To expect our parents to BUTT OUT??!!

[LavenderStar]

DP is Jewish but I am not. It has never been a problem, he was brought up in the faith but it isn't a big part of his life now, although he doesn't eat pork or shellfish. His parents are more religious, don't mix meat and milk, go to synagogue etc. but don't have any problem with the way he chooses to live his life now or with me.

Anyway I am 25 weeks and if we have a boy we decided to have him circumcised. It was never a big discussion between us, I actually prefer it (I think it looks nicer and somehow it seems more hygenic) and DP I think wants to do it more as a traditional thing than anything else and obviously every other man in his family has had it done. I think his parents might go so far as to get upset if we didn't although I don't know. But frankly it is nothing to do with his parents.

Anyway so my mother phones up today even though she knows we are going on holiday tomorrow and have a million and one things to do at home and at work, and I told my dad I would speak to her when I got back. Obviously though what she wanted to do was more important and she told me that she was phoning as something had been "bothering" her. She thinks circumcision is "an unecessary procedure" (to put a baby/child under anesthetic) and potentially dangerous (eg they could cut too much off). I actually don't know much about it but we would have it done in a hospital and I am sure it would be fine in this day and age. I am not sure what it has got to do with her anyway.

My parents don't have a religion and have always been very supportive of whatever I have wanted to do in life. I am not sure if she has started interfering now because I am pregnant or because it is actually something we need to consider more thoroughly. What does everyone think?

Also now I just think it will cause a problem between the families whatever we decide to do and everyone has always got on really well. I don't know why parents think they have the right to shove their opinions down our throat, it makes me really angry. DP's mother is already slightly neurotic and we already have to "manage" her, so I could really do without this, I feel like telling them BOTH to f* off!!

Or is it just my hormones?

I think that a mother who puts her child through unecessary pain and alters his body for the rest of his life without even thinking twice about it as WW has freely admitted to doing to her son has abused her child. His body has been violated because WW did not stop to think about what she was allowing to be done to her son. That to me is a blind non intellectual following of a religious faith.

WW is now thinking about what she has done but it's too late now isn't it for her son?

"...but is about claiming the moral high ground in order to be dismissive and offensive."

Very easy to do this.

And it's not really effective in generating the change that is wanted.

"just impossible for reliigous people to think properly because we, er, all follow the crowd" your words not mine justabout

I have not read all of this as it is rather long however to quote you...

"I don't know why parents think they have the right to shove their opinions down our throat, it makes me really angry"

WHY OH WHY ARE YOU SHOVING YOURS AND DH'S OPINIONS ONTO YOUR UNBORN CHILD?

Lets face it you are considering doing something to your BABY, not a child not a teen but BABY who cannot say NO I DON'T WANT TO. So you are in fact acting like your mother before your child is born. Where is the difference?

You are going on the basis that dh's male family members have had no problems...have you inspected all of their penises then? I doubt it would be a conversation for sunday lunch "oh my parents had me circumsized as a baby and now my penis is less sensitive"

And "It looks nicer"???? ffs who is going to be looking at your babies penis to care if it frigging well looks "nice" or not?

You are not a Jew, your dh is not a practising jew, he abandoned the faith when he married outside the religion. And for the record I do know what I am talking about, my mum, nan, grt nan, gt gt nan and so on are jews. I on the other hand chose to be baptised as an anglican catholic. But i still wear my star of david in my ear.

Do NOT mutilate your baby so you can have a son with a nicer looking penis. Let HIM decide when he is older.

rant over

WW you could have effected the change that is needed by choosing to respect your son and not allowing him to be circumcised.

I think the point is not to raise the issue with, or seek to understand why, a tiny minority of people in the UK have their children circumcised.

The point is to raise awareness amongst everyone else that circumcision of newborns still happens in this country, and have the majority know exactly what that involves and how it is done, so that it is out in the open, and the non-circumcising majority campaign together to get it made illegal.

There needs to be TV campaigns that show the reality. Things can be changed.

Gosh I don't think there's any need for these kind of personal attacks. I think ww has been really brave actually admitting that she has had her son circumcised on this thread. And I actually think if you have grown up in an environment where that is what happens and that is how you are admitted into the Jewish faith as a boy then it is incredibly hard to turn away from that (or indeed Islamic only I don't know any Muslims very well so am a lot less sure of my ground).

I find a devout person having done it (not sure if you are very devout WW incidentally - but talking more generally) a lot less questionable than the OP who doesn't have any faith and neither does her DH particularly. That seems a bit odd to me. But if you truly believe that a brit milah is the way to be accepted into the faith for a boy, then I can understand you doing it.

justaboutjack, what would you say is more painful, a few home truths to WW on a website or her son at 8 days old enduring a circumcision?

But I do think WW abused her child on the occasion of his circumcision.

Justaboutback

I believe that parents in the UK who have illegally put their daughters through circumcision are usually still loving parents other than in this one off act. I still believe female circumcision is wrong and should be illegal.

A lot of the things said on MN would not be said in a private email, never mind in RL. People make points on a forum so that they are considered by, and possibly influence a wide audience. The feelings of the individual they are responding to are fairly irrelevant.

Yes, it is illegal, but people still do it, and I don't believe those parents are unloving.

I just couldn't think of a really good analogy to male circumcision, so I was using FC, even though it is different, to try and explain.

I haven't called circumcision child abuse, though I think in some circumstances it could be, I'm thinking of the video someone posted earlier which was horrific, now I could consider that child abuse, though mostly on the part of the dr who gave no anaesthesia.

Having been to a few bris I'm not at all comfortable with it, I don't like it and think it's wrong but I don't believe I'd define that as child abuse.

However in the scenario you described, I certainly would consider beating one's child to be abuse, regardless of the good intention of the parents.
Intention and being well meaning isn't the dividing line for me between what is child abuse and what is not.

Some actions clearly are child abuse, even if the parents believe it benefits theyir child. The road to hell is paved with good intentions as they say.

That was as clear as mud I realise.

I know the type of thing you are referring to, though I'd still consider it to be abuse, even if it is part of their culture. Culture doesn't and shouldn't excuse all.

And for me beating a child is one thing that's inherently wrong,regardless of who does it, why and how.

Circumcision isn't quite so clearly cut for me, no pun intended,btw.