What I read there caused me some rather strong mixed feelings. For starters, let me say that I have been a bottle-feeding mother.  As I’ve explained in previous posts, my son has a condition known as a posterior ankyloglossia.  This is a tongue-tie on the back side of the tongue.  The details aren’t really important at the moment but suffice to say that due to his inability to express an adequate amount of milk, he wasn’t growing.  Pumping didn’t work very well for me and in the end, my son’s life hinged on his being fed from a bottle, eventually entirely full of formula.  My son is my third child and the only one who wasn’t breastfed until well past 3 years of age.  Because I’ve experienced to the fullest both aspects of baby feeding, this article struck several chords with me.

The author opens up her article by talking how aware she is of the judging eyes watching her prepare to feed her child a bottle of formula:

“Those looks speak a thousand words, most of which boil down to, “How could you? We’re doing the best for our baby, why aren’t you?”

My first thought is kind of reactionary: “You don’t know that’s what they are thinking, that’s you’re own guilt talking.”  Well maybe yes and maybe no. More likely both.  The author mentions later in the article that she had wanted to breastfeed but that medical conditions took the choice away from her.  I can tell you from experience that the guilty feelings and sadness about not being able to feed your baby as planned are very powerful, even with the knowledge that the choice to formula feed was made in the best interest of the child.

The truth is that I know exactly what she’s talking about.  I remember the eyes narrowing from across the room. I’ve seen the chins lift a little higher upon realizing that I formula feed and *they* don’t.  I was involved for a short time in a very “crunchy” organization (revolving around home birth) and as an extremely “naturally minded” Momma I felt uncomfortably out of place surrounded by breastfeeding moms with my son sucking down a bottle.  I remember sitting at those meetings and other public places arguing with myself about whether or not those looks were truly judging me or if I was letting my own disappointment and guilt interject those feelings on what I was perceiving from their glances.

I didn’t honestly feel judged by most of them.  But from some, I definitely got the haughty looks, the snide comments and questions phrased to impart judgment on my choices (if you can call not allowing your son to starve to death a choice).  I can’t tell you how many times, even after frank discussion on the choice I made I received the implication that I should have tried harder, done more and that I had done my son a disservice despite everything.  The reaction that irked me the most was the implication that I’m excused from my choice because I had a reason that the listener approved of.  Listen, people, I don’t need your permission to feed my son anything.  I don’t need your approval for my choices, either.

As I read the above article I recognize that sense of resentment and helpless anger I felt in those moments.  It’s NOT just in her head.  Is she, perhaps, projecting?  Probably, we all do it and in all likelihood most of the people she thinks are judging her are not even paying attention to her.  Yet, this reality doesn’t invalidate her frustration because that judgement is sometimes there and she isn’t entirely wrong about those baleful, disrespectful gazes.

“Certainly I feel that I have to defend my decision to bottle-feed, justify my choices so they’ll accept me.” 

Oh yeah.  That’s real, I’ve experienced it even from people who know my stances on breastfeeding in general.  Ugh.  We really need to focus more on education and rein in the judgment.  If we treat all mothers with the assumption that they have the best at heart for their children, I think our message would get a lot farther.

Unfortunately my sympathy kind of wanes when I follow her article further.  She suggests that as she sits there feeding her son his bottle, that the breastfeeding moms start to look envious.

“My guess is they’re thinking,”That looks a lot more efficient than breastfeeding.” You’re right, I want to tell them.”

WHAT? Ok, the violin in my head that started playing sympathetically in the background as I started reading this article just screeched to a painful halt.

My first thought is, “How would you know, you’ve never breastfed!” Also, I think she has the term “efficient” confused with “convenient”.  Efficiency as it applies to baby feeding would, by necessity, have to apply to the transfer or nutrients and which method represents the best carrier.  In this regard, there isn’t a shred of evidence that supports formula being “more efficient”.

