There’s a group in California that is trying to get circumcision of boys banned.  I cannot understand the routine circumcision of boys–with exception for religious rites, such as the Jewish tradition.

When I had my firstborn, my son, in the early eighties, I was with the new crowd of questioning why this procedure was being done?  I guess I was more of rebel that I had thought because I didn’t want to do it to him, and the family thought I was bonkers.  Something happened, however, when a nurse was cleaning my son and doctor had to perform an emergency procedure and cut into the foreskin after it failed to return to normal position (I’m trying very hard not to get too graphic here).    After about five days, I was questioning whether this was a good idea, and caved to family pressure to have him circumcised.  One of my many regrets…

Here’s a link to Parents mag that discusses the pros and cons of it.   I used to read this mag as a guide and you can tell by the wishy-washy article that it was difficult to justify not getting a circumcision.  One of the stupidest reasons is that “I don’t want him to look different than everyone else…”

I say leave the kid alone, and if there are repeated urinary tract infections or some other health issue, then by all means have it removed…but to do so because you *may* have issues without really testing the waters doesn’t make sense.   It’s like removing the tonsils because the kid may have repeated infections.

And if the kid decides later in life that he wishes to remove it then he has that option.

And I feel the same way about ear-piercing.  I see little baby girls with ears pierced and I cringe.  Let the child make up her own mind on whether she wants pierced ears or not.

Lastly, one has to wonder at what kind of psychological damage this does–a baby being hurt like that by adults has to have some sort of impact.  I know that they did not use anesthetic when my son was circumcised–I’ll always wonder what that did to him.  They actually tried to tell me that babies don’t feel pain.  What utter crap.