"We have found that most fully informed parents do not wish to amputate the prepuce organ from their newborn son." Dr. Momma
Fully informed doctors (who aren't in it for the profit of selling the foreskins) will also not do it. Most doctors are never taught the full function of the foreskin in medical school. Hell, most medical anatomy diagrams depict circumcised penises! Knowing this you can see why physicians subconsciously believe that circumcised penises are the norm.
I stupidly forced this atrocity onto my two oldest boys. I had NO CLUE what the function of this body part was. I have a dozen excuses but not one single one gives my boys back the full function of that body part. It makes me sick when I think about how the doctor came to my room after my oldest was mutilated (after the issues we have had to deal with as a result I will call it nothing but a mutilation). He had a giant smile on his face and was obviously proud of himself. I have grown to displace the hate for myself on that man because I can't live with the hate I had (have?) for myself and still function. Guilt does not make a good mama...
Several of my friends are having baby boys and I go to sleep hoping the best for their babies (after months of hoping they have girls). I don't say much on the subject because I am not close enough with them to keep our cordial friendship intact with my STRONG and overbearing views on the subject. But I am to a point in life that I would rather a mother and father hate ME for speaking up for their baby instead of me hating myself because I didn't. Courage and the resulting shunning is less painful than the guilt I would feel for not trying to prevent another boy from going through what mine did. I would rather a mother and father hate ME instead of themselves because I know how that regret and guilt feels. I don't have to live with them, I can escape it. But they have to live with themselves.
I have an extreme view (though not that uncommon) in that if you know the facts and still do it, you are no better than a person who would know a cigarette burns and still hold it to your child's skin.
No medical organization in the world recommends this procedure (the AAP is not a 'medical organization' they are a physician's advocacy group with a enormous lack of ethics, they are a group who is on the side of doctors making a profit, not their patients well being) yet doctors still recommend it and parents still consent to it.
HA! Consent...so easy to consent to something when it isn't your body. Easy when you convince yourself it is 'right'. I know. I gave my 'consent' to have another human's body altered for cosmetic reasons without their permission. How is that okay?
How relieved I was when my friend came to the same conclusion about 10 years ago, that if she ever had a boy she would not do it. I told her "I am so glad! Because if you did I don't think I could stay friends with you." because she knew what I knew. We learned about it at the same time (during my pregnancy with Conner), as did my sister, who then had the advantage of marrying an intact man and didn't have to fight, lucky!
I made the decision when I decided to become a midwife and doula that I could not serve anyone that chose to circumcise their baby. How can I bond with a family and child knowing what will happen to him? I refuse to be a bystander to such a thing.
Maybe I was lucky to have people to discuss this with and tell me I wasn't crazy for wanting to protect my baby who was floating around peacefully in my womb, entirely intact, from being born and strapped down, fresh and pink, maybe given a half-assed anesthetic (which none are even 'safe' for neonates, though most only get a pacifier dipped in sugar and Tylenol) and altered for life.
I am so thankful for my small circle that speaks up for babies. I am thankful that I woke up, albeit 2 sons too late. I am thankful that my husband is open minded and discussed this with me and realized that you can't put it back once it is gone.
I just can't fathom, even being a mother with two altered sons, how one can come to the conclusion, after having all the information, that it is a good idea . I did not have any of the information available at my finger tips so I can definitely claim ignorance. But I refuse to claim ignorance. I was only ignorant because I nonchalantly went through my pregnancies thinking someone else would take care of that stuff (doctors, nurses, etc.) and trusted they would do right by my child. The information was out there, it was every where! I just didn't look. And I failed my children because of it. I failed their future lovers because they will not have the chance at a 100% functional sex life. Yes their penises will still work (hopefully) but not the way they are supposed to.
I want my children to have the best life possible, and sex is generally a part of that life. I want them to enjoy every part of life, including the "s word". I know that makes some people uncomfortable to think of their children having sex, but they will. Why take their chances of having the best possible away?
