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<p>Just making fun of Arnold’s term. I did not know the CC cops are out in force.</p>
<p>I’m not being a cop. You can say what you like. And I can say how I feel about it.</p>
<p>At the end of a summer day, my boys would all have what their preschool teacher had called “fun lines.” If they lifted their heads, there would be brown lines of sweat and dirt in the creases of their necks. It was how you knew they’d been having fun. Before they were big enough to get really stinky, l loved their dirty, sweaty, sunshine and sunscreen smell at the end of the day in July.</p>
<p>Yep, my guys got good and dirty. We have a picture where they were still (just barely) pre-teens, and had made a huge mud hole (actually, just wet dirt - we don’t have REAL mud where we live in coastal Florida) and they and a neighbor had rolled/smeared or whatever it is boys do to get absolutely covered in yuck. Tremendous grins on these guys!</p>
<p>No fear of dirt in our house, although I do confess to always having neosporin on hand…</p>
<p>I teach half-day preschool in a building that also houses a full-time daycare center.
You would not believe the “handwashing rules” that the state health dept. demands. </p>
<p>The kids must wash their hands (with antibacterial soap) before they enter the classroom, each time they use the toilet(of course), before they sit down to their juice and crackers snack and again after their snack, after coming in from the playground, before and after lunch and after every time they blow their nose or put their fingers in their nose…which you know is a LOT when you’re dealing with two and three yr. olds.
Oh yeah, they are supposed to spend at least thirty seconds soaping and washing their hands each time. We spend a huge portion of our day (that should be spent playing) marching them in and out of the bathroom.</p>
<p>First of all, I see this as one of those “duh” type of things. I believe it plays into why MRSA has become such a big deal over the last few years…</p>
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<p>I hate having the dirt on the fingers feeling too. If it’s mud or if I am sweating, it’s not a big deal but after a few minutes and it kind of dries–that drives me crazy. I think it’s a little weird, but that’s just how I am. I have no problem getting “down and dirty” but having dry dirt on my hands drives me nuts.</p>
<p>Well, I am not a strict house cleaner, my kids rarely are sick or miss school due to illness, but the thought of being treated with intestinal worms makes me want to throw up.</p>
<p>My daughter and her friends used to have these massive fights of flinging dried horse manure at each other. That crossed the grossness line for me.</p>
<p>My apbio teacher was telling me about Nature Deficiency Disorder where kids are getting sick very easily because of their lack of exposure to common sicknesses which helped us to build our immune system. It’s very sad actually, I remember riding my bike through the woods and playing all up in the dirt as a child. My 7 y/o brother on the other hand sits in front of his ps3 all day, or the computer, or watches TV. It really is unfortunate.</p>
<p>my kids certainly don’t have that- they both worked with horses, which involved mucking the barns and going as far as cleaning foreskins which is really more than I ever wanted to know
It was bad enough that when I would pick up D from work- and her boots were covered with pony stuff- our puppy thought they were so delicious!</p>
<p>Apparently, in addition to improving your immune system - and, as was the case for S, reducing anxiety/calming the body - certain bacteria found in dirt may also help you learn better. Now I feel much better for allowing S to suck on dirty rocks when he was young ;)</p>
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<p>[Germs</a> in Soil Might Give Learning a Boost](<a href=“Businessweek - Bloomberg”>Businessweek - Bloomberg)</p>