COMMENTARY: It’s Time to Come Clean

c. 2000 Religion News Service (Dale Hanson Bourke is the mother of two children and the author of five books.) (UNDATED) In the midst of stories about Olympic dreams and dramas, political hopes and hoaxes, comes a dramatic story reported this week on the “CBS Evening News.” According to the report, 95 percent of people […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the mother of two children and the author of five books.)

(UNDATED) In the midst of stories about Olympic dreams and dramas, political hopes and hoaxes, comes a dramatic story reported this week on the “CBS Evening News.”


According to the report, 95 percent of people surveyed claimed to wash their hands after using the bathroom. But just a startling 67 percent actually do. This is the kind of story that sends inquiring minds to the network Web site for an in-depth report. I just had to know how they knew.

As it turns out, the study was conducted by the American Society for Microbiology, a group interested in disease and prevention. They conducted the study by hiding out in public bathroom stalls and spying on unsuspecting customers. Really.

Wouldn’t you know, New Yorkers turned out to be the worst offenders. (Of course, those who saw the snoopy researchers peeking out of the stalls and decked them before washing their hands tended to skew the study.)

Those gosh darn Midwesterners showed everyone up by doing the best. (Most of them washed their hands before decking the guy spying on them from the stall.)

Women were way ahead of men. (Remember that next time a man introduces himself to you and holds out his microbial hand.)

Strangely, the statistics reported on the air are not quite the same as those on the Web site. But given the methodology of study, the margin of error could be in the double digits. Imagine how many researchers claimed to hang out in smelly public restrooms for hours when they probably lasted only minutes.

Nevertheless, my intuitive reaction is that this study is probably about right. I’ve seen my share of women breeze from stall to exit without passing Go while I am soaping, sudsing and rinsing. And you’ve got to figure in peer pressure. A pretty high number of women are just splashers. You just know that when no one is looking they don’t even bother with soap.


I’m not sure what we can learn from these statistics other than the need to bring daytime gloves back into fashion, but I do know it supports what researchers have always known: Given the opportunity, people will usually claim they are doing better than they are.

Take religious research, for example. An astounding number of people claim to attend church regularly when asked. But count up the numbers in the pews and you’ll find a pew gap bigger than the potty hands gap.

We know there are prayer boasters among us. Look at the statistics showing the number of people who claim to pray each day. Disallowing those who count swearing in traffic, it’s still hard to imagine millions of daily heavenward dialogues.

Part of what’s going on is wishful thinking. We all mean to do the right thing. But sometimes it’s just too hard.

And then there’s the teeny little problem of denial. Most of us have honed this skill over a lifetime. That’s why studies show that people in their 60s pick out photos of people in their 40s when asked to identify people of about their age. Spend a little time in a retirement home and you’ll hear octogenarians complaining about all the “old people” in the place.

Psychologists tell us change can happen only when we are able to see ourselves clearly. An alcoholic claiming to just be a social drinker is not ready for AA. The sinner who thinks he’s a saint will never seek God.


It may have started out as a slightly amusing study about hand washing, but that report got me thinking. We live in a society where coming clean _ even with ourselves _ seems to be a dying discipline. The widening gap between who we are and who we claim to be may be threatening our public health as well as our souls.

DEA END BOURKE

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