I recently gave birth to my third child and first son. We were trying to decide whether to circumcise him or not and were leaning towards the latter. But family pressure and horror stories of young men having to be cut at 9 and 13 years old due to complications were making us double think our initial gut feelings.
To make a long story short, we chose to do it, and watched it being done. The moment the doctor started pulling on my newborn's foreskin with a metal instrument of barbarism, I wanted to scream, "stop!" I turned around to see his father's face a pale, unnatural color and knew we made the wrong decision.
Bloody mess and screaming infant, sugar water and mama's tears. 15 minutes later we were left with a feeling of failing our son, only 3 weeks old.
Over the next week, we talked to each other, our families, our friends. We wrung our hands and wrestled our emotions, trying to reconcile our feelings and move forward. In the end, our baby will be ok. We may have even saved him from a painful emergency circumcision as a preteen. But I can't shake the idea that in a few years, the American Academy of Pediatrics will finally declare this backward procedure with no medical benefit, illegal or at least immoral and it will no longer be an option, even for the religious, the blindly traditional or the confused and fearful new parents, like us.
3 comments:
Hi, Darrow
I found your writing personally compelling, because I had a similar, though opposite experience that even now (My son is 25) I find myself regretting. For all the reasons you name: this being mostly a cultural ritual and there's no medical necessity to circumcise I wanted to spare my infant son the pain (both physical and psychic) of this experience. He was not circumcised. As it happened, when he was one-month-old, he had to have actual surgery,anesthesia and all, for a congenital condition, a fistula which erupted in a delicate place in his body. Of course this was a traumatic experience for my son's father and me but the irony of sparing him the pain of circumcision and then having him go through this has always left me feeling regret at my decision.
I guess my point is that you, like me and the majority of parents out there act on the belief that we're doing what's best for our kids. And you know what? That's exactly what we do, so let's resolve to let go of these feelings with the knowledge that we did the best we could. How can that be a mistake?
Dear Family,
Mistakes are merely opportunities for self correction, not in the act of the particular mistake but in our overall growth during a lifetime. DJ has So much love in this world, an experience such as this will only make him stronger.
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