Dirt is good
I see no point in introductions about me – Jadis. See my intro post from the last time I guest posted here.
As many of you know, I am a Mum. I have two children, a boy and a girl.
As part of my daily routine I get to talk to and observe other parents at the kindy and at school, and I also “talk” and read about other New Zealand parents (particularly mothers) online. Yes, this is all anecdotal and my days in research and policy tell me that anecdotal doesn’t equate to accuracy BUT…
When did parents start getting so worried about children getting dirty? When did parents become so detached from playing with their children? When did the focus of kindy and school functions become more about the parents than the children?
I am probably a weirdo. I actually enjoy getting stuck in with the children (not just my own) to make mud pies, to garden, to run barefoot across an open field, to make a scarecrow. And yes, I understand that I have the time to do that however many parents can make the time.
Dirt is good, especially for boys. Giving our boys space to build stuff, to experiment and to problem solve helps build their brains, gives them a sense of achievement and contributes to their personal growth to become productive members of our communities.
Dirt is good for girls too. By giving our girls the opportunity to get dirty, to build, to create we also ensure they will try new things. Girls need to explore how things work, where bugs live and make their own creations to become productive members of society as well.
“Dirt” doesn’t just mean soil and mud. I mean paint, paper, water, whatever. There are so many opportunities around a house and garden to discover and explore and learn.
Some middle class parents are so into having clean and tidy children inside clean and tidy houses, that it feels as though they’re losing the fun and excitement of being a child and of learning about the world. So many of us drive our children to school, pick them up, drive to an after-school activity, then home for dinner, bath and bed. We’ve lost the opportunities we had as children to go exploring for a few hours, often unsupervised. And, if we entertain the idea that our ten year old can go exploring with his friends unsupervised then other parents pass judgment.
Children need to play and create. By all means build in some clean up routine but give them the chance to have the space for creation, for entrepreneurship, for dirt. You don’t need a lot of time to do this stuff – a couple of hours in a weekend or after-school does work.
There’s also plenty of research to back up that Dirt really is good – ultra clean doesn’t mean ultra healthy.
And, never fear, my posts won’t all be about parenting.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Quite right Jadis. My eldest boy goes to a boarding school in the city, if he brings home townie mates they tend to spin out, plenty to do on the farm, they can also go hunting or fishing, we also do a lot of clay bird shooting, the kids love it as my son is always been asked if they can come out to stay in the weekends. It’s a great pity that many now get no opportunity to see life outside the city and are a lot poorer for it. Yes kids need to get dirty, you should see ours sometime, I have to put them under the pressure hose to get all the shit off but this is the way life is suppose to be.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Agree completely.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Agree Completely. Both my children are allowed to get themselves into all sorts of pickles, and frequently come home filthy.
If they are unable to discover and problem solve by themselves then they’ll turn into my mates kid, who’s mother will only let him play playstation. Hell, he’s not even allowed to play rugby because “he might get hurt”. I’ve watched this kid grow form a typical boy into an obnoxious, pretentious little shit who couldn’t problem solve his way out of a box.
His old man and I have both tried to exert a positive male influence, but unfortunately this kids male ego is so shattered that for the most part its a fruitless exercise.
My children in contrast, are both free thinking individuals that are quite capable of dealing with a vast range of emotion and complex challenges.
My parenting style is often at odds with the PC model that seems so prevalent today amongst the middles class. Yet when i compare my children to their peers, I often feel vindicated for my choices.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:40 am
Right on! You can add danger to that as well. When my boys were very little they used to haul their plastic trike with no pedals up the hill at the back of the house and tear down at break-neck speed straight toward the house. They only hit it once and learnt how to avoid it after that, we never stopped them but other parents panicked when they saw it.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:44 am
The problem is not new.
Built my (now 26YO) son a sandpit when he was a toddler.
Boy did the neighbourhood tell me off.
Dirty, cats will piss in it, will get sand everywhere, lose toys etc.
The boy lived through it.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:56 am
Dirt is expensive.
Still trying to get the paint out of Miss 5yo’s new JK jeans.
