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"Did you wash your hands?" That was my constant reminder to my children when they were growing up, especially after using the bathroom and before eating.

Ever since the Viennese physician Ignaz Philip Semmelweiss realized in 1847 that washing with clean water saved lives, especially women and children during childbirth, the world has known that "cleanliness is next to godliness." What's amazing is how many people don't get the message, even though it's been shouted from the rooftops for generations.

We are supposed to be an educated, modern nation. We have good sanitation systems everywhere. Yet many people have no knowledge that the simple act of washing their hands before leaving the bathroom can save them from illness.

It's always a horror to me when I'm in a public restroom to see how many parents let their children leave without washing up. It doesn't take that much energy or brains to tell your child to wash her hands after using the toilet.

Unfortunately, too many mothers are either ignorant or lazy or maybe just don't care about their children enough to teach them the simple law of cleanliness. Soap and water are cheap commodities that can keep your child from infections and keep others safe from infection by him.

Children who come home from school without having to wash up the minute they get home are bringing dangerous presents back to their families. Children come in contact with contagious diseases carried by their classmates. When they put their fingers in their mouths without first washing up, you've got a kid at home for a week with a flu infection.

It's a simple solution to a complex problem. So how come so many mothers forgo teaching this to their children?

•••

"Smoking doesn't just make you smell bad, it can kill you."

That was the song I sang from the time my children were toddlers.

Time and again over their growing-up years I emphasized how easy it was to start and how difficult it was to stop smoking. In between, they got graphic descriptions of the damage smoking does to the brain and the body.

You have to be brain-dead not to have gotten the message about the evils of smoking. The first report came out from the Surgeon General forty years ago. New reports come out yearly. The 2004 report from U S. Surgeon General Dr. Richard Carmona, states that:

"The toxins from cigarette smoke go everywhere the blood flows."

He goes on to say, "smoking kills an estimated 440,000 Americans each year. On average, men who smoke cut their lives short by 13.2 years, and female smokers lose 14.5 years. The economic toll exceeds $157 billion each year in the United States —$75 billion in direct medical costs and $82 billion in lost productivity.

Yesterday I was sitting at a public pool watching a lovely, slim, bikini-clad young girl smoking. She looked about sixteen. But I wasn't surprised to see her light up. That's because her mother, also in a bikini, but much rounder than her daughter, started smoking first.

Smoking wasn't keeping the mother from being plump, the excuse most used by women.

There's really no exoneration for mothers who indulge themselves and ignore the life threats to their daughters and sons. A mother is first in the line of defense in a child's life. When she neglects her duties, she's no better than the criminal who would harm her children.

Shame on all those mothers who care more about themselves than the children they bring into this dangerous and coarse world.

Women do have the power to give their children healthy habits by teaching them to wash their hands and by making a strong pitch against the dangers of smoking. It worked with my kids, and it can work with theirs. They only have to use it.