Eep! To start...I will say that my mom let me eat dirt as a kid...we ran barefoot, we had pets that only lived out of doors...and so our exposure to them was in a totally filthy environment. We lived on an acre...with dirt, grass, trees, plants...BUGS...ETC! My sister didn't have an antibiotic for the first time until she was sixteen years old! I was always prone to ear infections, so I was on them much earlier...but we rarely had the sniffles. In fact, so few times, I can recall EACH incident that one of us kids (there were 4 of us) were so sick that we needed a doctor's care. NOW...fastfoward a few years. I absolutely let my kids eat dirt outside and play in the dirt at my mom's house (the same home I was raised in). At my own house? NO WAY! Cuz I was a renter...and I didn't really have any way to know what they had been doing to their dirt! I know it's a total contradiction...but I felt like my mom's house was "safe" dirt. I had built an immunity to things in the home & yard...and felt like my kids would be okay there. Now we've moved and it hasn't been warm enough to be outside, so we shall see. And ya know..my 6 year old has been sick once or twice, not including UTIs (which she seems to get from taking bubble baths). My 2 year old has been sick a few times (and at 5 weeks a friend brought their 9 month old to my house SICK and infected my newborn!!)...but nothing serious. And really, she has only been around while my older child has been in school...so I wonder if the older kid is bringing it home and passing it out, ya know? In my home...we have like a 2 minute rule. Pretzels have been on the floor since lunch? Ehh...they should be okay. I feel like we should be able to expose ourselves to the good and bad germs in our house as much as possible...b/c these are the germs we'll be able to fight off easily. Sort of like practice for the big, scary, strange stuff. In public is a different story. I wipe the fast food table off with diaper wipes (twice at least) before we sit down. We wash our hands in the bathroom, then I have my antibacterial foam (Bath & Body works!) that goes on after the bathroom...b/c we touched the knobs and the handles, etc. I have toiletseat covers (they're in the kid's travel section at Target, and totally work for adult butts, too!) for public restrooms...I clean the shopping cart handle...When my youngest was little I had the floppy cover thing (not for my oldest who went from the carseat to sitting up in like a week, and never chewed on anything)...And I really am only so paranoid about being in public, b/c of Typhoid Mary Syndrome. I made that up, but it's the only way to describe what I have. ANYone could carry harmful things but not actually be sick from it, or ever have symptoms. I knew a boy in highschool who found out he was a TB carrier. He would NEVER get TB...but he could pass it out like birthday invitations if he were so inclined. So...in public...I'm like a walking sterilization kit. At home...Even I have eaten the cookies off the floor. And I don't want to turn this into one of *those* conversations...but this is also the reason I vaccinated my kids! Even though I didn't want to...I felt like I have NO idea where anything else comes from and what it has been exposed to that could potentially give them a fatal disease. My own pediatrician told my mom (who was also wary of vaccines) that in today's society, we are very transient. No one lives & dies in a small town anymore. People from countries where polio still exists may come here and serve me food or check my groceries in the store. People who are living in total poverty are picking my fruit and then putting it on a truck and sending it to my grocery store, where it's unloaded by I don't know who! Then I take it home and it sits in my house until we eat it. Yeah, I clean it before we eat it...but how long have we been exposed to it before that? The original handlers would be immune b/c of their constant exposure...but I (or my kids) wouldn't be.

I really struggle with this topic. I know, intellectually, that germs are good. It is important for children to be exposed to germs so that their immune systems learn to fight off illness. In practice, it is more difficult. My daughter was admitted to the hospital at 6 weeks for what turned out to be a kidney infection. After that traumatic experience (i.e., spinal tap, multiple attempts at inserting an IV, antibiotic injections, 4 nights in the hospital, etc.), I went a little nuts with disinfecting and not letting her be around anyone. I allowed myself a month of crazy. She is now 5 months and completely healthy. I have dialed down the crazy. But, I still cringe a little every time I let someone hold her or touch her. I suppose this is a valuable lesson in parenthood - it is harder on the parents than the children to raise a healthy well-adjusted child.

I knew I'd reached a new level of acceptance when I walked through the kitchen, stepped on a pacifier, and bent down to brush MY FOOT off.

I work in food service... Do I really need to say anything more? So here's my real opinion. Germs are OK. They serve a purpose. Being exposed to germs helps us build our defense system. I have no problem handing my child something that fell on the floor or the ground (depending on who's floor it is). I have no problem picking an M&M off the ground, giving it a quick dust off and popping into my mouth. Mmmm chocolate. The binky that hit the floor either got dusted off or I popped it in my mouth before returning it to the munchkin. Mmmm baby slobber The germs that really gross me out and make me run for the sanitizer are germs that I come in contact with at work. PEOPLE GERMS ARE GROSS. Dirty dishes, food that people have touched and breathed on at a buffet, the etiquette deficient guy that sneezes into his hand and then shakes your hand, napkins that someone has wiped their mouth on, trash cans, recirculated central air, someones half eaten roll that they set on the table instead of on their bread plate.... you get the idea.

I've never been afraid of germs. As a child I played in dirt, with other dirty kids, shared suckers and gum and germs I'm sure. We were supposed to wash our hands before meals, and after we used the bathroom, and that about covered that. So I was pretty relaxed with my daughter. She had her first antibiotics when she was SIX. The doctor (who wasn't our regular doctor in that practice) was shocked. For one, I know better than to rush a moderately ill child to the doctors office at the first sign of a cough or sniffle. For two, antibiotics do nothing for kids with viral infections, they just give paranoid mothers something to shove into their kids to make THEM feel better. The kid will get better anyway. In Ripley's case she had a cold that gradually settled into her chest and morphed itself into bronchitis. After watching her awhile, I took her in. She'd been sick in varying degrees for about two and a half weeks. Once the doctor got over her shock, she said I was exactly right. There was a downside though. Ripley liked the taste of the pink antibiotic so much she asked when she was going to get sick again and get more. But that was then, and this is now. Now I have a severely compromised immune system. I've already been hospitalized for it once, and let me tell you: hospitals are no place for a sick person. (also being given three IV antibiotics and two antivirals because they don't know what's causing your scale of 10+ pain, 103-104 fever and convulsions will give you the worst yeast infection you ever thought possible) I don't keep an antiseptic home, and I don't really worry about Ripley's health too much. She, like me at that age hardly ever gets sick. But *I* do have to be careful and so do the rest of the people who live in this house. Everyone in this house gets flu shots, period. Everyone even got H1N1 shots this year because I fall into one of the high risk categories. If *I* get a cold I have to go to the doctors and get a freakin' script for antibiotics because that virus will open me up for a secondary infection. We also use purell alot because we handle a lot of different exotic animals, and you always clean before and after each handling. Plus...I love to keep it in the car because no matter how careful I am, seven times out of ten, while pulling the nozzle out of my car I will get a drop of gas on the cover. And no matter how I try, I will get it on my hands. GROSS!!!

I am emphatically NOT a germaphobe. We do not own a bottle of Purell, and I do not buy antibacterial soap. We generally try to keep clean, but I am not going to let a cracker that fell on the floor go to waste. And in the garden we'll pull up a carrot, dust it off, and eat it. A little bit of dirt isn't going to hurt anyone, especially a healthy, active kid with a normal immune system. Although, I am sort of terrified of raw meat. But food borne pathogens are different than dirt, in my mind, and much more dangerous.

I've been taking immune suppressing medication for a few weeks and it's turning me into a germaphobe to the point where I am annoying myself. My hands have shriveled up and crawled away from all the sanitizer and I visibly duck when people cough in my general direction, because ducking totally scares the germs away from your face. I definitely subscribe to the -the more you're exposed to , the more antibodies you'll develop- theory and I can't wait to finish this prescription so I can go back to my "sane" dirt loving self. http://www.theladyslounge.com

That's so funny, I also just use my own spit as a cleaner for the dropped pacifier. I used to run it under hot water, and use soap...But after she screamed for 20 minutes in target, I sucked the end of it and stuck it back in her mouth! :) Plus, I figure I have a stronger immune system, if something dangerous was on the pacifier, I'll get it, not her.