Yah! My point exactly. When I was growing up, my mom kept a reasonably clean house, but certainly not spic 'n' span. We were very healthy kids. OTOH, my best friend's mother kept their house so clean you could eat off the floor, they were forever bathing and washing everything. They were also always sickly and sick.

I have been telling people for years that we are over-sanitizing our world and making ourselves sicker. I, OTOH, keep a fairly clean house, but not overly so (a la my mom - and I avoid sanitizers, soap and water is enough for me), and I still don't get sick often. And now that I have cut grains out of my diet, I'm even healthier (there have also been reports that grains introduce the wrong bacteria into our systems too).

My kid is a dirty skip rat and so were his brothers and none of them have had a day's illness (appendicitis excepted but that was not due to infection that was another story). I keep a tidy house but I don't believe in sterilising everything. My babies stopped having bottles sterilised as soon as they started reaching for stuff, about 3 months. I kept them clean but not sterile as the health visitor would have wanted it and it's paid off, their immune systems are robust and they are healthy.