I've always known dh and I wouldn't circumcise any of our little boys, as dh is intact and we live in the UK, where it just isn't done. So it's never been an issue for me - just a given that any children we had would be left alone.
But the issue never seemed real to me - didn't impact me - until I had my ds 5 weeks ago. A friend from the States asked if we'd circumcised, and I reacted (internally) with horror - of COURSE we didnt' circumicise. It was just this instinctive, gut reaction that I wouldn't do that to my child.
But I just found an old e-mail I'd sent to a friend back in 1999 when we were both pregnant with our first children. She'd asked what I thought about circumcision, and gone through a lot of the pros and cons before saying that they thought they'd do it for 'conventional/cultural' reasons. (Luckily, she had a girl, so it didnt' happen!).
But my response was just that dh wasnt' circumcised and it wasn't done over here, so we wouldn't do it. But I obviously didn't think anything more about her doing it to her little boy, if she'd had one.
Now, of course, I feel differently. She's planning a third pregnancy soon, and I'm already trying to figure out how to approach this issue with her (first two children were girls).
I can see how my own son's birth has made me emphatically anti-circ, and I was wondering how every one else here has come to be intactivists themselves.
I'm especially interested in how those of you without children became anti-circ...it's such a horrible thing, but I think it probably happens a lot because people just don't think about it. I shudder to think what would have happend if I'd married a circed American and my first child had been a boy...I hope I wouldn't have let anyone cut him, but I can't be sure. I do realise how fortunate I have been.
But the issue never seemed real to me - didn't impact me - until I had my ds 5 weeks ago. A friend from the States asked if we'd circumcised, and I reacted (internally) with horror - of COURSE we didnt' circumicise. It was just this instinctive, gut reaction that I wouldn't do that to my child.
But I just found an old e-mail I'd sent to a friend back in 1999 when we were both pregnant with our first children. She'd asked what I thought about circumcision, and gone through a lot of the pros and cons before saying that they thought they'd do it for 'conventional/cultural' reasons. (Luckily, she had a girl, so it didnt' happen!).
But my response was just that dh wasnt' circumcised and it wasn't done over here, so we wouldn't do it. But I obviously didn't think anything more about her doing it to her little boy, if she'd had one.

Now, of course, I feel differently. She's planning a third pregnancy soon, and I'm already trying to figure out how to approach this issue with her (first two children were girls).
I can see how my own son's birth has made me emphatically anti-circ, and I was wondering how every one else here has come to be intactivists themselves.
I'm especially interested in how those of you without children became anti-circ...it's such a horrible thing, but I think it probably happens a lot because people just don't think about it. I shudder to think what would have happend if I'd married a circed American and my first child had been a boy...I hope I wouldn't have let anyone cut him, but I can't be sure. I do realise how fortunate I have been.