I got married right out of high school and pregnant with my first son shortly after. I honestly didn't put much thought into circumcisions at this time. I was only 19 and thought it was just what you were supposed to do. I didn't really even know what was done, although I was aware that whatever it was involved cutting something on their penis and knew that would hurt. I remember signing the consent form and telling the nurse, "Just don't tell me when they do it." Now, 14 years later, I think back on that with such emotion because I now know so much more about it and realize that was such a selfish thing to say. I wanted to spare myself the emotional pain of knowing about the physical pain I was putting my newborn baby boy through.
When I became pregnant with my second boy, almost 14 years later, something inside kept telling me to think twice about it and do research. I can't explain this other than it was just a constant nagging at me to look into it more. I began on a website for mothers that I was a member of. I knew that this topic was constantly being debated there. One of the other women I had seen on the site had mentioned more than once how opposed she was to circumcision. I contacted her to ask her opinion, and why she had chosen not to do it. She explained that her husband was not circumcised and that in the beginning she didn't have much of an opinion on it. However she started researching and realized how unnecessary it was and how cruel it was to cut off normal tissue on a newborn for which there was no medical reason for. She gave me links to different websites. At this time, I really started having second thoughts about having it done to my son, and decided to tell my husband how I felt. He flipped out. The exact words out of his mouth were, "No, we ARE having it done." Immediatly my "mommy defenses" came out. I asked him "Why? Why do we need to have it done?" Out spewed all the things that I had heard about it from those who support it. It's cleaner. They get infected if you don't. He'll get made fun of when he is older. I managed to get him to agree to research it with me and if we couldn't find valid reasons to have it done, that we wouldn't. Amazingly he agreed. I started searching for any information I could find. Websites. Articles, Expert opinions. The more I searched, the more I discovered that what many people have been told by well meaning friends and family members over the years has been disproven. The statistics on infections related to not being circumcised weren't near as high as people thought. I learned that many of the problems that have developed because a man wasn't circumcised were due to uneducated parents or doctors forcably retracting their foreskin, thinking they needed to clean out from under it, which in turn set them up for a lifetime of problems. The more research we did, the more uncertain we became about it. I realized that neither one of us really even knew what was done during a circumcision so we looked up medical pictures and videos of them being done. If the look on my face was anything like the look on my husbands face, it was a look of horror. Seeing the look of utter terror and torture on these innocent babies faces was all it took to decide it for us. There was no way we were going to do that to our baby when nothing we found could prove to us that he would have a higher chance of having some type of infection or any of the problems people kept telling us he would have. Seeing the statistics of how many little boys are NOT being circumcised nowdays simply proved to us that by the time he is of the age to be seen naked in a locker room. many of his peers won't be circumcised either.
Our decision turned out to be easy to make. Unfortunatly, convincing family and friends that it was the right thing, wasn't so easy. I told a few close friends and family and met with a lot of "What are you thinking?" type stares and of course got told all the old information, information that I'd already disproved. The biggest hurdle came at my baby shower. My best friend picked the worst time to bring up the subject, while I was opening gifts. It was like a wave came over the group of women at my shower. It was a wave of shock which quickly turned into a "Are you crazy?!?" wave. I felt attacked. Like I was doing something wrong. My mother-n-law was probably the one who was most passionate against our decision. She was obviously not happy. I grew from being hurt by the attacks into being angry that people would treat me like I wasn't thinking of my babies best interests. I recall my mother-n-law making the statement, "ALL of my grandsons are circumcised!" I was so angry at this point that I couldn't help snapping back, "Well I guess now you'll have one who isn't." I found out later that when my husband was loading our gifts into the car, his mother confronted him and tried to demand that he circumcise the baby. I was so angry about this, that it actually caused some very bitter feelings towards my mother-n-law. A betrayal so to speak. It was made worse when my son was born, and she again brought it up to my husband that we needed to have it done. I consider myself a very loving and nurturing mother, and to have someone as close as my son's own grandmother think that we were doing something wrong to him, was so hurtful. But we stuck by our decision and have never regretted it.
I've been told by a few people that I've gotten OCD with my support of anti-circumcism groups. I've had people tell me that my son will hate me for not having it done when he was a baby. Been told that uncircumcised men are "nasty". This is so sad to me, because my baby is not weird, not dirty, nor will he ever be nasty. I think he was perfect just the way he was born, just as every little boy is. I have never backed a cause before as passionatly as I back this one. I know that just because a boy isn't circumcised, it doesn't mean that he will develop problems with it. As long as their parents are educated in what to do and what not to do, they can be taught how to properly clean themselves. Even though I don't want to think of my baby boy ever having a sexual relation, I know that by not having his foreskin removed, he will have a chance to have a more fullfilling sex life once he meets that lucky lady. The fact that he doesn't look like his brother or father down there means nothing to me. I doubt most daughters look like their mothers in that area either. Who says we are supposed to? God gave men that skin for a reason, and who are we to take the choice into our own hands and decide that their is something wrong with it? Or to take that beautiful newborn baby boy we have looked forward to for 9 months, and have them tied down and a sharp surgical blade slice off a piece of them, just because we decided it is better without it? We as parents are there to protect our babies, and sometimes that means protecting them from ourselves and well meaning family and friends.
