When my eldest daughter was being toilet trained, I religiously avoided public bathrooms. All the rituals were exhausting. Taking a hand towel to open the stall door, putting masses of toilet paper (before seat covers) on the toilet seat, repeatedly telling the toddler not to touch anything, taking more toilet paper to touch the handle to flush and to reopen the stall door, using toweling to push the soap dispenser and the faucet, and toweling hands, must have seemed overwhelming to her. She invariably would hold it in like a camel and just refuse to go in a public bathroom.
Her daughter, our only granddaughter, seems to be following the same path. It is amazing how long she can go without having to go. We all still try to avoid public bathrooms.
In the New York Times, December 4, 2014, is one of the most interesting articles that after reading several times, I still do not believe. In “Go Ahead, Use the Restroom,” Nicholas Bakalar tells us that researchers now report that public bathrooms are not any dirtier than the rest of our environment!
Mr. Bakalar writes:
“To reach this conclusion, scientists first decontaminated two men’s and two women’s restrooms, then let people come and go. They tracked the accumulation of bacteria and viruses on toilet seats, floors and soap dispensers, checking periodically to determine which germs were present and in what quantities.”
“They then closed the restrooms to see what happened. Over time, they reported in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, fecal species did not flourish in the dry, aerobic environment of a public restroom. After the rooms were closed for a few hours, fecal species represented at most 15 percent of the germs, suggesting they die relatively quickly.”
“Most of the microbes they found were either skin-associated (including Staphylococcus aureus, a common cause of skin infections) or microbes associated with soil and plants, probably tracked in. There were no differences by sex except that vaginal organisms were found on women’s toilet seats.”
“Whatever is on the surface of public restrooms comes from humans,” said the lead author, Sean M. Gibbons, a graduate student at the University of Chicago. “Most of the things on us and in us are not only benign, but necessary for our health. So these surfaces are occupied predominantly by our friends.”
This Grandma is not convinced. I will continue my public bathroom ritual and continue to teach it to our grandchildren. What I am now concerned about is the germ condition of our environment!
Joy,
Mema
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