My husband felt very strongly when our first son was born than he be circumcised. In the rare case that you don't know me, we're not Jewish. I agreed to go along with his decision as long as he was willing to take the baby to get the procedure done. I couldn't handle the idea of my brand new baby being strapped to a table and cut.
After the procedure was done I had the task of caring for the baby while his body healed. If you are not familiar this does require keeping the area covered with patroleum jelly and making sure the skin is pushed back daily.
Let me put a few things in context for you. I'm the oldest of 5 girls. The male anatomy is not something I am very familiar with. (I sound like a real prude don't I.) I didn't have the advantage of watching my mother go through a similar experience.
So, when my husband starts to worry that my son's circumcision is not healing correctly I start to feel a huge responsibility for preserving my son's future ability to fit in with his peers. But the doctor did not agree with my husband and we moved on and everything was fine.
When my second son was born I had a much stronger opinion about having this procedure done. I really didn't see the purpose and I knew it meant more work for me in those first few weeks. In fact, I have described it as unnecessary violence. However, because we made the decision to do it for my older son, it seemed wrong to make a different decision with the second one.
Now, my younger son really is having some issues with his circumcision. Basically, the skin is growing back in the places where it was removed. Good grief!
At the risk of being just a little too graphic - living with all these penises is starting to get to me.
9 comments:
I"m sorry to hear about these troubles you've had that resulted from circumcising your sons. Although what's done is done, I want to thank you for being able to speak honestly about some of the problems that come from circumcision.
Many times, it is indeed the father who wants the son circumcised because he is. This can make things very difficult for the mother whose instinct is not to do it. Sometimes the genders are reversed, but usually it's the father.
Here are some good links for parents-to-be regarding some of the feelings that the dad might have, re: "looking like dad". I hope these are helpful.
http://www.mothersagainstcirc.org/Like-Son.htm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fofyk2MK__M&feature=PlayList&p=CF3A13A9F11BBF57&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=4
Thanks, Caroline! I'll check it out.
I just happened upon your blog, and decided to post my view... which does fall closer to the "unnecessary violence" viewpoint you expressed.
Personally, my older brother was, and I was not. I don't know about my father. Personally, I am glad that I wasn't. I think maybe it takes owning a foreskin to fully comprehend why you wouldn't want it cut off.. but needless to say, its highly sensitive, functional genital tissue.
Perhaps if you have more boys, you will make a different choice, and let them keep the parts they were born with. When you bring home a boy without circumcising him, you just have to wash the penis like a finger.. no jelly or pushing back skin necessary. Its only when the skin becomes retractable as he gets older that you need to teach HIM to pull it back to clean, which is easy enough.
Good luck in the case of your younger son now. Hopefully everything will be figured out without anymore pain and suffering.
And circumcising is supposed to make it "maintenance free"! As for looking like his father....
Thank you for making it easier for other mothers to say no.
Thanks for your comments, guys! It's really interesting to hear your point of view. I guess this issue has a lot more passion behind it than I originally thought.
Hope you son's wound heals without any more trauma.
Through the websites
www.doctorsopposingcircumcision.org
or www.cirp.org you can find a 'foreskin friendly' MD in your area and consult with him, even by phone would be helpful.
If you also read on these links how valuable the foreskin is you will realize that every tiny bit of it is useful and he will have better sensation if only a little of it is left.
Until you have the advice of a 'foreskin friendly' MD, do not let anyone convince you to subject him to any more cutting. Every little bit of the foreskin is valuable. Your son will have better sensation if even a little of it is left.
Too bad your husband pressured for this. He'd have been better off restoring his own foreskin to look like them rather than cutting his sons to look like him, and so would they. see www.norm.org
Best regards,
Maurene White, R.N. Montreal Canada, mother of intact (uncircumcised) sons and grandsons, mainly because I saw babies being circumcised as a student nurse. Yours would be intact too if you had seen it before making any decisions.
One should understand by that the problems which you are experiencing are not caused by the penis or by the foreskin or by the doctor, but simply by your ill-advised decision to have an injurious non-therapeutic unnecessary amputative operation performed on your sons.
We teach are children all through life that everyone is different including their bodies such as hair, eyes noses, height and weight etc. So why must we circumcise a penis to make it conform to dad or brother?
HAHAHA! Thank God I only live with one penis that has already been taken care of in the circumcision department. On the other hand, Jae is losing his mind just thinking about living with estrogen overload. (He's so excited about the girls' teenage years...not.)
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