© Copyright 1998-2002 by Grayson Morris.
Circumcising the newborn boy is still very common in the United States, and many of us don't even question its relevance to modern life. It's still a fairly routine part of newborn care in the first day(s) after birth. It's been such in this country since World War I, when our soldiers were circumcised to avoid infection in the filth of the trenches, where there would be little opportunity for keeping oneself clean. I'm not sure how this translated into routine newborn circumcision after the war, but I imagine it might have had something to do with male pride and "war wounds"... you know, I was circumcised defending our country and my boy's going to be circumcised, too - that kind of thing. But this is a pure guess on my part.
Whatever the origin of the custom, most American males in recent generations have been circumcised as babies. But is there any good reason for it?
It is true that the uncircumcised penis can become infected if not kept properly clean, or sometimes even if kept clean. But this is true of any body part, and it's as rare with the penis as it is with, say, the female clitoris and labia. Removing the foreskin of the penis at birth as a preventative measure against something which very rarely occurs seems a lot like cutting off one's breasts to prevent the possibility of breast cancer ... or cutting out one's lungs to prevent the possibility of lung cancer ... or so on. Granted, a man can easily live without his foreskin and he'd die without his lungs, but that doesn't mean cutting off the foreskin is a good thing.
In 1999, the AMA issued a statement which says, essentially, that there is no good medical reason for routine circumcision. Given that the majority of men in Western Europe have gone for centuries (millenia, even) without being circumcised, and without penile infection, there's a great body of evidence which supports this conclusion.
With no medical indication for routine circumcision of a baby boy, the only remaining reasons why you might choose to circumcise your son are (a) religious, or (b) familiar. (You might consider it because you like torturing small animals, too, but that's not generally the parents' reason for circumcising.)
I personally don't think there's any good reason to remove part of my child's body if it isn't harming him or her, but I'm not going to tell you to live by my beliefs. If your religion considers circumcision a holy act, then you must decide if you agree, and act accordingly. By the way, you might also consider those folks for whom female circumcision is a sacred act. If religious belief is just cause to cut off the foreskin of the male penis, it must surely also be just cause to cut off the female clitoris. Hey, I'm not saying it's right; I'm just saying you can't accept male circumcision on religious grounds without accepting female circumcision on religious grounds.
You might also be considering circumcision because your son will grow up in America, where most boys are circumcised. It's likely, if the father of the baby is an American, that he is circumcised. Parents often ask themselves, as my first husband and I did, what the emotional effects of being uncircumcised will be on the pubescent boy in the proverbial locker room. Will he feel outcast? Will the other boys make fun of him because he looks weird? Will he feel inadequate because he doesn't look just like Dad?
Happily, my first baby was a girl, and we didn't have to act upon our final decision, which was to circumcise. We decided that growing up in America would be too hard if you weren't a circumcised boy. At that time, the only man I knew who wasn't circumcised was someone who had been made fun of and called "white trash" as a child because he hadn't been circumcised (and he was a real nutcase, besides). My husband and I weren't really sure if there were any good medical reasons for circumcision, but it seemed there must be something to it, because everybody had it done. Surely that wouldn't be the case if it were pointless.
(This was back in the days when I actually believed that medical professionals always knew more and better than other people, and were never subject to superstition, habit or social pressure.)
Needless to say, I was aghast to discover from my subsequent, European husband that circumcision is not the norm in the civilized world. He was horrified to learn that baby boys in America were almost always circumcised. With this sudden new perspective on the subject, I was horrified too! It was thus a no-brainer when baby #2 was a boy....leave the penis alone.
I'm not against circumcision, by the way - I'm against routine circumcision of people too young to protest otherwise. If infection develops and circumcision becomes necessary, well, okay! That makes sense. If my religious tradition imbues circumcision with spiritual meaning, well, fine! Let's do it as part of a coming-of-age ritual, when the boy-becoming-a-man is choosing this faith as his faith. If my teenage son decides circumcision is cool, well, more power to him! He can have it done at his expense, along with the earrings, nose ring, tongue ring, and tattoos.
There are a few tall tales floating around out there about the male penis (isn't that redundant? I mean, is there any other kind of penis besides a male one?). Let's have a look:
Myth #1: The penis is hard to keep clean, and Mommy and Daddy are going to have to do it until Junior is old enough to do it himself. In fact, the penis is pretty easy to keep clean. Whip back the foreskin, run some water over it, soap it if you desire, rinse, and let the foreskin back. And unlike, say, the hands, the penis isn't generally out in the dirt too much, so it doesn't really get much opportunity to get grimy. (And if your sexual proclivities dictate otherwise, well, just wash more often. And maybe use antibacterial soap.)
As for parental washing, it's unnecessary, and can be harmful. The foreskin of the baby penis is fused to the penis, and it won't retract. (Naturally, this varies in degree from baby to baby.) As your son ages, the foreskin will gradually detach, and you can teach him how to clean it himself, a task which usually begins around age five.
Myth #2: It's better to circumcise a newborn, because they don't feel pain the same way older people do. Uh....what? Does this honestly make any sense at all? Are we saying that babies don't have the same network of nerves the rest of us do? This idea falls into the "Emperor's New Clothes" category - you know, the kind of thing you believe, despite its obvious fallacy, because you want it to be true. Babies feel pain just like we do. Imagine how pleasant that must make the days after the circumcision, when baby has to pee (and poop) all over his raw new wound. An older boy or man can at least direct the pee and poop directly into the toilet.
Myth #3: It's better to circumcise a newborn, because he won't remember the pain later. Okay, I won't argue with the face value of this statement, because I think it's true. But what's the underlying premise? That this male person is going to have to be circumcised sooner or later anyway. And that's not true.
If you would be circumcising your son for religious reasons, then it might well be true that, sooner or later, the ax will fall on his tiny, tender little weewee. (Okay, okay, I'll stop.) In this situation, however, I believe that the pain endurance aspect of the process can be a powerful part of the coming-of-age ritual. Your young man is choosing his faith, choosing adulthood within his religion, and as part of that, he embraces - and conquers - a difficult challenge. Liken it to childbirth, a painful rite of passage into motherhood. While no one desires the pain, most women find themselves stronger and more powerful after having made it through what is likely the most difficult physical ordeal they will encounter in their lives.
Besides, while your son may not remember his circumcision at all if it happens when he is a newborn, that's not to say that he won't be making immediate impressions about what the world he's landed in is like in those first few days. An older boy or man who chooses circumcision knows what he's getting into - he has a context for it. A newborn just knows that he hurts like heck.
Only you and your partner know what the right course of action concerning circumcision is for your family. Whatever your friends, family, and doctor might advise, remember that you are the ones responsible for the decision, whatever you choose. You might find it helpful to ask yourselves this: When your son is older, will you feel you made the right choice, even if he disagrees?
© Copyright 1998-2002 by Grayson Morris.