November 6th, 2009 at 11:59 am
RRM – my daughter is the same. I have now embraced it and recognise that all her clothes will have paint somewhere on them. It is part of her style.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
Easy answer, RRM don’t get sucked into designer clothes for 5yo’s. You are either a rich prick or xtra-soft.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
^^^ In our experience good brands are usually so much better in quality and more durable than the lesser brands, that the latter become a very very false economy. Under normal wear and tear anyway…
(It seems “fiscally responsible” to me, to try to teach Miss 5yo that nice new things are expensive and you don’t buy them every day, therfore you need to think about looking after them.)
November 6th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Sideshowbob,
Maybe you should start up a hardening up course for 5 – 15 year olds.
No playstation, cellphone, computer, TV, just a tent and a bottle of water for the weekend.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
Rules of play; get dirty, do stuff, stretch your boundaries.
Works for adults as well.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
It’s not just the no dirt that’s the problem now, we are also “encouraged” (for the good of the kids of course) to spray all sorts of disinfectant shit on everything to “kill all the bacteria”, as son as a kid gets a scratch the are supposed to get plastered with designer sticking plasters, and we are als supposed to have auto spray stuff killing bugs and “freshening” the air.
This is all commercial propaganda trying to guilt us into buying things that we are mostly better off without.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Viking – I totally agree. I also get strange looks and comments from other parents when I join in (like on bouncy castles and the like). I see no reason why us parents can’t have a good time too.
Pete – you are right, although a number of people are going back to the “old ways” – baking soda and white vinegar anyone?
November 6th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Oh great, another ‘MILFs I have known’ blog… just what we need.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I do not think that Jadis would be even a starter for the Pakuranga Housewife Award, the ones who allegedly use all these strange concoctions to keep air fresh, keep germs from hiding under the rim of toilet bowls, exterminate flies etc.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
All you acheive if you disinfect every square cm of the house and prevent the kids getting dirty is they don’t develop any resistance, then they pick up every infection going around school. Gotta let them HTFU.
November 6th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Good post Jadis
RRM – Trademe is your friend for cheap label kid’s clothes.
My son is a city boy at a boarding school full of country kids. We are moving to a small farm in December and he has already seen the benefits – mud, bikes, hunting, fishing.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
The way people use the term “PC” these days, it has lost all meaning. The phrase you are looking for is “risk averse”.
In days gone by, it was common for children to die young. People had big families to compensate. These days, people are too busy to have big families. They want only one or two children, and they aren’t prepared to tolerate any risk. The problem is that you can’t live life without any risk, and people are bad at evaluating risk. They see a story on the news about some kid who was abducted on their way to school and they think, OMG, it could happen to us! My child is never walking alone!
But what they neglect is that this story was on the news because it is a vanishingly rare occurrence. Whereas people get injured or killed in car crashes every day, so it doesn’t make the news … but cars are familiar, so they feel safer than they really are. The benefits of giving children some freedom out weigh the risks, but people can’t see the benefits (which are in the future, and hard to measure), they focus on the risks, and they overestimate the probability of something bad happening.
Bruce Schneier has written about this at length.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
What a lot of BS on this thread. The bacteria living on your carpet or down the back of the kitchen bench are not the same as the viruses the kids at school are sneezing all over each other. Not even close to the same. Food poisoning unlike this year’s cold will happily f*ck you over and over and over again – there is certainly no benefit to living with filth all around you.
Little miss picked up everything going for the first few months she was going to barnados care, then she was largely bug-free for over a year once she had caught everything those kids had. Then she started school, and has been catching everything THOSE kids have got for the last few months.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:11 pm
It happens to all kids RRM it’s how they build up resistance to infection. They generally bring it home to share it with all the family as well. Get used to it.
November 6th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
This article in the NYT was helpful http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/27/health/27brod.html?_r=1&em
And we were a little surprised by this excerpt – Dr. Weinstock goes even further. “Children should be allowed to go barefoot in the dirt, play in the dirt, and not have to wash their hands when they come in to eat,” he said
Anyway, baby has just woken from a nap so lunch break is over and it’s back to my primary purpose in life at the moment – placating the little tyrant!
November 6th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
Peter – you are right, I was taking the piss a little with my baking soda and vinegar comment.
