About teen moms who chose not to circ.

[Frootloop]

I posted this as a reply a couple days ago in the thread where the OP spoke of finding a website for teen moms.. and that there were many who have in fact chose not to circ. Which is BEYOND awesome, btw!!!

I wanted to make a new thread to repost my reply that I'd posted just because I feel that it's worth repeating since I'm afraid it will be overlooked. I might edit or add in a few things, too.

This might get kind of long. I apologize in advance!!

While many teen mothers do seem quite open to new ideas (as I was saying before, thread, this is awesome!), many are also still extremely impressionable.. (which I'm sure you already knew that haha).

I was a teen mom with my first baby.. granted, I was 18 yrs old, but still a teen.. and a rather immature one at that. While I did have an open mind when it comes to some things (such as attempting to BF against everyone's advice, therefore, with no support whatsoever), for the most part, me and thinking for myself just didn't go together very well. I mean, was a teen mom! I had never raised a child before.. hell, I was still a child, myself. I didn't know what the heck I was doing. I did ask a lot of questions, but I got A LOT of bad advice.. from everyone, including family AND his pediatrician.

If someone said to do something, I did it. If someone said to stop doing something, I stopped. Everyone else who had kids knew more than I did, right? I was just another dumb teenager who got knocked up.
*insert eye roll here*

Now, I know that most of you have probably already thought of all this (perhaps already discussed it, too), but I just felt the need to say it out loud (again) anyway..

I would say with almost complete certainty that most teen moms will meet even more opposing force than the average mother when it comes to circumcision. Unfortunately my son was circ'd (our circ story is in the circ regret thread above on page 19), so I do not have any first hand experience here, but.. In many situations, most teen moms are looked down upon and viewed as though they are completely brainless (been there, done that! It's only worse for those even younger than I was). Therefore, I think that teen moms who decide to do the right thing and not circ are really going to need a lot of support from the seasoned intactivists. Quite possibly much more so than your average new mother.

For the record, I am in no way whatsoever implying that all teen moms are ignorant (and I only mean this in the sense that they can be fairly unknowledgeable).. But, they need to be sure they know ALL of the reasons that circ is a bad idea - the loss of function, all of the risks, etc. They probably need to be even MORE vigilant than the average mom when it comes to her child's pediatrician, especially with all of their penis peeking that they tend to do. They need to be aware of the lies that doctors will continue to come up with and tell them for months to come in an effort to convince them to circ. I can only imagine that this is going to be worse for a teen mom.. especially one who may have low self-confidence and feels unsure of her decisions. I can easily see the circ-loving doctors play on this.

We all know the pressure than an *elder* can put on someone younger. I think we have all probably been there, done that in one way or another whether we've been on the giving or the receiving end.

I know that it's possibly a bad idea to overload these moms with TOO MUCH info too soon. It may become overwhelming and make a few of them shut down and think, "ok, maybe it's just not worth the hassle". There has to be some sort of balancing act here. Too much info vs enough to keep the mama open to discussing it and wanting to know more..

All of these thoughts really stem from my own experiences. I was that shy, insecure, quiet new mommy who had ZERO self-confidence (I still don't have much).. the one who really needed a lot of help from people with some GOOD advice. I never got it. Oh, how I wish I had..

I hope all of this made sense and I didn't lose anyone because I ramble too darn much

Am I making sense with how I'm thinking here, or am I simply just worrying too much (very big possibility)? Anyone have any ideas how to approach a vulnerable teen without scaring the heck out of her? Or should you simply wait for questions?

[JamieCatheryn]

I'm interested in the replies this gets, I'm planning to be a CBE and especially try to help and educate young moms. I was 18 when I got pregnant with DS but I was married already, casually trying, and not too impressionable. My choice was because DH is intact, I could find no real evidence in support of circ, and I'd seen my brother's wound as a newborn and felt sorry for him. I started out pregnancy in the mindset of ok I'm doing all this my way, nevermind what's typical.

[nikihodges]

well...i gave birth to my first child at 17 yo...i was single and living with my mom at the time...i took the circ question very seriously...i had been a youth volunteer at a hospital that had allowed us to "assist" in circs (hold a passy in the babys mouth, strap them to a circ baord) that was the huge deciding factor for me...i think that all people should watch a circ before signing a consent, as a nurse now i encourage parents to be to watch a video and i also encourage the dad to be there if they decide on the circ...i have been suprised at how many people just send the baby off to be cut on...so i encourage all women that are making the choice to watch the video...the other thing i did when i was pregnant with my first son was to ask all the boys in my highschool if they were circ'd or not and what did they think i should do and the op is correct..most had never really thought about it but i didn't find one that admitted to being intact, sadly enough all the friends i know have cut their son's penises so maybe im not getting the point across?

