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Jeff Foxworthy coined the phrase “you know you are a redneck when ...”
I thought of this a few weeks ago as my child went to a play date, and as I knocked on the host’s front door my son proceeded to throw up all over the front steps.
Am I calling him a redneck? No, I walked away profusely apologizing to the host as she shrugged it off with a laugh, I saw a little humor in the situation and realized ... “You know you are a mom when someone throws up on your front steps and it doesn’t bother you.”
Children and illness go hand and hand, especially this time of the year. I have three children, and I know they are loaded with germs no matter how often they wash their hands, take baths and rub antibacterial cleanser on them. They are kids, they play with toys, play on the floor and they may even put something in their mouth on occasion.
Twenty years ago, we cleaned with plain soap and water; we may have used bleach when we wanted to get tough. Now, there is an antibacterial version of everything. Does it work?
According to an August WebMD news story and a study by the University of Michigan School of Public Health, plain soap and water is just as effective at killing germs that cause disease as the antibacterial cleansers.
The best defense is constant hand washing with soap and water.
Another preventative action is staying home when you are ill. This can be difficult with work and child care crunches, but schools and day cares in the area have pretty uniform policies about keeping children home if they seem or are ill. One sick child’s germs can spread throughout a school like
wildfire.
Germs are everywhere. A November 2007 article on WebMD highlighted the “germiest” places in America and some are in our own homes.
The first danger area is our own kitchen sink, due to the amount of food and hands that pass by it everyday. Here is a great place for that soap and water.
Some public spots that aren’t a surprise — an airplane bathroom, public drinking fountains, shopping cart handles, ATM buttons, playgrounds, office phones and those hotel room remotes (and I always thought it was the bed spread).
These items aren’t a surprise. After all, how often does someone take the time to clean those ATM buttons or wipe the shopping cart handle their child just sneezed on?
It is surprising that our own laundry area has an extremely high concentration of germs; one soiled undergarment can spread e-coli to a whole load. Not a good sign if you are in potty-training mode.
Suggestions to eliminate the risk include washing all laundry, especially whites, in water at least 150 degrees and drying for at least 45 minutes, even the delicates.
There are obvious ways to care for ourselves and our families without panicking when we have to use an ATM, including a good diet and plenty of rest. Hopefully we can encourage family members, co-workers and friends to care for themselves to prevent illness.
As for the boy who marked his place on the front steps, a five-hour nap and some clear liquids did the trick.
Who knows: It may not have been an illness caused by germs, but from my cooking.
Modjeski lives in Winona and her column appears in the Daily News every Monday.
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xfs-123 wrote on Feb 12, 2008 9:14 AM: