Circumcision

Okay, I'm pretty sure I never wrote about this before. One decision people expecting a boy are faced with is whether or not to circumcise their son. This is a personal decision and honestly one that I don't feel SO strongly about for other people--I could care less what other people do because I really don't think it matters THAT much (in comparison to breastfeeding, for instance, in which I'm a pretty serious "lactavist" and feel pretty strongly that everyone at least should give a try with it because it is SO important).

But, though I could care less what other people decide to do, I decided quite a while ago that sons of ours would not be circumcised. When I brought this up years ago to James, to ask him what he thought, he said:

"Well, I don't know. Aren't kids supposed to look like their fathers?" (James is circumcised).
"Honey, I don't know how many baby penises you've seen, but they don't look like adult penises. Trust me. There is nothing you could do to make them look the same. Adult penises are huge and hairy. Baby penises are tiny and hairless. No child would ever look at their father's penis and think it was nearly the same anyway."
"Hmm, I don't know."
"Well here, let's watch this youtube video of a circumcision being performed to help you decide." (I tried to find an "unbiased" one to post here but didn't feel like spending that much time looking--feel free to shop around for your circumcision video of choice, though, or watch this one with the sound off so you can't hear the commentary (or the baby screaming in the background).)
Anyway, 20 seconds into the video James is like: "Turn it off, I agree, I agree, we won't do it, just turn it off!" (LOL)
"Okay Honey." I said, and we've been in pretty serious agreement about it ever since.

More specifically and personally, I feel like I've spent 9 months growing my son in my uterus. God/The Universe (call it what you will) spent 9 months building his body step by step, following a very specific blueprint. When he is born and put onto my chest and I look down at him, I know he will be the most beautiful and perfect person I have ever seen in my life. Every part of him will be perfect, and I don't feel the need to mess with what God made. Or put him through an unnecessary cosmetic procedure in his first day/week of life.

With this being said, sometimes there are good reasons. If it is part of your religion and you feel strongly about it--or if you feel strongly about it for some other reason . . . I heard one story of a women, and her husband was uncircumcised as a child but had some physical abnormality that made it painful for his foreskin to retract. So he ended up being circumcised as an adult, which was obviously a way bigger deal than as a baby. So if they had a son, they were planning on having him circumcised because they could make the assumption that their sons could have a similar issue. Okay, sounds like a good reason to me.

But personally, "looking like the father", or "because other people are", or something like that, I just don't buy it. You don't keep doing something unnecessarily just because it's been done before. I try to look at each of these parenting decisions outside of the context of "what other people are doing", because I'm not a freaking lemming.

With this being said, since the Academy of Pediatrics changed it's stance on circumcision about 30 years ago to reflect the fact that it is an unnecessary cosmetic procedure with no basis in medicine, the rate of uncircumcised boys has been steadily on the rise. In the U.S. now, about half the boys in our country are uncircumcised--obviously this varies greatly by region. But if you are expecting a son, there is no need to circumcise just because you think he will stand out if you don't. Who knows, where you live, he might stand out if he is.

So that's that. We'll all get to enjoy Little James' foreskin for many years to come. (Hmm, that sounds a little weird but you know what I mean, hehe).