Why are we scared of dirty?

My kids are dirty. There. I said it.

My house is dirty, most of the time.

Why are we scared of dirty? Why do we work so hard at clean? I've been thinking a lot about a conversation I had recently with my closest friend (and one of the four followers of this blog), Karen. When we get to talking about ourselves and what we like about us and our friendship, and how cool we think we are (this happens more often  than it should) we like to label ourselves as "troopers." We aren't afraid to work hard. We aren't afraid to walk 30 some odd blocks through New York City with toddlers strapped to our backs, dragging suitcases. We don't shy away from climbing on ladders at 8 1/2 (me) and 4 1/2 (her) months pregnant because I decide to move to the apartment upstairs and paint 7 rooms a few weeks before Mae is born. We dig in the dirt. She makes her own yogurt. We run twenty miles in the rain.

And yet everywhere you look people are sterilizing their lives. Homes look like the pages of a CB2 catalog. We can't jump on the couch because it will get.....soiled.  We can't dirty our clothes because they will get...dirty. We can't live in our houses because they will get lived in. We work so hard at perfecting our appearances, at minimizing the chaos and disorder in our lives.  *Doctors and hospitals "sterilize" our birthing experiences. Pregnancy is treated like an illness that drags on for nine months only to end in a numb, medical procedure. No pain. No surprises. Little mess. Okay, this is getting preachy.

For as much as I like to embrace the tough, messier side of myself, I too am really guilty of controlling the experiences of my children. Every time I get called out on this I fight back, but the truth is that it is the truth. I let them run around barefoot, I let them tromp through sheep poop (not barefoot), I even let them eat food off the floor - and if that floor lives in my house, it is probably dirty. But I have been known to lose my cool because the crayons end up on the floor every day, and the tracing paper is scattered to the four corners of the universe. I've been known to stomp my feet because watercolor paints end up on my curtains. Why? Why do I care? Why can't I let go?

Kids are messy. Their language is messy. Their art is messy. Their growth is messy. It's chaos, really, and it needs to be embraced. Fighting the mess daily is like swimming against the current. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted. I need to let go. I need to let my kids get their hands dirtier. And if that means that everything they touch also gets dirty, then so be it.

Why are we so scared of dirty?

 *Being an inhabitant of the 21st century, I do acknowledge that the "sterilization" of the birthing process, in a certain medical sense, is necessary and recommended. But I'm not referring to germs in the paragraph above.