to circumcise or not?
A Chicago-area family is in the middle of a legal struggle over circumcision, and it’s a battle with no precedent.
The mother wants her 8-year-old son circumcised. The father does not. Apparently neither side’s position is based on religious or cultural tradition — which would probably actually have simplified things, for once.
My intuition tells me there is probably an element of power play involved, since the parents are divorced and there are plenty of attorneys on the scene.
But I still have a hard time with the idea that a mother would willingly put her child through a traumatizing and painful procedure when there is no medical need for it (the most recent Circumcision Policy Statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics says that data is not sufficient to recommend routine neonatal circumcision).
Especially when we’re not talking about an infant, who will never remember the procedure! An 8-year-old boy already has a definite relationship with and understanding of his body. It seems needlessly cruel to perform what is basically a cosmetic mutilation on a child who is old enough to anticipate and fear the operation.
I’ve heard the anecdote that the most oft-cited non-cultural motivation for fathers advocating or opposing circumcision is that they want their son’s [parts] to look like their own. I can see that. A similar agenda leads thousands of couples to spend thousands of dollars on fertility treatments, instead of adopting. But in the Chicago case, the father is the one opposed. And demographically, it’s pretty safe to presume that the father himself is circumcised.
A JAMA article reported that “the frequency of circumcision varies directly with maternal education, a marker for socioeconomic status.” Can’t we deduce that this battle boils down to the Chicago mother’s inherent opinion of what a “normal [organ]” looks like?
I’m a professed [libertine], with plenty of exposure to lots of [male parts]… and I have never actually seen a live uncircumcised [part], so prevalent are the cut ones among American-born adults. If it would be foreign to me, what are the odds that a “normal” suburban housewife in the Midwest has encountered one?
I really hope that the courts stop the mother from prevailing. If she cared so much about circumcising her son, the morally responsible time to force the conversation was eight years ago, when the procedure would have been easier on all fronts.
And if she managed to wait this long, she can wait another ten years, and then let her son decide for himself when he’s an adult. That’s a whole decade to propagandize to him and try to win him over to her position.
Regardless, I hope both parents accept the final court decision, whatever it is. Far more painful and traumatizing than any recuperation from a school-aged circumcision is the way the child is being used as an emotional pawn in this drama.
* Disclaimer: I’m aware that not having a child, nor one on the way, nor having a penis, renders my opinions on circumcision mostly immaterial. But, hey, similar pesky details don’t stop male lawmakers from making legislative decisions regarding my uterus, so I see no need to hold my peace.