She further distances herself from my camaraderie and confirms my suspicions regarding her vocabulary skills  by making this statement:

“I can almost hear the deafening mental processing in those staid church halls: “She won’t have cracked nipples, mastitis, thrush or leaking milk. And her partner probably helps with the night feeds.”

I start off feeling strong feelings of understanding for her plight and end up wanting to throw something at my computer screen.  Especially with her closing statement being:

“It’s really not so bad, I want to tell them, you should try it some time.”

Ugh, WHY?  I mean, why take a powerful message of “Hey, quit judging me and mind you’re own business” and turn it into this plaintive, childish speculation?  This appears, to my eyes, to be a classic case of twisting a perspective around so that feelings of resentment, guilt and frustrating become instead feelings of superiority and smugness.  How does that make you any better than the people you think are judging you?

To make matters worse the sentiments expressed here make formula feeding look better to impressionable young women.  I breastfed for 6.5 years (I actually did nurse my son for several months) and I never once had cracked nipples.  It happens but is almost always related to improper latching and is easily correctable.

It’s true that if you formula feed, you aren’t terribly likely to develop mastitis or thrush (at least, not on your breasts).   That’s true.  It’s also true that if you never breastfeed, you’re more likely to develop breast cancer than the women who do.  It’s also true that your child is more likely to develop gastro-intestinal illnesses, allergies and various infections than if they had been breastfed.  This isn’t to say that if your child bottle-feeds they are doomed to a childhood filled with illnesses.  Of course not.  Yet, facts are facts and the research suggests that children as a whole fare better when breastfed and, surprisingly to some, so do their mothers.

None of these issues address the idea of efficiency, though, leading me to be assured that my initial guess was correct: she must be talking about convenience.  I can’t agree though I’m sure that for some mothers bottle feeding is more convenient.  For me it was a pain in the ass and despite some of the realities that make breastfeeding more of a challenge, I missed it and often daydreamed of those easy nights where all I had to was roll over, stick a boobie in a mouth and go back to sleep.

I knew even while I was grateful for it that formula was inferior food to breastmilk.  I didn’t feel it necessary to decide that bottle feeding was “more efficient” or “better” than breastfeeding just to make myself feel better about a situation that was beyond my control.  It’s not better, not even a little bit.  It’s simply what needed to be done and I’m grateful it worked.

What I took away from this article was this: The few crusaders for their causes that use their stance as fuel for their superiority over other mothers are doing far, far more damage than those who are simply innocent of the truth.  This woman’s disturbing article is a prime example of a mother who has dealt with the viciousness that is mom judgement and has in turn changed her thinking in self defense.  I think her thinking is wrong and there is something to be said for her inability to just own her choices and move on.  On the other hand, she’s a new mother.  Is it really so surprising that she’s chosen to bolster herself by making her situation look better than yours?  It’s human nature.

To the judgers out there, on either side, I implore you: Grow Up.  This isn’t high-school, this is real life.  What you say and how you treat other people ripples out from you indefinitely.  That’s a heavy reality that nobody likes to think about too much (I shudder to think where some of my ripples have gone) but it’s the truth.  Women who are bottle-feeding still need support, love and compassion.  Being a new mother is hard enough without feeling as though you have to defend yourself constantly.

Mom Blogging is a whole new world of opportunity for those of us in Western Culture. No, we don’t have a village wise-woman and all her sisters to turn to. Instead, we have each other. We’re all different and some of us have very little common at all. The one thing that unites us unequivocally is our children and our desire to protect and raise them with all of the love in our hearts. That is our common-ground and we need to stand proudly upon it.

It upsets me so much to see mothers bullying each other. I’m not talking about sharing truth and having someone get butthurt over it. I’m talking about actual attacking. “Well if you don’t _________ you don’t really love your children”. Things like that make me want to hurl.

That’s why I’m so excited to be sharing a new community with you today!

