

To many, germs are germs and there's no difference between a bacterium and a virus. The anti-bacterials, in their opinion, are just as effective on viruses because all pathogens are germs, and germs are all the same thing.

 

[Guest]

Me either. We don't have kids, but if we did that wouldn't change things. I'm with you, getting dirty and using soap and water to wash our hands and such never hurt any of us either.

I often wonder where overparenting, of which I believe trying to keep our kids from being exposed to germs is part, comes from.

It comes from over empathizing (sp?) You feel bad because your child is in pain, so you work to make the pain go away. You feel bad because your kid is sick, so you work to get rid of all the germs.

No one wants to look at the longer term consequences of things like that. By refusing to let them be sick or hurt (minor hurts, mind you), you also refuse to let them grow up.

George Carlin had a great bit ono the "You are all diseased" album about swimming in the Hudson River and coming our great because he had a healthy immune system. Obviously I can't upload it here, but I wish you could hear it. It made perfect sense