To think many of these parents insisting on daily baths.....

[paddypants]

....might want to think about the amount of bleach they throw around their houses or the factory farm fed animal products they feed their kids.

Not saying that if you do one, you do the other but rather that people obsess about relatively (mostly) harmless dirt but yet can be indifferent to other 'pollutants' (for want of a better word) that are carelessly thrown at themselves and their families and are a lot more harmful than mud, sand or microscopic particles of dog poo left by some heinous person who didn't remove their shoes in the house!

....might want to think about the amount of bleach they throw around their houses or the factory farm fed animal products they feed their kids

what if they are eco vegans or wannabe

ridiculous conjection

If I don't clean my DC they get stinky and cheesy! I'd rather not, trust me..... even my 6 year old gets very whiffy

I agree paddy, people consume blindly and greedily- don't even get me started. I also agree about the disgusting factory farming

But its better to give my 6 year old a fast shower than to have to use baby wipes to clean him up, surely ?

don't assume that it means being a clean freak with a cabinet full of stinky and toxic cleaning products!

Fairly odd thread. I bath my children pretty much everyday (1 and 3) because they seem to like playing outside mostly in muddling the UK/eating sand/swimming (obs in chlorinated pools) and still manage to get food everywhere. They are boys and one is still in nappies and the other only just 3 so wiping skills are not great and sometimes they are a bit whiffy. I do not however use bleach and I am funny about the type of meat I buy, its source and how it is killed.
Labelling people with the same brush is not working in this instance!

Listen people, washing yourself is good. I don't condemn washing.

I don't think anyone washes in bleach (do people read posts or just pick out key words and work themselves into righteous indignation?)

My post was a reaction to the reactions of others on the children washing thread.

I just wish people would feel as strongly about their use of chemicals in their houses and on their bodies and in their consumption of food as they do about washing away germs and sweat.

If your post was a reaction to the reactions of others on the children washing thread, why not post it on there, @paddypants, instead of starting a Thread About A Thread (which tends to be frowned on, ime).

And yes, this thread is not a legal contract - but legal contracts are not the only form of communication that need to be comprehensible, and your writing style, especially in your opening post, was pretty incomprehensible, due to the style in which it was written.

If you post an OP that is so confusing, don't get arsey because people pick bits out of it to comment on!

Thanks for reminding me that I need to bleach the bathroom sink, op. Plughole bloody stinks, it does.

Honestly not being arsey at all. Was it because I forgot to add in many as seems to be so beloved here?

I put bleach in my bath twice a week to cure my eczema on dermatologist advice - just to go against the thread..

But we don't bleach the house to infinity the rest of the time.

I agree with you OP. It's such a shame people concentrate on surface dirt but not other more important, more dangerous things (like the chemicals on our food, chemicals in our home).

I know you're not being arsey.

I guess one of the reasons is that dirt is more visible, while we can't visibly see the negative impact environmental chemicals have on us. In depth studies highlight problems though.

Also I think environmental pollutants are so normal now and people don't question usage. We've succumbed to advertising and packaging maybe.

I wash my kids far more often than I clean my house so this is not true for me.

I think it is true that people tend to have irrational and contradictory attitudes to clenliness though. I read a fascinating book on the subject and one of the examples it gave was a craze for sterilising children's toys in the 1970's. Researchers found that a surprisingly high proportion of mums doing this were also emptying the nappy bin down the kitchen sink which is probably the most efficient way of contaminating food with fecal matter you could imagine!

Cleaning is one of those subjects where we're driven much more by emotion than practicality.

Actually I think with cleaning we are driven by advertising. Take antibacterial soaps for example. They are totally, totally useless and pointless in terms of doing anything at all to bacteria. Normal soap is just as effective. Antibacterial sprays as well - their usefulness in keeping bacteria at bay is extremely limited. In fact (disclaimer here- I am a microbiologist but I haven't researched this final point), I would say that both products are potentially dangerous because they can give an illusion of safety and cleanliness where none exists, if they are used instead of proper washing with soap and hot water for eg Salmonella.

The whole area of antibacterial products for domestic use is purely driven by manufacturers trying to sell stuff rather than any demonstrable usefulness, or in fact any actual need. We are persuaded that we need these products by advertising which creates an emotional anxiety over germs and safety. The problem with emotional anxiety is that it creates a non-rational state where simple practicality - if it is dirty then I will clean it - is exchanged for irrationality - if I spray everything with antibac then I will be safe.

What actual research does in fact demonstrate, is that too much cleanliness can be a trigger for all sorts of auto-immune problems in babies and small children (the 'Hygiene Hypothesis').

I am posting this because to be fair to the OP, there are two very different factors in the washing every day/non-washing every day argument, and she addressed one of them, which is the fear of dirt/ being dirty. I actually agree with her that I don't think that such fearfulness is healthy or a good place to be. However for me personally I wash because I love feeling fresh and clean, and I love the smell of clean skin. I don't shower because I fear or worry about dirt. For me it is a positive not a negative.