Please take a peek at The Take The Pledge Campaign and consider joining up. This is not my brain child but as soon as I saw it I literally *squeed*.

I love love love the idea behind this project. Moms have so much pressure, so many different issues in their personal lives that the last thing we need is to tear each other to pieces. We need each other.

I’ll share an example from my own life. When I had my first it was all about the breastfeeding. And you know, it was really easy to fall into the whole mindset that *really good* mothers breastfeed and that almost all problems were surmountable if one would just try hard enough. It was easy because it was all that I knew and I’d never had any real trouble worth mentioning with it. I would never have thought that mom’s who didn’t breastfeed didn’t love their children (I mean, come on, my own mother formula fed all of us and I know she loved us) but it did cross my mind more than once that those of us who did choose to breastfeed were perhaps better educated or smarter. I did fall into the silently clucking and shaking my head camp at public places, where I saw Mom’s bottle-feeding. I’m terribly embarrassed to admit this now, you understand, and I have no good excuse for it nor can I tell who on earth I thought that was helping. *blush*

Then my 3rd child was born. He was such a beautiful, laid back baby. But something was wrong, though I couldn’t put my finger on it or get anyone to take me seriously at first. For the first 12wks he just would. not. grow. I mean, he gained less than a lb in 3.5months! Turns out, while I had an abundant supply and was a veteran breastfeeder (I’d been breastfeeding for 6 solid years at that point) my son was physically unable to latch properly. I’m leaving out a lot of painful, nerve-wracking details but suffice to say that in the end, the only way to get an appropriate amount of calories into his body was with a bottle. And because my breasticles don’t like pumps, my supply eventually kicked the bucket and my son was on formula exclusively from 5mo on.

Talk about a very difficult, painful lesson in humility and compassion. I was now at the receiving ends of the clucking and “poor baby” comments at the mall and public playgrounds. I felt like a total outsider at birth circle meetings and the like. There were a few times where the very subtle but earth-shattering suggestion that I just hadn’t tried hard enough crept into someone’s narrative and I found it utterly infuriating.

The bottom line is that I learned that mothers can be cruel even when they aren’t consciously intending to. That more than anything else, mothers need compassion and positive support. We all have to make choices based on what we know and what we need in the moment and I like to think that we are all doing our best with what we’ve got.

I encourage healthy discussion about issues. Any of my regular readers know how I feel about things like breastfeeding, unhindered birth and of course, circumcision. My stances on these issues are not about JUDGING or bullying other mothers. They are about protecting, empowering and supporting other moms (and their children). This pledge, I feel, underscores that mentality. We are here to help, support and love each other through this difficult and rewarding process of raising happy humans. We need to be setting an example and refusing to tolerate Mommy Mafias. Yes, educate each other. Yes, share information. But above all else, love each other.

Will you consider joining me and other mothers in taking this pledge?

One of the things that concerns me about intactivist language is the tendency to say things that cannot be construed any way but as an attack. I’m not talking about the concept of being anti-circumcision offending people or people taking offense at the wording of the truth. I’m talking about statements that anyone would take as a personal attack. “You’re a child abuser”. “You don’t deserve to have children”. “You sexually abused your son”. Etc and so forth. I don’t find these to be constructive arguments.

While it is impossible to argue for the genital integrity of children without offending people, it IS possible to word ourselves in such a way that doesn’t call into question our own characters. I don’t feel we should dumb-down the truth in an effort to smooth feathers and appease people’s sense of justification. For example, I will continue to insist that circumcision, whether performed on a boy or a girl, is mutilation. Why? Because that is what it is! Pure and simple truth, that. But I am not going to look a mother in her face and tell her that the decision she made out of a genuine concern for her child’s well-being was because she’s a closet pedophile. I think the truth is difficult enough to swallow, you know?

