No Offense, But Please Don’t Sanitize My Children

So there we were, minding our own business at the Kindergarten picnic. There was a petting zoo and my children partook in the petting and the feeding of farm animals with their bare hands, mind you. Afterwards, it was time to eat and I as I turned to pull out my children’s lunch, out of no where comes the “Sanitizer Mom”.

She is all over my kids before I can even say a word. She has already wiped down my 4 year old before I can react and she is getting ready to sink her germ free antibacterial hands on my 2 year old when I stop her.

“Excuse me,” I say politely, “but we are okay. They already washed their hands.”

“No I don’t think so,” she replied in a state of weird determination while pulling wads of wipes from her never ending supply. “I saw they touched the goats. You have to use the wipes,” she informs me.

“Put down the wipes and step away from the baby,” I said in a deep voice which said I meant business.

With the stealthiness of a ninja and the fierceness of a mama bear, I blocked her hands just before the alcohol drenched anti-bacterial wipe touched my baby's face.

I am not sure where it all started, this obsession with germs. We definitely didn’t have it when I was growing up. My sister and I would roll around in the muck and grim of our day and my mother would barely blink. Sure we took a bath sooner or later, but there was no mention of germs and anti-bacterial anything was nonexistent.

So when I had my babies, I didn’t really give germs too much thought. Yes, I would have them wash their hands after they went to the bathroom, especially if we were in public, but besides that, not so much. With three small kids, two dogs, and 3 Guinea pigs, my house was, let’s say, "lived in", and we liked it this way.

I do have an opinion about this mass hysteria concerning germs and wiping children down with hand sanitizer; I don’t like it.

I have researched and I find that this obsession with germs and hand sanitizer actually causes sickness rather than thwart it. This is my opinion and my children have the immune systems of full grown stallions to prove my theory. They are never sick.

No offense to anyone who loves to sanitize their children. No judgment here. I imagine it makes you feel in control of the uncontrollable. I believe that as moms, we all make decisions based on our own experiences and what we think is the best decisions for our kids.

Back to the picnic and the "Sanitizer Mom", she was stunned at my reaction and looked at me as if I was crazy which at that point I might have been. Why do over bearing, germ obsessed, obsessive compulsive moms think that those of us who are not, are not taking care of our children correctly? I do not wipe down my children with anti-bacterial wipes, because I have chosen not to, not because I don’t know better.

With my comment and the look in my eye, the “Sanitizer Mom” backed away slowly and an unspoken truce was achieved. Rumor has it that after this incident, her children were not allowed to play with mine. To tell you the truth, this was quite a relief, because her kids were always sick.