To not want to circumcise my son?

[SkiBunnnnny]

I have a 10 day old baby son. Being from the UK it would never normally cross my mind to have him circumcised. However, I am living in Canada where the practice is more common (but not as common as in the US) but on the decline.

DH wants to have him circumcised as he is half Jewish (so DS is 1/4 Jewish) but I feel like I don't want to put DS through an unnecessary medical procedure for purely cosmetic reasons. DH also thinks it is cleaner but I think this is irrelevant in the 21st century when we have indoor plumbing and can easily wash ourselves every day. I also feel that it is not our body to make a decision like that about, if he wants to get himself circumcised in the future he can but he can not get himself "de-circumcised" if he is unhappy about it in the future (DH doesn't believe that any circumcised men wish that they weren't).

My question is: AIBU to force my opinion or is DH opinion more valid since he is male?

Sigh

Female circumcision is a very different thing. For the last time NOTHING WAS CUT OFF

My ds couldn't have been part of the Jewish community because circumcision is a covenant with god and central to being a Jewish man. he would know this and know he wasn't circumcised.

Traditional Jewish circumcision (a bris) is a small cut to the frenulum, not the same as a medical circumcision.

Btw, to all those outraged mothers who saw their sons in pain when they had later circumcisions, that is EXACTLY why it is done early and for all your going on about it you actually have no idea whether it hurts a week old baby because you have never seen it. I think the parents who have seen it probably know better than you.

Yes, but is it not possible you might be a gun toting, son circumsising parent under diferent circumstanes and upbringing? Can you really make that claim?

I was travelling to the middle east when pregnant. The ground crew woman asked me if my unborn was a boy or girl. I didn't know and said so. She told me I must have the baby circumsised if it was a boy- she went on and on, holding up the queue and insisting I do this- please say you will etc etc. I said I didn't believe in it and she told me I woud be a bad mother as my son woud be unclean! And always smelling. Luckily dh came back and asked her to leave me alone. I was a nervous wreck on the plane and made dh promise if anything happened and I went into labour, on no account leave the baby if it was a boy.

Agree with all the posters saying dont, its not a normal procedure, cruel and unnesscesary. Let him decide, when he is of age. Tbh, it would be a deal breaker for me.

Bessie

Well it's personal choice isn't it...but it shouldn't be the parents personal choice.

Maybe I just see things differently as an atheist. To me,unless for medical purposes,it is wilful mutilation.

I just don't understand the logic, if god made men how did he make such a mistake and put an extra bit of skin on the penis. If it was a mistake really god should suck it up and except he screwed up and not insist his mistake is cut off.

What if female circumcision was just mutilating the clitorus and not actually cutting it off would that make it ok?

So are you saying, Bessie123, that if you look at the penis of a man who's been circumcised and one who hasn't, you can't tell the difference? I'm somewhat amazed by this but willing to learn.

begonia You can't claim I would either,that is a fatuous line of argument.

Why is circumcision always discussed as a Jewish practice? Circumcision is most prevalent in the Muslim world, parts of Southeast Asia, Africa, the United States, Israel, and South Korea. It's not just the Jews!!!

I share Prism amazement.

And Echo SinisterBuggys sentiment.

I think it's unesessary to operate on a small baby unless there are medical reasons as to why surgery is performed.
I believe a child is a child and should be left until grown-up to decide on what religion they would like to follow.
Religion should not be forced upon a child, let it be for them to make up their own minds.

If god made us a certain way, why mutilate a childs body which can never be reversed.

Alis - i'm not claming anything, on the contrary. Can you though honestly say in other circumstances you definitely wouldn't circumcise your son? The langage being used towards mothers on ths thread calling them disgsting child abusers is not on .

Maybe in the old days, where fresh water was scarce, and without modern bathroom facilities with running water and more soap choices than you can imagine (even soap free), and in moist and humid weather conditions, circumcision might have been an appropriate way of keeping healthy and clean.

But not now. Not in Europe, and not in North America, and not when you live in a day and age with access to proper bathroom and washing facilities.

Yes, but is it not possible you might be a gun toting, son circumsising parent under diferent circumstanes and upbringing? Can you really make that claim?

We are all effected by our upbringings, if I was born in greenland I might hunt whales, if I was a Roman mother I may have left my baby outside to see if he was hardy enough but I am not I was born in the UK and that does shape how I feel and my actions.

I live in a country where it is illegal to smack children, I was brought up with the occasional smack and it just seems normal for me but here people would class me as an abused child. Just because one person's normal is another person's "abuse" doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it, I think it gives both sides a different perspective which is always a good thing.

Begonia- I haven't called anyone a child abuser. Discussing whether I would or wouldn't in different circumstances is pointless because the answer will always obviously be: no I can't say for definite either way.

We can only really offer decent advice based on the circumstances we are actually in though,otherwise it all becomes a bit existential. So, I don't believe,in the circumstances I am in,that it is the right or best thing to do and would never do it (unless necessary). I'm not insisting everyone agrees with me though.

honeytea, you are talking about worldviews, and i wish more people understood about them.

Of course it's fine to talk about it but there is a difference between that and saying that a mother who has her ds circumcised is barbaric.

I agree that a child shouldn't be put through an unnecessary procedure and I also agree that religion shouldn't be forced on a child. I don't see the circumcision that way; I see it as necessary to give my child a choice and to enable him to grow up within a community and with the same cultural identity as his dsis.

Ffs, if the baby were in pain, it would be apparent. He would probably cry, for a start...

I don't know, if I lived in the US and circumcision was the norm and I genuinely believed it wouldn't harm my baby and was beneficial even though it hurt a little (like a vaccination) then I probably would have done it. I think most people would, most people vaccinate, don't they?

But then, I refused vitamin K for my baby at birth because I didn't want him to have an injection and gave it to him orally instead so I don't know plus I'm the kind of person who reads up obsessively over things so I probably would have come across some anti-circumcision arguments and been easily swayed against it because the "unnecessary pain" argument is the easiest one to sway me with, personally.

Honeytea - yes we should talk about it. But rationally and not hysterically. Calling mothers disgusting child abusers is horrible.

Pretty sure it's been stated before on this thread Bessie that sometimes if an infant is in extreme pain they go into a shock state which overwhelms the crying instinct and often makes them appear calm or even asleep.

There are videos you can watch online of circumcision being performed, I can't bear to watch them.

You're right of course bertie, you clearly know far more about my child than I do

I am watching rubbish saturday morning TV and there is a program on about a little boy born without ears. He had an operation to take part of his rib and make ears out of the rib. It was purely cosmetic the new ears would not help the child to hear.

It made me think about this discussion, if I had a child with no ears and I felt that a painful operation would make his life easier in the long run and help him to fit in with the society we live in would I do it? i think I probably would.

Maybe if those of us not brought up with circumcision asked ourselves would we pin back a child's ears? would we romove a birth mark would we consider and cosmetic surgery for a child so they blended in easier with our community.

I don't feel strongly that the parent's who choose to get their child circumcised are doing the wrong thing but I feel that it is wrong for a religion/culture/group to expect half of their members to alter their bodies.

Also the "overwhelmed = shutdown" response in babies happens in less severe situations as well, like when a baby is in a noisy/busy environment they often fall asleep, it's their brains trying to cope with being overloaded. It's also the reason why most people say their babies love being in those outward facing infant carriers, they go very still and quiet and seem calm, again because they're overwhelmed.

I'm not saying any of these things are inherently traumatising, I'm just using them to illustrate the point that babies often go into a calm, quiet or sleepy state in order to avoid a situation which is overwhelming to them.