The reality is that nobody wants to come to the realization that a choice they made was hurtful and irreversible. Nobody wants to have to admit to themselves that they didn’t think it through well enough or that their child may some day resent or regret the choice they made. While I do feel we need to be honest, frank and completely clear in our message, I also feel that we need to do so out of a place of love, concern and compassion. Most people are seeking to do what is best for their children and no mother in her right mind wants to bring harm to her child. We have to remember that people are going to have intensely emotional responses to our intactivist message without being personally insulted or having their humanity questioned. We are not doing ourselves or our societies future children any favors by being utterly cruel.

Just sayin’.

For anyone who is not aware, San Francisco is proposing a ban on the routine practice of circumcising little boys.  This has caused quite an uproar and I posted a video (made by freedom0speech) the other day, which addresses some of the issues raised by this.  This morning, in my inbox, was an invitation to read and follow along a thread at the bottom of this article by Robert Carry.  I can’t even get through all of the ignorant, small minded ridiculousness of the comments.  I mean, don’t get me wrong, there are good comments and there are sincere “I don’t know about this” comments but there are also a lot of utterly unbelievable, mind-bogglingly blinded, stupid comments.

People, I understand that there are a lot of reasons a person might defend cricumcising little boys, particularly if, as a parent, they’ve made the decision for their son or sons. I understand the fact that for some, the concept of making the circumcising of little boys illegal (barring medical reasons) is a shocking and even offensive idea.

That said, it’s really time we put on our grown-up pants, take a step back and look at the one truth that will make or break the argument for this legislation.

It doesn’t matter, for this exercise, that just as many baby boys die every year from complications related to circumcision as do from SIDS in the same neonatal period.

It doesn’t matter that removing the foreskin of a newborn baby boy translates to a fully grown man missing 10-20 inches of the most sensitive tissue on his penis.

It does not matter, for the sake of this discussion, that male circumcision has been linked to erectyle disfunction, painful erections and premature ejactulation.

For the sake of this article, I’m not even going to talk about the fact that up to 50% of infants who go through this mutilating procedure are NOT given anesthesia.

And finally, I’m not going to go into detail about the permanent, irreversable damage done to male genetalia when the protective mucosa barriers are removed.

Why not? Because none of these points matter when it comes to whether or not I support the legality of circumcision.

The question we need to be asking ourselves when considering whether or not to support this legislation is whether or not we have the right to make this choice for our sons.

Many would point out that we make medical, potentially harmful, decisions for our children routinely, from the time they are born. That is true, we certainly do.  However, we are not talking about a medically beneficial or necessary procedure. We are talking about a cosmetic procedure performed on a healthy part of the male anatomy that has NO medical benefits that justify it’s routine practice on all baby boys. A procedure that has been repeatedly denied medical benefit even by the prevailing medical authorities, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics. The only 100% true “justification” that exists for the routine circumcision of infant boys is the idea that cancer in the foreskin cannot happen if there is no foreskin. I’d love to get a picture of my pediatrician’s face when I ask him to please remove the mammary glands from both of my daughters so that they never have to worry about breast cancer.

That has got to be on of the most ridiculous lines of reasoning I have EVER heard. It doesn’t even make sense.  Tired of breaking your toes from stubbing them?  Here’s a solution: Get a foot amputation! No more broken toes and the BEST part is, you can’t get foot cancer!

Circumcision is a procedure looking for a medical justification. It is the only amputative surgery that we, as parents, are allowed to choose for our children on the basis that it will save them from a big fat fucking MAYBE crisis, years down the line.

Allow me to put this in perspective for you: YOUR SON IS MORE LIKELY TO DIE FROM MALE BREAST CANCER THAN HE IS TO GET CANCER OF THE PENIS. That is a medical fact and if you don’t wish to take my word for it (and you SHOULD look into it yourself) LOOK IT UP.

If I’m making you angry- GOOD. Get angry. Be offended. Prove me wrong. Start doing some research.

But while you are doing that, remember this: You are talking about slicing off a piece of your son’s genitals. You wouldn’t dream of doing that to your daughter. You wouldn’t dream of slicing off his ear, his pinky toes or paying for cosmetic surgery for his nose so that he had “daddy’s nose”.  For God’s sake, THINK about what is being done and what it is we are attempting to justify.

It is illegal to perform a simple prick on a little girl’s clitoris for religious reasons. This practice is illegal because it violates her human rights to integrity and autonomy over her own body. Please explain to me how drawing a single drop of blood should so rightfully horrify and offend all of us but completely removing a vital part of our son’s genitals should be just as rabidly and mindlessly defended?

The ONLY argument for or against cicumcision’s continuing legality is the one that adresses the human rights issue. We are not talking about a defect, we’re talking about a normal, functioning part of the human body. When it comes down to it, all of the other arguments I can think of against circumcision merely support the position that it’s a human rights violation. All of the arguments for the supposed “benefits” of circumcision do not in any way address the issue that a non-consenting minor is having their penis chopped up. Not a single “benefit” to this procedure justifies the extreme nature of this socially acceptable barbarism- a fact which is proven simply by acknowledging that the exact same justifications that are used for circumcising little girls (even the clipping or pricking without any permanent damage!) didn’t and never will hold any water.

Mutilating, slicing, cutting, whatever you choose to call it- it’s still being done to a BABY who cannot consent to or even conceive of what is being done to him. The simple fact remains that THERE IS NO JUSTIFICATION for genitally mutilating an infant, child or ANY person against their will. The ONLY person who has the right and authority to make that choice is the person to whom that body part belongs. PERIOD.

Circumcision is a choice- just not one we parents have a right to make. I would go straight to jail if a wandered into a bar, tied a man to a bar-stool and stripped and sliced off his foreskin. No sane person would justify me doing that. It stands to reason then that the social acceptance and even endorsement of doing this exact same thing to a infant is depraved, disgusting and deplorable.

Harsh? Yes.  Sometimes the simple truth of an issue is a stark wasteland of painful reality.  The question is, are we up to the  task of making a change?  Can we admit our mistakes and move on to stop this atrocity from occurring?  I think we can.  I know we can.  It starts with you, with me and our children.

So I thought I’d address this argument and see if there is any validity to it.

According to the Webster’s Dictionary, “Mutilate” is defined:

1: to cut up or alter radically so as to make imperfect
2: to cut off or permanently destroy a limb or essential part of: cripple

So let’s see. Is “mutilate” an appropriate word to apply to circumcision of the penis? Nobody seems to argue that Female Circumcision is mutilation. For those who don’t know, female circumcision runs the gamut from a tiny clip of the clitoral hood to the complete removal of ALL outside female genitalia (that would be the clitoral hood, clitoris AND the labia). Yeah, yeah I know. It’s horrifying.

The thing is, we can compare the removal of the foreskin to FGM. Absolutely. One would actually have to remove the labia completely and the clitoral hood and possibly even the clitoris for it to be a straight across comparison, though. Let that sink in for a minute.

How can this be? Isn’t the foreskin just a flap of skin? Obviously removing the labia causes problems for women but little boys and men don’t need their erroneous flap of skin, right? Wait a second, wait a second– Even if that was true, how is that a valid argument? Are we going to condone parents slicing off their baby’s ear-lobes, too? That’s just a piece of skin, too, right?

Anyway, back to the point: In order for circumcision to be considered mutilation, it would have to permanently and negatively affect the function of the penis. I mean, technically, if we go only by the first half of the definition, we must already consider it mutilation as removing the foreskin requires cutting and radically altering the penis. But since so many Americans are aware of this and still get their panties in a bunch when we call circumcision mutilation, we’ll have to address the second half of the definition.

After reading the definition of “mutilate”, we know that to mutilate something is to cripple it, remove a vital piece of it or permanently destroy it. When something is mutilated, it does not function properly.