Fully informed doctors (who aren't in it for the profit of selling the foreskins) will also not do it. Most doctors are never taught the full function of the foreskin in medical school. Hell, most medical anatomy diagrams depict circumcised penises! Knowing this you can see why physicians subconsciously believe that circumcised penises are the norm.
I stupidly forced this atrocity onto my two oldest boys. I had NO CLUE what the function of this body part was. I have a dozen excuses but not one single one gives my boys back the full function of that body part. It makes me sick when I think about how the doctor came to my room after my oldest was mutilated (after the issues we have had to deal with as a result I will call it nothing but a mutilation). He had a giant smile on his face and was obviously proud of himself. I have grown to displace the hate for myself on that man because I can't live with the hate I had (have?) for myself and still function. Guilt does not make a good mama...
Several of my friends are having baby boys and I go to sleep hoping the best for their babies (after months of hoping they have girls). I don't say much on the subject because I am not close enough with them to keep our cordial friendship intact with my STRONG and overbearing views on the subject. But I am to a point in life that I would rather a mother and father hate ME for speaking up for their baby instead of me hating myself because I didn't. Courage and the resulting shunning is less painful than the guilt I would feel for not trying to prevent another boy from going through what mine did. I would rather a mother and father hate ME instead of themselves because I know how that regret and guilt feels. I don't have to live with them, I can escape it. But they have to live with themselves.
I have an extreme view (though not that uncommon) in that if you know the facts and still do it, you are no better than a person who would know a cigarette burns and still hold it to your child's skin.
No medical organization in the world recommends this procedure (the AAP is not a 'medical organization' they are a physician's advocacy group with a enormous lack of ethics, they are a group who is on the side of doctors making a profit, not their patients well being) yet doctors still recommend it and parents still consent to it.
HA! Consent...so easy to consent to something when it isn't your body. Easy when you convince yourself it is 'right'. I know. I gave my 'consent' to have another human's body altered for cosmetic reasons without their permission. How is that okay?
How relieved I was when my friend came to the same conclusion about 10 years ago, that if she ever had a boy she would not do it. I told her "I am so glad! Because if you did I don't think I could stay friends with you." because she knew what I knew. We learned about it at the same time (during my pregnancy with Conner), as did my sister, who then had the advantage of marrying an intact man and didn't have to fight, lucky!
I made the decision when I decided to become a midwife and doula that I could not serve anyone that chose to circumcise their baby. How can I bond with a family and child knowing what will happen to him? I refuse to be a bystander to such a thing.
Maybe I was lucky to have people to discuss this with and tell me I wasn't crazy for wanting to protect my baby who was floating around peacefully in my womb, entirely intact, from being born and strapped down, fresh and pink, maybe given a half-assed anesthetic (which none are even 'safe' for neonates, though most only get a pacifier dipped in sugar and Tylenol) and altered for life.
I am so thankful for my small circle that speaks up for babies. I am thankful that I woke up, albeit 2 sons too late. I am thankful that my husband is open minded and discussed this with me and realized that you can't put it back once it is gone.
I just can't fathom, even being a mother with two altered sons, how one can come to the conclusion, after having all the information, that it is a good idea . I did not have any of the information available at my finger tips so I can definitely claim ignorance. But I refuse to claim ignorance. I was only ignorant because I nonchalantly went through my pregnancies thinking someone else would take care of that stuff (doctors, nurses, etc.) and trusted they would do right by my child. The information was out there, it was every where! I just didn't look. And I failed my children because of it. I failed their future lovers because they will not have the chance at a 100% functional sex life. Yes their penises will still work (hopefully) but not the way they are supposed to.
I want my children to have the best life possible, and sex is generally a part of that life. I want them to enjoy every part of life, including the "s word". I know that makes some people uncomfortable to think of their children having sex, but they will. Why take their chances of having the best possible away?
posted by Sam at
11:04 PM
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