You won’t get infections if you keep yourself clean. In my 50+ years of being uncircumcised I’ve not yet had one infection there. Both my boys have been uncut and have never had an issue. YMMV but to me this is unnecessary and traumatic for the baby.
Interesting note: the very last thread in the Politics forum before it was shut down was about circumcision. I guess it’s a sensitive topic.
“I’m sure there are plenty of people who could post stories of choosing not to circumcise their male infants–saying that they “bought into the trend” is pretty dismissive, don’t you think?–and having it work out just fine.”
Sure. But this case isn’'t - parent A wants the kid to have a circ and parent B doesn’t want to.
This appears to be a case in which a medical issue has arisen, for which a circ is a potential solution. (Note that I said potential. I’m not a urologist and not pretending to be one!)
In that regard, it feels like the appropriate way to think about it is to remove the “controversialness” of the fact that it’s circ and focus on now, given the situation at hand, what are the appropriate and reasonable medical choices that could be made for this boy’s condition. Maybe 25 urologists would examine the kid and all say - yep, gotta circ him, no way around it. Or maybe there are other approaches that can be tried. I don’t know. The point is, the “circs are always bad” crowd are doing so in the abstract, not in the concrete of THIS situation.
No need to thank me for my advice. Keep the tip. (ba-dump bump)
Well, we’re never going to know enough about the specifics of this boy’s medical condition so we’re doomed to conjecture. I wonder if there even is a “medical condition” or if it’s just ammo in the proxy war between the Dad and the Mom.
Apparently they had discussed and agreed to the circumcision. Apparently the mom changed her mind, hence the flight with the kid.
It is a legal and common procedure, and one that has benefits as well as some risk. The mother agreed in writing, then changed her mind, kidnapped the boy and evaded the authority of the court. She went to jail for week, then changed her mind back to her previous agreement. The father has rights too.
In a case like this, a judge is going to rule based on the best interests of the child, and not just what the parents want. Thus it seems likely that the judge was persuaded that the procedure was in the child’s best interest, after weighing the evidence. That’s why we have courts–to make decisions like that when people can’t agree.
“In a case like this, a judge is going to rule based on the best interests of the child, and not just what the parents want. Thus it seems likely that the judge was persuaded that the procedure was in the child’s best interest, after weighing the evidence. That’s why we have courts–to make decisions like that when people can’t agree.”
Right. I know it’s fun to froth at the mouth over circ, but neutrally speaking there are some medical benefits to it. This isn’t a case such as in ear-piercing of a female infant which is just for cosmetic reasons and doesn’t bring any therapeutic / medical benefits.
My BIL is a urologist and swears he would have any S of his circumcised (he had 3 Ds, but has one grandson–no idea whether or not the grandson is circumcised or not). He says he has many patients who were uncircumcised that have nasty problems. Our young adult S is uncircumcised and as far as we know has never had ANY problems or infections.
Hunt, I was about to make exactly that point about the Election and Politics forum! I have yet to see a discussion of male circumcision, anywhere on the Internet, that doesn’t end up getting shut down.
No reason not to perform surgery, with general anesthesia and probably painful recovery, on the penis of a 4 yr old, in the absence of a medical condition? I think the judge is as nuts as the intactivists. And probably one of the many who, like the father, think it is just “the normal thing to do” and doesn’t have the imagination to think about how a child of that age would experience the whole thing. If they wanted the kid circumcised, why on earth wasn’t it done when he was a newborn? The mother apparently had no objection then. Unless the kid really does have phimosis–and according to what I have read, most kids can retract their foreskin by the age of about 5, so it doesn’t seem likely to diagnose it correctly at age 3!
There are several different issues going in this case. This started back in 2012 when she signed an agreement to allow the procedure so long as the father paid for it, but then changed her mind after the agreement was signed and filed. She fought it in court but the court sided with the father, in part because she had already agreed to the procedure and also because medical experts testified that it was a little healthier and “not traumatic”. Then she went on the run, which screwed her position from a legal perspective. She was found hiding at an abused women’s shelter but there was no indication of anything that would be legally considered abuse, and when she was discovered she was jailed for interfering with the father’s custodial rights in absconding with the child. The requirement that she sign a letter permitting the procedure (or remain in jail indefinitely) was to prevent this multiply-tried case from dragging on any longer.
The kid is terrified - of course he is terrified, he has had his mother whispering nightmares into his ear for the last two and a half years! And while ordinarily something like this would be left to the discretion of the parents, her decision to break the law and violate parental custody meant that the courts were never going to side with her. While I do not have a real stand on the necessity or desirability of circumcision, I cannot imagine that the procedure, performed at any age, could be more traumatic and problematic for that child than the court cases and abduction have been.
The child may be being used in this to forward an agenda. Not sure if this is a legitimate facebook page, but if you Google the mother, there are lots of pictures of the son with remarks about “my body,etc.” May be fake but if not it is troubling to see a young boy being drawn into this.
The disturbing legal takeaway from this dispute is: once one parent consents to an ELECTIVE medical procedure for a child, does the parent not have the right to change his/her mind?
I think the takeaway message is that if the parents are fighting, you don’t run away but handle disputes in court. Running away with your child and hiding has never been a good solution to having the court favorably view your issue and viewpoint.
Both consented, so why should one changing her mind prevail?
I really have to question why the father is hellbent on doing this. Not only at 4, but at 3.
It sounds to me as if he is simply determined to enforce his will.
The mother’s behavior hasn’t been the wisest–especially allowing her son’s name and image to be used by the intactivists–but at least she has an actual reason for maintaining that the procedure is potentially harmful at this age.
What is the father’s reason?
Because the body of a third person is involved. Mother agreed when the boy was a baby. Father decided when boy was 3 to enforce the agmt. You’re tellin me that snipping a baby is the same as snipping a 3 yr old?
I can understand why she initially consented - it’s part of mainstream American culture and most people go ahead and do it and don’t really think about it. Having her baby and living with him likely made her change her mind about changing his body irrevocably. It’s usually done right after birth but wasn’t done here for some reason.
The news media reports that at age 3, the father observed the boy peeing on his leg (I interpret that to mean that the boy had not mastered the art of aim). So the father took the boy to a doctor who said the boy’s foreskin was too tight and that circumcision could help.