Kids and Germs

No, nearer than that John, bottom of the lane down to the river at St. Catherines Hill. Its soft water too, coming out of the sandstone. Lovely drop of water.

 

Germ mania is completely over-the-top! I pride my self on rarely getting ill and I fully believe this is done to how messy and dirty I got as a child (and how I still continue to do so)

For example these are things I don't care about:

Soap - I have never washed my face with soap, ever! I don't have oily skin and I don't really get spots (I do occasionally but I am only human after all!) My skin is doing what it should be able to do naturally.

Dropping Food on the floor - Just dust off, trust me it will be fine.

I also, don't always wash my hands after going to the toilet. I do most of the time, I just don't worry if I walk out and have forgotten also it's always with water and not anti-bacterial hand wash, after all, this waste has only come from things I have put into myself.

Kitchen work surface - If I put something down like a piece of bread, I will not use cleaner on the surface, in fact I probably won't wipe down. I will wipe down after chicken though but that is different.

The thing is my house isn't dirty and I am not a dirty person, I take care of my appearance of my things and my house is generally tidy and organised.

We as a society are going crazy about over-protecting our children and germs is just the beginning of it, but I won't go into the other things we do because I will be here for a very long time. In the future our common cold will probably be the biggest killer, due to such poor immune systems and children will have been so wrapped up in cotton wool they won't know how to interact with other human beings or handle any sort of normal emotional response. It's makes me sick to see parents taking their children's youth away from them for their own selfish egotistical pride.

 

Yes, I've seen it, I think it acts on some sort of sensor like those hand drying machines, when you put your hands under it the soap comes out!!

Val

 

I must be a bad parent!!

 

EddieJ Real cute little girl, lucky man!!!


I actually like these pumps because I am a fanatical hand washer!!! have been so since I kept dogs. I adore my dogs but they have some disgusting habits like rolling in foxes mess and if you ever get that all over your hands you definitely don't want to touch anything!! I push the dispenser with my elbow to put soap in one hand then push it again with the now soapy hand to wash the other one!!! If I drop any food on the floor I would definitely not eat it, that could have been just the spot where the dog was sitting!!

Val

 

I think you're right Gemini. I'm pretty fussy myself. I just thought not allowing children to touch a soap dispenser because it was a "germie thing" was a bit over the top !

 

We've seen that ad here Alice and gasped in despair. Some of the shopping precincts and restaurants here (the one where I display my painting nearby here in the middle of nowhere even) have these lights that automatically come on and taps that do also. It actually doesn't have the 'don't touch' soap dispenser. I personally don't like the 'air dry' hands machine and have read they carry more germs than roll-around towels

Friends of ours of some 25 years who come here to visit annually are clean freaks (well, she is). The girls are 13 and 15 and my friend insists they wash their hands on a frequent basis with this bacterial stuff in a tube. I also have a friend here who admits she 'lives in a bubble' and has every ailment going.

I say bring back pulling a carrot out of the ground, knocking the dirt off and munching on it and get a bit of dirt on your hands and under your nails (and I can get quite a lot under mine ... ). I don't use chemicals in the garden because I have cats so I don't have that problem.

In our opinion ... it has now gone all out of control ... and we are pleased we live in the country in the dust and dirt with fresh fruit all around us. :yess:

 

Ye gods, this 'invention' is so totally pointless it makes me seethe.

You take your filthy hands, stick 'em under their 'no touch hand wash system' thingy, then what do you do? You turn the tap on (or alternatively turn the tap on then stick your hands under their thingy) either way, at some point you're going to have touch the tap with your supposedly lethally dirty hands, whereas you can pump a bit of soap out using your arm, elbow, chin or feet if you want to, in fact any bit of you which means not having to actually to touch the pump at all - ever tried turning a tap on without using your hands? Now my children were very good about washing their hands, but I never quite managed to train them to wash the taps as well.

And a couple of other things - I fail to understand how they can claim that a soap pump may be so 'germy' that it presents a helath hazard when your average toothbrush has on it, some ten million germs, including a high percentage of potentially fatal bacteria such as staphylococci, streptococcus, E. coli.

And finally (as they say) this gizmo is £6.50 plus £2.96 for a 250ml refil, whereas I can buy a brand new 'ordinary' pump containing 500ml for just 55p.

:gaagh:

 

Or indeed, a plain old low-tech bar of soap for even less, free of plastic packaging. But then "they" wouldn't make so much profit out of that, would they?

I'm delighted to read so much common-sense, down-to-earth, no-nonsense thinking from Gardener's Corner contributors, with all of which I heartily agree.

I was brought up on a farm with a liberal helping of dirt of all kinds. My dad used to leave half-dead lambs in the kitchen in front of the radiator, the house was none too clean, we played out constantly in muck of all kinds and barely remember washing! Hands were certainly never washed before meals.

I rarely suffer from stomach ailments; there have been several cases when people who have eaten exactly the same food as me have been ill afterwards but I haven't. My siblings are similarly tough.

Delish! I used to do a lot of climbing, spending the day scrabbling about on sheep-poo filled ledges with no hand-washing facilities whatsoever. My packed lunches never tasted so good!

 

Soap is fine - although all the soap I see still comes in plastic packaging of some sort. I prefer a pumpy thing because 'certain people' are none too fussy about how they leave the soap and the thought of picking up a bar with a layer of slimy gunge underneath is enough to put me off 'proper' soap for ever. (P.S. I know you can get soap dishes etc., but not everyone bothers - and if they do, many seem incapable of realising they need to be washed).

 

Joking aside from my photo, I do keep purell hand scrub to hand at work.

I contracted Weils disease many years ago, and to this day, my liver isn't that great and never will be.

Would I ever stop my daughter from getting her hands muddy, or stop her from from coming into contact with farm animals, of course not. She knows to wash her hands, and I trust her to do it.

I worry more about more about her touching public handrails and banisters than I anything else.

 

Why?

I worry more about people like you ... no, I don't at all ... shall I send you some rubber gloves for them to wear ... ? Have you contracted some disease in your life that you need to shield your children from something?

Shall I send you a big bubble to put your family in ... ?

 

Two words for you which won't pass the forum filter so use your imagination for it. F**K O**!!!

And as you couldn't be bothered to read my post properly, yes I have!

 

Hi Eddie - I'm sorry to hear about your health problems. I don't know all that much about Weill's disease, except that it is transmitted by exposure to rat urine, in ponds and rivers, for example. I'm not asking you to talk about the circumstances of your picking up the disease but would the kind of exaggerated hygiene measures of the kind being discussed in the OP have helped you to avoid contracting the illness? Or would judicious use of plain soap and water do just as well?