Kiran’s Story

As a child, dirt was my enemy. How I developed this relationship with dirt, I’m not quite sure - Nature? Nurture? - who knows. What I do know is that I couldn’t stand being messy - to the point where it felt almost debilitating and limiting in its nature. I was lucky enough to have Alice in my life for many of my formative years - she made me step out of my comfort zone, whether I liked it or not, to help de-stigmatize dirt and grime in many ways. Was getting our pants dirty during a canal biking trip the end of the world? No! Was having to share utensils while having an impromptu picnic going to kill me? Definitely not. Was I uncomfortable in these situations - yes, most definitely - but were they things I needed to learn - most certainly! I remember the moment that Alice broke the ultimate news to me - I didn’t have to shower EVERY DAY. It shocked me but in many ways this revelation was liberating. 

When I entered the field of Early Childhood Special Education, I was hit with the reality of a classroom of small children: germ central. I had a stuffy nose, sore throat or upset tummy every few weeks because I was sneezed upon, spat upon, and thrown up on. It was a lot at times, but my passion for what I do helped me not to harp on the germ-factor. I had finally found what I wanted to do with my life and it was worth the constant influx of colds, stomach bugs, the works. I also realized that getting dirty was hard for a lot of my students - whether it was different textures that bothered them or just not enjoying the feeling of being messy - I found that I needed to help my students overcome some of their discomfort around messiness as well. It became a journey I traveled on with my students. 

Nothing makes you engage in self-reflection more than becoming a parent. I suddenly became aware that I was going to play a prominent role in the molding of another human being and boy was it terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. Alice came over when my daughter was a few days old. My daughter’s pacifier fell out, and Alice, with ease, picked it up, put it in her own mouth to clean it and then put it back in my daughter’s mouth. I distinctly remember thinking: this is actually good for my child, it builds up her immune system - another lesson I needed Alice to teach me. Did I still make people sanitize their hands before holding my baby? Yes. But did I fear her exposure to germs in general? Not so much! When my daughter was 6 months old, I took her outside to lay in the grass in our backyard. As you can expect, she was grabbing leaves and grass and putting it in her mouth. My first instinct was to grab what was in her hand and brush her mouth out. As I reached to do so, I took a step back and thought, what’s a little grass or dried leaves going to do? I don’t want my child to be scared of dirt in the same way that I was. Did her onesie have grass stains? You bet. But that’s what OxyClean is for. 

Alice’s amazing daughter came into the world just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic turned our world upside down. Because of this reality, a lot of my interactions with her early on had to be outside for everyone’s safety. I remember being at Green Spring Gardens and Alice laid her daughter down on the grass. The first thing she did was put wet leaves to her mouth and Alice didn’t flinch. Young Kiran would have been appalled but adult Kiran felt incredibly proud - proud of her friend for coming into her role as a mom (during one of the most difficult times to become a parent - during a pandemic). Her daughter was thriving and benefitting from Alice’s cool, calm, and collected attitude toward nature exposure. As I anticipate the arrival of my second child, I am taking the time to reflect upon all the things that parenthood has taught me so far. I am also reflecting on what my friends and their parenting styles have taught me - I look forward to my son laying in grass, putting dirt in his mouth as Alice’s daughter and my daughter play in our mud kitchen or trudge barefoot together through our vegetable garden to pick ripe cherry tomatoes - what a great way to spend time together. 

Alice’s Story

On the other hand, I never objected to a little well-placed grime. I grew up camping, horseback riding, and with a relaxed attitude to food that had fallen on the floor. One year I sent my grandmother photos of my hands with clean fingernails for her birthday, as she was constantly bemoaning their permanent rim of grime- I was mortified to see the photos (in two separate frames!) on her table of family photos during my next visit. Kiran would frequently admonish me to use more soap when washing my hands in junior high- and I was astonished that she had her own dustbuster (though it certainly came in handy when I was messily eating cheetohs in her room). For my part, I had an extremely obnoxious campaign to get her to share sodas with me- I felt strongly that she needed to lighten up, about germs, about dirt, and definitely about the existence of gnats.

In many ways, being comfortable being dirty defined the next decades of my life. I backpacked for a year before college (when hanging out after my return from a ninety-day camping trip, it was Kiran who told me I needed to get back in the habit of showering)- after college, I worked as a farmer and gained an appreciation for working landscapes, for fresh vegetables, and a deep-rooted connection to nature. As a Landscape Architect working in ecological restoration, maintenance, and nature play design, kicking around construction sites and sand boxes are the best parts of my job.

My daughter was born in February of 2020. When Kiran visited me in the hospital, she left her daughter at home, saying she would keep my baby safe from her daughter’s “toddler germs”- I scoffed, of course. Within a month we were all singing a different tune. Far from the shared-soda pushing of our youth, I was now facetiming Kiran to ask how to sanitize baby bottles, what alcohol content hand sanitizer should have, what was the best mop bucket, and had she ever gotten eczema from excess hand-washing? Of course, she had spent a lifetime preparing for these questions. 

My daughter’s early life was remarkably free of germs and grime of every kind. As we took the first tentative steps out of complete quarantine (walks outside, outdoor distanced meet-ups), it was Kiran who told me not to wipe her hands off too often when she started solids, so that she got used to the feeling of dirty hands, and who counseled me to greet her first cold, at eighteen months old, with relief rather than apprehension.

These days my fingernails are typically grime free, and I haven’t shared a soda with anyone in quite a while. While Kiran is as tidy as ever, she, her husband, and daughter share a large vegetable garden, where she has been known to pull out a carrot, wipe it on her pants, and eat it. I think we have both gotten better, with each other’s help, at differentiating things which are all too often lumped together in people’s minds: pathogens and good clean soil. We hope our children will have a healthy concern about germs- a concern that they balance with a healthy comfort with soil, dust, bugs, and mud- that they take common sense steps to keep themselves safe from illness, while not letting fear or discomfort hold them back from exploration of the outdoors, good health, and adventures. And, of course, I hope they grow up with good friends: friends they can teach, and from whom they can learn.