I am having a little boy in September. DH and I are both very much anti-circ, and the more I read about the topic the more angry I get that it is still routinely practiced here in the U.S.
The topic of circumcision recently came up in a conversation with my mom who is a Registered Nurse (R.N.) with over 30 years of nursing experience. Anytime I tried to explain our position to her, she continually interrupted me and insisted that an uncircumcised penis would get infected later in life. She said she saw it a lot when practicing nursing. Anytime I tried to explain to her the research done on the intact penis and how forced retraction led to infections, she would insist that proper hygiene and cleaning prevented infections (true in one sense, but I think she meant retracting in order to clean under the foreskin). Basically she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say.
It is normal for us to disagree on parenting issues. She thinks my cloth diapers are gross and constantly asks me when I'm going to ween DD (18 mo.) even though I continue to tell her that I want to practice child-led weening. She encourages everyone she knows with babies to let them cry-it-out, and she thinks I'm a negligent parent because DH and I co-slept with our first child. I can agree to disagree on these issues and have never pressed them very hard with her, but it really bothers me that she won't hear my reasons for keeping our son intact.
Should I just give up on this since she thinks she knows it all already? My concern is that she may try to retract my son's foreskin during a diaper change or bath. Has anyone else had experience trying to convince a family member who just wouldn't listen at all? How did you handle this?
*Side note: If my mom continues to not listen on this issue, I am not leaving my son alone with her. I simply cannot risk my son's health in the hands of an uninformed medical practitioner, even if that person happens to be his grandmother.
--Kacy
The topic of circumcision recently came up in a conversation with my mom who is a Registered Nurse (R.N.) with over 30 years of nursing experience. Anytime I tried to explain our position to her, she continually interrupted me and insisted that an uncircumcised penis would get infected later in life. She said she saw it a lot when practicing nursing. Anytime I tried to explain to her the research done on the intact penis and how forced retraction led to infections, she would insist that proper hygiene and cleaning prevented infections (true in one sense, but I think she meant retracting in order to clean under the foreskin). Basically she wouldn't listen to anything I had to say.
It is normal for us to disagree on parenting issues. She thinks my cloth diapers are gross and constantly asks me when I'm going to ween DD (18 mo.) even though I continue to tell her that I want to practice child-led weening. She encourages everyone she knows with babies to let them cry-it-out, and she thinks I'm a negligent parent because DH and I co-slept with our first child. I can agree to disagree on these issues and have never pressed them very hard with her, but it really bothers me that she won't hear my reasons for keeping our son intact.
Should I just give up on this since she thinks she knows it all already? My concern is that she may try to retract my son's foreskin during a diaper change or bath. Has anyone else had experience trying to convince a family member who just wouldn't listen at all? How did you handle this?
*Side note: If my mom continues to not listen on this issue, I am not leaving my son alone with her. I simply cannot risk my son's health in the hands of an uninformed medical practitioner, even if that person happens to be his grandmother.
--Kacy