Ernesto – I’m no MILF, nor am I a particularly good housewife but I do like being an active parent. I did say that my posts wouldn’t all be parenting focused however parenting is a big part of who I am and how I see the world at the moment.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Animals are good for kids as well. we have always had cats and rabbits and my kids hardly ever get sick. Kids have to learn consequences. I still remember telling my son not to clamber over a pile of timber I had ripped out of the house when rennovating. He didn’t listen, but sure wished he had when he stood on a nail that went through his shoe and almost all the way through his foot. Another five hour trip to A&E.
November 6th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
Mmmm … I do agree, Jadis. It’s really hard sometimes to let your little ones take risks, but one has to, to let them grow as people. There obviously is a need fro some risk mitigation – in other words, you don’t let your 6 yr old ride their first bike on the road to/from Devonport at 5 PM on a weeknight – the park is probably better for this. (For non-North Shorians, substitute any really busy, narrow road in your locality). I guess I used to fuss too much when my guys were younger, I was horrified when once i suggested my eldest and a couple of mates went exploring on their own and was met with “but what if somethings happens or bad people are there?”. Tried to start chilling out right from then. But, we started 4 W driving for fun and they made me pround when they were able to tell adults how far away from tow strops they should be, and why! And out in the mud of a great 4WD track sure is a great way to get dirty, come home tired and tell everyone what a great time they had. Got into because I wanted to ‘do’ something with the boys, not just watch them at sport etc. love camping with them too and at almost 19 and 17, they still enjoy holidays with their Mum!
Used to have wierd and wonderful contraptions which were ‘boats’ and BMX ramps all over the backyard – kind of miss that in a way, now – but I enjoy the real benefits of boys that can build carports, tile, paint etc.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Replace the Families Commission with Jadis
November 6th, 2009 at 5:30 pm
getstaffed – I am flattered though your sentiment is based on a fairly narrow range of who I am.
November 6th, 2009 at 5:43 pm
Hmmm not ‘narrow range’ , more like ‘appropriately focused’ or ‘obviously wise’
November 6th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
Repton, Bruce Schneier is indeed a great voice of reason and common sense.
I like his essays. His book “Beyond Fear” was a bit dry and repetitive for me. But I don’t hold that against him; I use his Password Safe program – excellent.
November 6th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_schools
http://www.waterproofworld.co.uk/forestschools.htm
http://www.forest-schools-east.org/fs.htm
November 7th, 2009 at 8:16 am
My wife and I both believe that a little dirt hurt nobody … it a matter of proportion. My son grew up as we built the new family home in the backyard of the old dump we lived in [ a spare time DIY job ]. Worst moment was when wife and I were on the roof placing sheets of ply in place and the little devil climbed the ladder and danced around with the fun of being on a large flat high place … about a 11ft drop from where he stood close to the edge …. we were petrified with fear for him. Earlier he had run along foundation walls which were quite wide to a toddler. He is now a professional and comes around to do jobs for Dad as relaxation.
November 7th, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Yes, dirt is good, in so far as having fun with or without dirt is good.
I have just built my 2 year old boy a sandpit. What matters is not the content of the sandpit, but rather the fact that he and I actually play together there (and when our 5 month old daughter grows a little, she can too). He actually helped build it. He had a little hammer and even helped daddy press down the trigger of the cordless drill (under v close supervision) – gosh he loved that, and it’s definitely HIS sandpit, since he helped daddy build it. Meanwhile daddy has the status of Bob the Builder – “Can daddy fix it? Yes he can!” It’s real quality time, and he runs to meet me after work, whether to play in sand with hoses (dirtier) or with the lego (cleaner).
But I am well aware of risk, and do my best to eliminate serious risks. The staff and Mitre 10 know me well now, as I have done endless DIY jobs to stop our boy falling off great heights or burning or poisoning himself. I know that cuts and bruises and yes, even fractures, are part of growing up. It doesn’t upset me when these occur – goodness knows I have enough scars myself.
But some risks are worth being averse to. What I take very seriously is the risks that can have fatal outcomes, big falls or drownings for example. I fence off drops and water, and there is no access from our house onto the driveway without 2 childproof doors in between. I ensure the boy is behind locked doors before I take the car out. The fire is behind a fixed metal guard. All chemicals are in high locked cupboards in rooms with childproof doors on.
Sure, some institutions are going to silly lengths to try and remove all risk, but that is not to say we should go back to leaving babies sleeping on parcel trays of cars (as I was left on long car journeys). Minimizing risk is a good thing, overall.