I don't want to be that woman who gets bitchy at other parents over things I feel strongly about.
I don't want to be that mother who feels like she's entitled to things just because she squeezed out a baby.
But when a woman asks me a question - asks my opinion - about a fairly loaded topic, then gets offended at my reaction... I have no sympathy for her.
If you don't want to know, don't ask.
She asked if I would circumcise my child if I had a boy and why or why not? Before I answered, she told me that she and her husband had discussed it and had decided that it would be "best for (their) family". Firstly, how is the state of the kid's penis best for the whole family? Seriously.
I replied that I would absolutely not be circumcision my child - that I found the practice barbaric. I likened it to tail docking and ear cropping in dogs or declawing in cats (when it's done to make the penis look "like dad's", "like his classmate's" or "normal" - religious reasons are separate and I won't even touch them). Most Western countries have banned these practices because they've determined that cosmetic alteration of an animal is inhumane. So how do we live in a world where cosmetic alteration of your pets is inhumane - but chopping the foreskin off of a baby is totally acceptable?
I know that circumcision SLIGHTLY lowers the risk of a few conditions - penile cancer, UTIs and erases the risks of things like phimosis. ...call me crazy, but it isn't enough.
It's like Psam's doctor told her when she was pregnant with Burp. Relatively few men end up with penile cancer. Many, many, many more women end up with breast cancer, but we don't chop off their breasts (preemptively, of course).
I hear some women talking about circumcising their boys because it's "too much work" or "too hard" to keep an uncircumcised penis clean. And...I don't think rampant laziness is a good excuse either.
If people I know want to get their kids circumcised - fine. If they want to get their kids circumcised because they want to prevent conditions that probably won't happen - fine. If they want to get their kids circumcised because they're too lazy to keep their kid's penis clean - fine.
But people need to think before asking others "what do you think about this (controversial) topic?". And should expect and accept critical answers. Don't ask if you don't want to know.
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Good job telling your friend what you really thought. She asked. You've obviously done a lot more research on the subject than her.
ReplyDeleteI am so with you on the "best for our family" thing. The kid's penis has nothing to do with the family. It's his!
Remember the survey I did when I was pregnant? I went around to all the guys I knew (and some I didn't know) and asked how they felt about it. I asked if they would have preferred that the choice be theirs. The over-whelming response was that most of the men I asked was that they wish the choice had not been made for them. I thought hat alone was pretty compelling.
ReplyDeleteJust to set the record straight, there is a growing number of women who have masdectomies to prempt their risk of cancer. A cousin of mine is one such woman. Yes there is a cancer gene out there, yes you can have testing to find out if you carry such genes. But like circumscision it is personal choice.
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