121–130 of 156 posts
All those books on parenting you have? Read them before the birth, because after it, you will have zero time and energy to do so.
Don't circumcise (genital mutilate) your kid if he's a boy.
Notice that the single bit of medical advice in this thread - among the tens of medical decisions you'll have to make and literally thousands of decisions you hope to not need to make - relates to religious aspects. And I'm sure that the guy who posted it was well-meaning, without a hint of religious hate in his blood. This is a terrific example of the "useful idiot" phenomenon. Those who hate any group - be it Jews…
You should be honest about this. This wasn't really a "race" thing. You *wanted* to do this to your son. You did this without his consent. And you did something that is completely irreversible.
Don't compare this to fishing, riding a bike, or even using a knife. All of those are necessary skills, or at the very least, useful skills for children to know.
You did something that *was actually risky to do*, for literally no other reason other than this awful justification about "race".
And for what its worth, I'm Iranian. So I get how _expected_ it is from culture.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They most likely ignored the high-risk one (assuming FGM), because it is unthinkable of and is not even legal to perform in most western countries. Is it even a thing outside of a few ultra-conservative and religious countries/communities in Africa and Middle East?
> because it is unthinkable In that case the "if its a boy" clause was unnecessary. Consider the following sentence: > If you are pregnant then you shouldn't smoke if you're a woman.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> There is absolutely no medical reason to do this Phimosis, Fournier's gangrene, and potentially permanent deformation of the glans.
A person can get circumcised when (if) those things happen. There's no medical reason for indiscriminate circumcision at birth .
I agree that there's no medical reason for indiscriminate circumcision at birth, or, for that matter, indiscriminate surgery of any kind at any time. After all, that's what circumcision is: surgery. However, the poster I responded to did not make that distinction. Another poster simply posted the word "propaganda". Given what I've read, I'm convinced that many of these anti-circumcision posts are motivated by animus — whether of genital surgery in its entirety or the religious elements associated with it — rather than a well-thought critique of the practice in secular and instrumental terms.
A wholesale dismissal of circumcision is as unthinking as a blind acceptance of it. Instead, each case must be assessed on its own merits. Unfortunately, I rarely see my particular position shared by anyone else.
Some practical things I’ve learned after a year: 1. Pace yourself. You’re going to want to try to do as much as you can with your newborn/infant but sometimes they’re just not ready for it. If you try to be very extra with your child on day one, you’re going to burn yourself out. A corollary is to appreciate the free time you get. 2. Children all develop in their own way so don’t freak out if your experience somethin…
And, um, don't assume that it will be tomorrow, even if they're inducing. That can take more than a day sometimes.