The One Without Circumcision

It's been officially decided... we are saying no to circumcision. I was against it since I've gotten pregnant (funny how before I was pregnant, I just figured it was a normal thing to do) but my husband (oddly enough, *I* am the Jewish one, he is not Jewish!) thought we needed to do it. I didn't want to make an issue out of it, but more show him WHY I'd changed my mind so drastically and show him the facts. His reasons were completely silly (and he agreed) in that he felt our son should "match" him and that he thought it was just the normal thing to do.

Well, it might be the norm for some parts of our country, but all in all, cutting off a piece of my baby did NOT seem normal to me. I didn't want to push it so ever since we found out the baby is a boy we have just been doing research and talking about it very lightly. Monday night we had our last Bradley Method class and circumcision came up (again) because a couple in our class brought in their newborn son to meet us and share their story. Someone asked if they circumcised him (no) and then another man in the class spoke up and said, "well, you know...I'm from Europe". It was pretty comical, the way it came out, but we all knew exactly what that meant and it sparked an interesting conversation among us.

I think what bothers me about this whole issues are the many misconceptions about NOT circumcising from other people. Often, if you ask someone who is pro circumcision how you care for one that isn't (when they are babies) they have no freaking clue. What does THAT say? How can you say you've done your research and yet have no idea about the basics of caring for a penis!?

The worst is, and this happened to come up in a discussion on a baby board I visit yesterday, when people who are pro circ say things like uncircumcised penises are disgusting and gross and "funky down there". If that is the case, there is a hygiene issue, unrelated to whether a man is circumcised or not. If you want to circumcise, fine it's YOUR baby, but don't be ignorant and tell other people that their baby's NATURAL body parts are gross! How offensive can you be? Seriously? What other body parts can we chop off that are less than pleasing to the eye or happen to get dirty?

Not to mention immature. I'm not going to lie, penises aren't the most beautiful things in the world obviously, but any mother who thinks her newborn's penis is less nice (for lack of a better term here!) because it's not missing pieces of it, has some immaturity issues. I think our baby will be beautiful without having to cut off a part of his body thank you very much!

Another reason people give for being pro circ are the newer studies done about STDs. They were actually follow up studies done that show these original studies weren't exactly accurate because of the way they were done. Regardless, CONDOMS and safe sex prevent STDs the best. Not having your body intact or not. Plus, who wants a generation of boys going around thinking, "well, I am am circumcised so I am more protected, no worries". Um no, I'd like my son to take the same precautions and have the same hygiene EITHER WAY! So that is a non issue for me.

As for religious reasons, unless someone is incredibly religious, I'd be willing to bet money that, whatever your religion, you do not follow it word for word 100% of the time. When it comes to making a decision about altering our son's body, as a newborn, and doing a cosmetic surgery, I'm sorry, but that's one part of my Jewish religion I can choose not to follow.

Another thing I hate is hearing how mothers are letting the dads decide because he has a penis. Um, SO??? I don't care what body parts we have, my husband and I will make a decision we are both comfortable with when it comes to our son, especially when it's surgically removing a piece of his body! That is so ridiculous. I also find it interesting to see that the AAP doesn't recommend routine circumcision anymore anyway. Shit, if THEY don't even advocate for it, why the hell should we feel the need to do it.

Honestly, I am quite looking forward to bringing our son home and not worrying about infections in his newly cut penis and cleaning it special ways, diapering special ways, etc. It will be one less thing to worry about during that stressful period.

Saying all this, I still didn't want my husband to feel like it was my way or the highway because I believe parents need to make big decisions like this together. Monday night after we got home from class and went to bed I brought it up again. Just casually and asked if he'd thought anymore, in light of our recent discussions that night, about the issue. He had and...

No circumcising for us! :) It made me very happy, not just b/c he agrees with me now, but because he is agreeing with me for the right reasons and I don't feel I pushed him into agreeing with me.

Now, lets see what else we can go against the grain with to have people really look at us funny!

Oh, the cloth diaper issue came up against yesterday. I was leaving work (odd situation since my boss and I are contracted accountants that visit this client 2 full days a week, so we're kinda like co workers) and some co workers asked me where I was registered. I told them (myregistry.com) and of course got the whole annoyance issue from this one girl who is less than 5 years older than I am and has 2 elementary school aged kids. She was like "oh of course you'd have to be the person that doesn't just register at BRU". Yup, you're right! However, I told them that the beauty of myregistry.com is that I have many things on there, from all different stores - some you can only get online, but some you can look at the registry and then go to the store and buy it. Best of all worlds if you ask me!

I said the main reason we did it was to be able to put our cloth diapers on there. Oh my God, you would have thought I just said I did it so I could add a handgun to our registry. This woman, who has probably spent less time in college courses than I have researching and learning about cloth diapers, was astounded that I would do such a thing. "Oh, I give her a week", she smartly said to the other two ladies in the conversation with us. She kept going on and on about how disgusting it is and how she tried it for a week and couldn't stand swishing diapers (um if you did it for a week as a newborn, there is nothing to swish, not that you even swish anything anymore anyway!) and it was so gross.

She asked me why I wouldn't want a clean fresh diaper on the baby every time. Um why? Because that "clean diaper" is PLASTIC, toxic gels and chemicals. Why WOULD I want that on my baby? I'd much prefer my clean cloth diapers on him, thanks! I tried to keep my cool, mostly b/c I just wanted to laugh at how ignorant she was of the situation. I asked her what diapers she used that she didn't care for and she said "oh, I have no idea, whatever my mom picked up". So it was probably some cheap Gerber prefold that they sell as "cloth diapers" in the store, but are really not good for cloth diapering. Finally, one of the older ladies told her to stop acting that like and taking away my thunder. I also told her nice and calmly that everyone I know (both online and in real life) that uses cloth diapers and does it right, absolutely loves it. She didn't quite know what to say to that!

I just couldn't believe how rude she was about it. So patronizing and smart ass about the whole thing and she kept going. Do people not realize that attitudes like that make someone like me want to succeed even MORE with something like this? People are just odd.