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Circumcision and the family

18K views 39 replies 25 participants last post by  Minky 
#1 ·
Sorry this is going to be long. Bear with me?

DH's younger sister, who has just turned 17, is living with us during her pregnancy. My in laws are having some problems of their own and couldn't keep Abby (that's not her real name but we'll use it here) out of trouble. She has really shaped up here, is studying, is passing everything she's taking at school (she's on half days) and is planning on staying here to finish school and I will babysit during the day.

Gradualy I have approached her with topics i feel will help her with raising a healthy, happy child. She is going to breastfeed (YES!) and we have already got her a sling.

She also had decided not to find out the gender but changed her mind this week. That's were this trouble started.

It's a boy.

I gently (what I thought was gently) askd her if she hadgiven any thought to circumcision. She knows we're having a boy but the circ issue never came up. DH and I had our discussions BEFORE Abby came to live with us. So I asked her, and she said "Yes, I know boys have to have that done."

I of course shifted into intactivist mode, explained that boys don't have to have it done, and of course that we aren't doing it to our little boy.

After all that, she said, "It's my child and my decision and I'm doing it."


I stayed polite and asked her why, despite all the health risks, and the fact that it isn't her penis.

She said, "Aunty Minky, have you ever SEEN an uncircumcised guy?"

I didn't realy want to answer so I turned it back and said, "Have you?"

Aparently she has NOT seen an intact male. But she has heard about it on TV. We really don't watch TV much at our house, well she does, but we don't join her, but she was able to name 3 shows, Sex In The City, Dr. House, and Nip and Tuck, where there was an intact guy and nobody wanted to sleep with him because his penis was so ugly. She even went as far as to say "In two of those show's, the boy got so depressed he cut it off himself. I won't do that to my son."

I don't know how to fight this one. I don't know what to say or what to do. I have a hard time saying it's not ugly because truth being told I do find circumcised adults more attractive but that is bcause of my abuse issues which I also don't want to discuss with her.


I don't know if I wait a few more weeks. The due date is at the beginning of April and she will be having a hospital birth due to her parent's insurance. (My little one isn't due until the end of June.)

What do I do, what would you do? I don't like the video's but should I use them? Should I recomend she look at a picture of an intact baby? Actualy seeing that intact baby cartoon that has been posted was one of the things that made me sure I would be okay with my future intact baby!

I'm just so scared that she is going to mutelate her son for this very very stupid reason of looks. She seemed to agree on all the medical reasoning but it didn't convince her. She also agreed that it should be his choice, just that she knows what he'd choose, and he'd choose to be circumcised.

Help?!!!
 
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#27 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Quirky
Minky, is the babydaddy in the picture at all? Will he need to be educated as well? Will your SIL be influenced by his circ status even if he's not in the picture - i.e. "circ the baby to look like daddy" even if she's not with him?

Just something to plan for - I have read stories of young single mamas who decided to circ or were pressured to circ by the babydaddies even though they weren't still together.
The babydaddy is one of three different guys, one of whom won't admit to sleeping with her for legality reasons. We have invited the other two up to visit and take part in the pregnancy, but they both said no. I highly doubt that either of them will show up for the birth but if they show any interest I will have to educate them as well.
 
#30 ·
With the home birth thing...do you mean that a midwife would not be covered through insurance? If thats the case what would the cost be and is there a way it could be worked out?

The reason I ask is I think that a homebirth might allow her time to fall in love with her baby so that protective instinct might kick in. Its a lot more work to haul him into the hospital and it may make her think about it more. Plus the whole hospital environment is pretty horrible when it comes to giving birth anyway. Maybe a birth centre would be a compromise that would work?

If she has to go to a hospital see if you can find one in your area that doesn't do circ. The farther you can remove her and the baby from the possibility the better.

With any luck by the time baby is here she will have seen the light anyway.

Casey
 
#31 ·
Excellent news! Penn and Teller made her think! And she told me she is leaning toward leaving the baby intact. I guess all the functions of the foreskin set in as she was watching better than they did when it was just me telling her. I have never been more thankful for TV.
 
#33 ·
I am going to help her draw up a birth plan to use in the hospital that involves leaving the baby intact. I am sure she will need signs and tags for the diapers and everything else.


I don't think homebirth is an option. I get the feeling that if we try to usurp this girl's parents' authority, it is going to harm family relations. She was interested in homebirth and investigated it, but seems to be fine with hospital birth as well. If she was really begging me to help her birth at home I would help her out financially but I think nobody wants to cause trouble with her parents.
 
#35 ·
Hopefully P&T did the trick.
You can let her know there are other young moms who don't cut - I'm one of them, I'm a teen mom (gasp) and know other teen moms who left their sons intact. Actually I know more teen moms with intact babies then I do teen moms who cut.
 
#36 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by Fi.
Hopefully P&T did the trick.
You can let her know there are other young moms who don't cut - I'm one of them, I'm a teen mom (gasp) and know other teen moms who left their sons intact. Actually I know more teen moms with intact babies then I do teen moms who cut.
I suspect that this is now the thing to do, women of your generation have far more access to new information than even women 10 years older than yourself. Anyone without pre-conceived ideas about circ'ing that do a little research are much less likely to cut than the older generation, most of whom simply didn't know any better and many of whom now feel that they have to justify their earlier decisions by supporting it.

Younger people are much more accepting of change, circumcision is an outdated relic of a procedure, that should be consigned to the 20th century as an aberration of history. One day people will look back and shake their heads when they hear what circ was supposed to cure - like we do when we hear that it was supposed to prevent/cure epilepsy, paralysis and blindness.
 
#37 ·
However, that being said:

If I had not been to the UK and slept with an intact man (and stayed friends with him because he's the one who made me decide not to with my son and he made me stand up to my partner) I would have absolutely 100% done it. I wouldn't have considered not doing it - I didn't even know there were people who DIDN'T do it. I had never seen one. Once the unknown was taken out of the foreskin it was less scary and I liked it.

It wasn't until after my son was born that I really UNDERSTOOD why circumcision was so bad.
 
#38 ·
I'm so glad to hear you are drawing up a birth plan with her. Hopefully that will make her feel empowered by her decision and more likely to stick with it.

Just another thought...are her parents on board with this decision or are they unaware of it? I'd just be on alert on the chance that they think its a bad idea and try to change her mind back since she doesn't seem too set on it at this point.

Also, since hse has decided to leaver her son whole make sure she starts educating herself about care and how to protect her son from uneducated medical professionals.

Casey
 
#39 ·
Can't she get a court order to get these 3 boys tested for paternity/child support?

I mean, on the one hand, if she doesn't know who it is, she gets control of the baby...but on the other hand, raising a baby by yourself is hard financially. Plus, she should get his medical history, etc. for her baby.
 
#40 ·
She made the decision to leave the testing until after the birth because there is risk to the baby if it's done before. Two of the three said they would test voluntarily and the third, as I said before, won't admit that he might be the dad. I don't know if you need the court order before the birth or if you can do it after. We will look into it. I think her idea about it has been to test the two who are willing to be tested--and then if it's not them, pursue the third guy.

We may need to talk to her parents. As far as I know, circ has never been brought up by or with them. DH's parents don't even know that we're not cirching, it's just not something we have brought up. But oviously they circed their child (DH) so it's something to think about.

She woke up this morning with even stronger convictions that her son doesn't need surgury right after birth. Maybe young mom's really are more open to not circing! I found it so nice that she listened to what I had to say on breastfeeding and babywearing, and that she didn't freak out when I told her about my planning a homebirth.

I consider this a success story, we just have to make sure nobody convinces her out of it.
 
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