What is the source of such rejoicing?  A Reuters News Service report on July 17th, posted, according to my ever-accurate computer, at 2:10 p.m. EDT (that's 18:10 Greenwich Mean Time in case you are really interested) said that dirty children and houses are healthier in the long run.  (The actual words were slightly more formal as in, "exposure to bacteria is essential for development of an infant's immune system. . . a baby must be exposed to germs during its first year in order to develop antibodies needed to fight infection later in life.").

What a relief.  I can now let go of all the guilt that has plagued me for years about my admittedly very casual style of mothering.  I can look at my three handsome, healthy, fit and intelligent adult sons and say, "You are who you are because I told you to make pets of the cockroaches that invaded your rooms at night."

This Reuters report came at a very opportune time for me.  Rarely--perhaps once a year or so--I turn on the TV during the day.  Last week, having just finished a major writing project and in a state of post-partum depression, I hit that day.  The first thing I saw was a commercial for some sort of a fruit and vegetable wash that I was urged to run out and buy immediately so I could protect my family from the nasty bugs/germs/bacteria all over that fresh food. 

I sat in front of the TV and shuddered with horror over the amount of bacteria my poor sons--not to mention all their friends I had also fed--must have ingested over the years.  I can remember buying bushels of fresh fruit and vegetables at the farmer's market and having it disappear into their ever-hungry gullets before even getting home.  All unwashed, of course.  And certainly not sterilized as the commercial suggested any responsible and caring mother would do.

Memories of my basic incompetence as a housewife and mother filled my brain, causing my soul to writhe in agony.

There was the day I quit reading a well-known column of household hints.  Someone had written of a way to clean a jewelry box.  The solution: carefully fasten a piece of nylon net over the top of the box and then use the vacuum cleaner attachments to suck the last piece of dust out of the box.  Until that point, it had never, not in my wildest dreams, occurred to me that one's jewelry box needed cleaning.

And that got me thinking of the shock on the face of a new mother in the neighborhood when I told her how I got my then young sons ready for bed at night in the summer--I told them all to jump in the pool to wash the sweat off (a wading pool or hose works just as well), and hop into bed.  For some reason, that woman never let her children spend the night at my house.

The memories kept flooding in--the horror on my then mother-in-law's face when she saw me pick up bottles that had been dropped on the floor and stick them back in the screaming mouths of my infant sons--without a thorough scrubbing in soap and water.  The months my babies spent creeping and crawling all over the house and yard, picking up goodness knows what kinds of germs in the process. 

I was almost drowning in guilt.  My fruits were unwashed, my jewelry box undusted, my children unscrubbed.  All of my inadequacies were screaming at me from every side.  How could I bear it?  Could I possibly hold my head up in proper society again, knowing I have served bacteria-laden food to my loved ones?  Could anything save me from this horrible neglect? 

I could almost see the germs in my house rise up and point their fingers at me (do germs have fingers, I wondered), laughing at my utter incompetence as a homemaker.  I looked frantically for my checkbook.  I must go shopping.  I must buy these products.  I must redeem myself.

Then the Reuters report flashed on my computer screen--I was pronounced "not guilty" after all.  I breathed deeply and turned off the TV.   I rashly sliced a casually-rinsed, vine-ripened, succulently red tomato, and enjoyed my lunch, while reading an e-mail from my oldest son telling me of a bungee-jumping adventure he had just enjoyed in northern Italy.  A little dirt is a wonderful thing.