Fathers and Sons.
When I first started speaking out against circumcision, some of
my friends were taken aback; they hadn’t ever really thought about it, and they
couldn’t understand why I’d devote so much energy and time to this as a cause.
It’s just a flap of skin, isn’t it? Babies don’t feel or remember getting
it “snipped off,” right? So what’s the big deal? Men, in particular, rolled
their eyes, teased me, and wondered out loud what on earth I was so upset
about.
Over the years, as the awareness of circumcision as an issue has
grown, many of these same male friends have returned to tell me, upon
reflection, that allowing their sons to be circumcised was the worst parenting
mistake they’d ever made, the thing they most regret. More men than I can count
have told me it’s the one thing they can’t forgive themselves for, even though
they’d had no sense of the magnitude of their decision. It breaks my heart
every single time I hear, “I had no idea what circumcision really meant, and I
had no idea I would regret it.”
Some people, of course, do know, and they make the same
terrible mistake. A couple of years ago, columnist Joel Stein wrote an essay
for Time magazine in which he questioned whether his son should be
circumcised in the Jewish faith. The piece ends with this paragraph:
“So in a few weeks, I'm going to buy some bagels, call a mohel
who is also a pediatric surgeon and believes in local anesthetic, and do
something that I'm pretty sure is wrong. I have a horrible feeling that all of
parenthood is like this.”
Well, I don’t believe that “all of parenthood is like this.”
Many mistakes we make as parents are unwitting; they don’t involve clear
yes-or-no decisions; you just roll with the circumstances and hope for the
best. Circumcision, however, is different. It’s a clear yes-or-no situation.
And its consequences are utterly irreversible. Given that Stein’s misgivings
were pre-recorded, I can’t imagine he will have a lot of credibility with his
own son should he one day say, “I’m sorry I allowed this to happen to you.”
It takes a great deal of courage to look back as a parent and
say, “I was wrong.” It also takes courage to resist the pressure from families,
faith communities, doctors, and society at large to do something that
“everybody does”—and is, at the same time, too embarrassing to talk about.
Couple all of this with the fact that many men who regret saying yes are,
themselves, victims of parents who were unable to say no.
Bravo to the fathers who have apologized to their sons; and
bravo to the fathers who have stopped the cycle of harm, refusing to “consent”
to the removal of a part of their sons’ beautiful, normal bodies.
Pass this on, share this post, or just simply start talking
about it, because the single most effective way to prevent circumcision is to
start the conversation—whether you’re sharing your own experience/pain/regret,
or asking pregnant friends if they’ve thought about circumcision. You’ll find
that once people really consider it and find out the facts, they’ll realize
they are likely to regret it down the road if they allow their sons to be
circumcised. (If they’re still on the fence, show them this video by Ryan
McAllister, a bioethicist and research professor at Georgetown University. FYI,
it includes graphic footage of a circumcision—which is the whole point.)
As parents, we’re often tasked with having to make tough
decisions on behalf of our children—but this isn’t one of them. Pass it on.
Georganne Chapin,
Intact America.
...
