Air freshener craziness
We used to go outside for fresh air. WTF’s going on?!
We have noticed a fast and frightening increase in the number of air freshener adverts recently. The increase seems to directly parallel that of disinfectant sprays: the huge and expanding choice of products that purport to kill germs and remove bacteria from our persons and our homes.
The Nurse has always had a fairly cavalier attitude to hygeine at home. She believes that her and her lovers’ immune systems are kept in tip top condition by their daily battle with the various perfectly normal, harmless, ordinary germs that hang around our homes, always have and always will. While she keeps things clean in the normal way, there isn’t a disinfectant or antibacterial agent to be found in the house. Nor will they ever darken her doors.
And what’s the result of this lifelong rebellion? Is The Nurse ill, fragile and susceptible? Is she bollocks. The Nurse is extremely robust. She has caught just one cold in the past six years and she got rid of that in a week. She has never had flu. Ever. She is never ill. She is horribly healthy and isn’t allergic to anything.
When the Nurse was at secondary school in the 1970s, there was one boy with (slight) hay fever in her entire year of 250 pupils. It was so unusual for someone to have an allergy that she still remembers his name over thirty years later: Ian Smith - Smiddy. Now, every second child seems to be allergy-riddled. (There was also only one fat child in the whole school but that’s a rant for another day.)
We used to go outside for fresh air. Now, according to the telly, we should all be buying special air fresheners that fill our homes with chemicals to make them smell ‘nice’ and sanitise them. It seems that the world is too dirty and frightening for people to get up close and intimate with. You certainly don’t want to breathe any of it in! We’re all terrified of catching ‘germs’ and horrified by the thought of common or garden bacteria.
But does this make us healthier and fitter? Apparently not. Just study the stats and you’ll see that this dysfunctional behaviour is making our children allergic, ill, feeble, weak and paranoid. The world is far, far safer for humans today than it has been in our entire history. But we’re more scared of it than ever before.
We recently saw a small boy screaming its head off on the beach at Rottingdean because it had seen a crab. His stupid mother was no better, encouraging his fear. And a few days ago next door’s kids were terrified and disgusted when they found a frog in their garden. For christ’s sake. How can we expect future generations to respect, care for and ultimately conserve the natural world when we’ve raised them to be scared shitless of the whole kaboodle.
It makes The Nurse so cross she could spit. Do you really think it is a good idea to spray your offspring and their environment with chemicals? Is it wise to keep them indoors to such an extent that they’re wary of the world? On York railway station yesterday I heard one particularly stupid woman boasting about how she never let her kids out of her sight. Poor little fuckers. They’re going to end up socially, emotionally and physically disabled. Ill. Unhealthy. Scared of strangers. Unable to handle even the slightest amount of pain or fear. No self reliance. Scared of adults, scared of insects, scared of falling over, scared of the world they’re supposed to live in, fully and wholeheartedly and with joy, for the rest of their lives.
Parents, is this really what you want for your childrens’ future?
This isn’t just a concern of The Nurse. An avid reader of New Scientist, several years ago she found an article in the magazine that backed up her strong feelings on the subject. Apparently without practice our immune systems never do reach their full potential.
Air fresheners, disinfectants and antibacterials represent just one facet of the insidious fear - of almost everything - that’s seeping through Western culture. It is desperately important that we think carefully before we let this go much further. Would you rather spend your days breathing a potentially lethal cocktail of chemicals, the long term effect of which nobody knows? Or would you rather just go outside and breathe some fresh air? Humans have done it for millennia. Give it a go. It won’t kill you. Or at the very least do your kids the favour of some good, clean dirt.
