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Originally Posted by Mom2six
I thought I remember reading Anne LaMott years ago, I think it was in this book, that her final deciding factor was a friend with a four year old who told her 'I can barely manage to get him to wash his hands properly, can you imagine if I had to teach him to wash his penis too?' I thought at the time what an incredibly ignorant reason to circ. your kid and it has stuck with me until today.
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It stuck with me too! I actually read Operating Instructions when my son was about 6 months old (he is 11 now)--and was horrified by all those jokes and dubious reasons she had for circ'ing her son. My son was born in 1994, and we made the choice to leave him intact. I remember trying to convince my friend to do the same, and then she read Lamott's book and decided to go ahead and circ her newborn because of what she read. It was not just the medical stuff Lamott put out there--it was like she made the whole washing issue sound so difficult and the "look" of the uncircumcised penis to be gross.
The thing is--she lives in the S.F. Bay area like I do--where leaving your son intact is not such an oddity--even in the year she had her son. I was very surprised by her attitude about the whole thing.
I do think she is a talented author--but it was so disheartening to read what she wrote about circs back then. Many of my friends who knew we did not circ our son and who were having babies at the time were reading the book too--and I remember feeling like they must have felt very vindicated in her opinions about the issue.
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