[Frootloop]

Hmmm

JamieCatheryn - I was kind of interested, too.. but 85 views and 2 replies I'm either not making a whole lot of sense to most and/or I really need to stop being so darn long-winded lol I'm glad you both understood what I was meaning.
It sounds to me like you really had your head on straighter than I did at 18! Can you tell me what a CBE is? I'm not familiar with that abbreviation.

nikihodges - It's horrible that you had to assist in circs, but it's also a good thing as well. That seems to be what opened the door to you doing more research.
If I may ask you, knowing where you were mentally at the age of 17, had you NOT assisted in circs prior to getting pregnant, do you think you would have researched it as much?
My fear is like you had said with your questioning of the boys.. most teens DON'T think about it, therefore I really do believe it's absolutely imperative that we reach that audience somehow. Since most teens are impressionable, it's the perfect time to educate them more, don't you think?


With either of you, since you were both teen moms, did you meet resistance with the medical field with any of your decisions? Were you at all treated as a "child", yourself? Or was this really just mine and others' experiences living in a small town?
Case in point.. on thing I wish I could go back and change. BF with my son. He was taken off the breast within a day of his birth because I developed an infection. He was off for a few days and it was pure hell trying to get him back to it. I'm sure that his circ had something to do with it as well. No one would help me! Everyone just kept telling me that it was too much of a hassle.. just keep going with the bottle. I pumped what I could for a couple weeks and gave up. I don't know why, but I know in my heart that I was just brushed off because of the fact that I was a teen mom.

I realize that my thoughts are all over the place : I am so sorry. I'm horrible at explaining what I mean.

ETA:
I guess I should clarify that I'm not really asking any majorly specific questions to the crowd. I reckon I'm just wondering if anyone understands and feels the same way that I do. And if so, how do you think we should go about educating the younger crowd without scaring them in the process, in turn making them think.. "screw it".

[savienu]

I may not be that far from the teen crowd- I'm only 23- so we'll she what that means coming from a young'in. I was the type of teen to research everything, and to be okay with going against the grain. I'm the only woman in my family to breastfeed in more than 60 years at this point. But circumcision was one issue I didn't really think about until I read posts about it on different message boards and went off and did my own research. I think the fact that teens are young and impressionable would make it easier to convince them, but you're right, it has to be in a non-confrontational way. Childbirth classes should help, as well as if they are planning on breastfeeding, bringing it up in that context.
I'm not sure if I have any new ideas, just wanted to say I understand where you are coming from with this. I do think the most change will occur if we reach them before they have kids, and even before they are pregnant and hearing EVERYONE'S opinions!

[natural_mama89]

I had my son when I was 16. I didn't meet any opposition about circ (I had a birth-center birth and I did have a doctor tell me I didn't care about my baby and a lot of other things for wanting an out of hospital birth). Medicaid in Washington doesn't pay for circ, though. Honestly, the main reason I did not have it done was because of the expense, and also I knew it was unnecessary at least. I am very glad I didn't do it after reading all I have read, though.

[grisandole]

I was a teen mom with ds1 who was circed Much like you described, I had it done because it was what you were *supposed* to do. I wanted to do everything right. I had my doubts, I was torn over it because I didn't want to cause him pain. I had one friend who had witnessed hospital circs and she told me that it was awful. Other than that, it was pressure to do it, and I wanted to do things "right". While pregnant, I followed the "What to Eat When You're Expecting" diet religiously, went to all OB appointments, etc. I wanted to prove myself. I couldn't, at the time, handle doing something different. I agonzied about it and totally regretted it and swore never to do that to another child, but I did do it...because I wanted to prove that I was a good mother. Sigh.

So, yes, teen girls need to know that it isn't a subversive, weird thing to do. And also, about the function and purpose of the foreskin. The only info I had at the time didn't list any benefits of the foreskin...had I known all about it's purposed I might have been swayed. Certainly, if I had the info that exists in the forum I would not have circed. But this was pre-internet, and I had the "What to Expect" book and "Parenting" mag as my guide. As non-circ becomes more mainstream that will help too...teens want to do the "in" thing (which played a part in my unfortunate decision).