"Special" Soap

I know I'm probably wandering into curmudgeon territory with this post, but I'll take that risk. I was flipping through some coupon supplements today when I learned that there is actually such a thing as special hand soap for children, complete with a blinking lighted timer shaped like a hippo's head on the top, so that children learn to wash their hands until the timer stops blinking (about 20 seconds).

This must be a pretty new product, because I searched for a picture of it online (I'm embarrassed to admit I don't know how to scan the picture in the coupon flyer to post here), but I only found this one, which does not have the blinking hippo head.

Why should children have special "just-for-kids" foaming soap dispensers? All four of my kids learned to wash their hands with a bar of soap. If they didn't wash long enough, I sent them back to do the job again. Yes, they pulled all the tricks I pulled when I was a kid: using water only, or getting the towel damp so it would seem like they had washed their hands....you know the drill. Eventually, though, they learned to wash their hands in the proper way and at the proper time.

As if we weren't already overwhelmed with choices in today's stores, we now have many other products designed just for kids. Special toothpaste, special bandages, special yogurt, special frozen dinners.....the list goes on. Maybe this explains why so many young people grow up spoiled these days.....they've become accustomed to "special" everything.