Cyndi Lauterbach
Proud mother of a beautiful intact baby boy!
When I became pregnant with my second boy, almost 14 years later, something inside kept telling me to think twice about it and do research. I can't explain this other than it was just a constant nagging at me to look into it more. I began on a website for mothers that I was a member of. I knew that this topic was constantly being debated there. One of the other women I had seen on the site had mentioned more than once how opposed she was to circumcision. I contacted her to ask her opinion, and why she had chosen not to do it. She explained that her husband was not circumcised and that in the beginning she didn't have much of an opinion on it. However she started researching and realized how unnecessary it was and how cruel it was to cut off normal tissue on a newborn for which there was no medical reason for. She gave me links to different websites. At this time, I really started having second thoughts about having it done to my son, and decided to tell my husband how I felt. He flipped out. The exact words out of his mouth were, "No, we ARE having it done." Immediatly my "mommy defenses" came out. I asked him "Why? Why do we need to have it done?" Out spewed all the things that I had heard about it from those who support it. It's cleaner. They get infected if you don't. He'll get made fun of when he is older. I managed to get him to agree to research it with me and if we couldn't find valid reasons to have it done, that we wouldn't. Amazingly he agreed. I started searching for any information I could find. Websites. Articles, Expert opinions. The more I searched, the more I discovered that what many people have been told by well meaning friends and family members over the years has been disproven. The statistics on infections related to not being circumcised weren't near as high as people thought. I learned that many of the problems that have developed because a man wasn't circumcised were due to uneducated parents or doctors forcably retracting their foreskin, thinking they needed to clean out from under it, which in turn set them up for a lifetime of problems. The more research we did, the more uncertain we became about it. I realized that neither one of us really even knew what was done during a circumcision so we looked up medical pictures and videos of them being done. If the look on my face was anything like the look on my husbands face, it was a look of horror. Seeing the look of utter terror and torture on these innocent babies faces was all it took to decide it for us. There was no way we were going to do that to our baby when nothing we found could prove to us that he would have a higher chance of having some type of infection or any of the problems people kept telling us he would have. Seeing the statistics of how many little boys are NOT being circumcised nowdays simply proved to us that by the time he is of the age to be seen naked in a locker room. many of his peers won't be circumcised either.
Our decision turned out to be easy to make. Unfortunatly, convincing family and friends that it was the right thing, wasn't so easy. I told a few close friends and family and met with a lot of "What are you thinking?" type stares and of course got told all the old information, information that I'd already disproved. The biggest hurdle came at my baby shower. My best friend picked the worst time to bring up the subject, while I was opening gifts. It was like a wave came over the group of women at my shower. It was a wave of shock which quickly turned into a "Are you crazy?!?" wave. I felt attacked. Like I was doing something wrong. My mother-n-law was probably the one who was most passionate against our decision. She was obviously not happy. I grew from being hurt by the attacks into being angry that people would treat me like I wasn't thinking of my babies best interests. I recall my mother-n-law making the statement, "ALL of my grandsons are circumcised!" I was so angry at this point that I couldn't help snapping back, "Well I guess now you'll have one who isn't." I found out later that when my husband was loading our gifts into the car, his mother confronted him and tried to demand that he circumcise the baby. I was so angry about this, that it actually caused some very bitter feelings towards my mother-n-law. A betrayal so to speak. It was made worse when my son was born, and she again brought it up to my husband that we needed to have it done. I consider myself a very loving and nurturing mother, and to have someone as close as my son's own grandmother think that we were doing something wrong to him, was so hurtful. But we stuck by our decision and have never regretted it.
I've been told by a few people that I've gotten OCD with my support of anti-circumcism groups. I've had people tell me that my son will hate me for not having it done when he was a baby. Been told that uncircumcised men are "nasty". This is so sad to me, because my baby is not weird, not dirty, nor will he ever be nasty. I think he was perfect just the way he was born, just as every little boy is. I have never backed a cause before as passionatly as I back this one. I know that just because a boy isn't circumcised, it doesn't mean that he will develop problems with it. As long as their parents are educated in what to do and what not to do, they can be taught how to properly clean themselves. Even though I don't want to think of my baby boy ever having a sexual relation, I know that by not having his foreskin removed, he will have a chance to have a more fullfilling sex life once he meets that lucky lady. The fact that he doesn't look like his brother or father down there means nothing to me. I doubt most daughters look like their mothers in that area either. Who says we are supposed to? God gave men that skin for a reason, and who are we to take the choice into our own hands and decide that their is something wrong with it? Or to take that beautiful newborn baby boy we have looked forward to for 9 months, and have them tied down and a sharp surgical blade slice off a piece of them, just because we decided it is better without it? We as parents are there to protect our babies, and sometimes that means protecting them from ourselves and well meaning family and friends.
Cyndi Lauterbach
Proud mother of a beautiful intact baby boy!