The penis is supposed to be covered by a foreskin that not only serves to protect the glans (and the rest of the body) but also to facilitate intercourse.

The foreskin is a complex structure, not just a flap of skin. It’s a tube-like structure of elastic skin, muscle fibers, nerve endings and mucosa, that folds in on itself. Like eyelids, lips and labia, the outside area of the foreskin is covered in skin that then transitions into mucosa. It serves to both protect the glans itself and to protect the man’s body from infection and injury from invading bacteria. I know that most of us don’t think of our genitalia as being part of our body’s first line of immune responses. However, like our sinuses, nostrils and mouth, they are. The foreskin is unique in that it’s able to completely unfold itself, something that lips and eyelids cannot do. On an adult male, the “tiny” bit of skin becomes, actually, a surface area roughly the size of a 3×5 index card when fully retracted.  Some reports include fully retracted foreskins measuring 15 square inches!

Inside of the foreskin is smooth muscle tissue called the peripenic muscle. These muscle fibers come together in a whorl at the tip of the penis, forming a sphincter, which generally keeps the foreskin snugly covering the glans. The foreskin is tethered to the underside of the base of the glans by the frenulum, another interesting structure that has it’s own purposes and is generally partially or fully removed during circumcision as well. Furthermore, some of the conduits for blood supply run throughout the foreskin and some doctors believe that removing these conduits may contribute to erectile dysfunction.

Then of course there is the consideration of the foreskin’s sexual purpose. The reality is that the penis’ primary function is for procreation. If we were to completely amputate a man’s penis, he would still be able to pee (though I doubt he’d be happy about it). He would not, however, be able to mate. From a biological perspective, mating is a necessary and integral part of human existence. And from a not so biological perspective, sex is an important part of most people’s healthy psychological existence (I know I am not a happy person without it!).

The foreskin contains an enormous amount of nerve endings.    In fact, contrary to popular opinion, most of the erotogenous nerve endings in the penis are in the foreskin!  Unlike the glans, the foreskin is sensitive to the slightest nuances of light, heat and cold, and all different kinds of touch.  The glans is actually one of the least sensitive parts of the male body, particularly among circumcised men.  The foreskin is also responsible for facilitating the smooth gliding action necessary for comfortable intercourse for both partners. Lube is rarely necessary during intercourse for couples with an intact penis at play. Not only that but to come back to the frenulum, there is interesting research that suggests that the stretching sensations at that area of the body play a key role in ejaculation.    It has been suggested by experts that men who have problems ejaculating AND men who suffer from premature ejaculation would all benefit from having a foreskin.  Also, mentioned above, the foreskin contains an important vascular system, the removal of which is now thought to contribute to ED in many men.

Certainly, if we consider genitals “working properly” to only include stuff coming out when it’s supposed to and orgasms being possible, then neither MGM or FGM could really be considered mutilation. All the parts function “well enough”. However, they do not function as they are supposed to and that is the crux of the issue and why, ultimately, we can correctly refer to circumcision as mutilation.

Just because a mother leaves a birth physically whole and with a healthy baby does not mean she leaves a healthy woman.

Physical health is only part of it. For mothers and subsequently their babies AND the rest of their families, emotional and spiritual health are paramount. As such, a system that facilitates mothers leaving the birth process physically fine but emotionally shattered should be unacceptable to everyone. I believe this is one of the core problems within our society today.

The births of my children affected me in a deeply profound way. I do not believe this is something unique to my experience. No matter what the circumstances surrounding the births of our children are, it leaves a mark on us that never goes away. When a woman walks into the birthing room, the one thing we can be sure of is that she will leave it a changed woman. This is absolutely true for every birth she has.

My first birthing blew my mind. It was powerful, transforming, difficult and required every bit of emotional and physical strength I knew I possessed…and much more than I had ever imagined I was capable of. I walked away from it with a confidence and trust in myself that nothing else I had ever experienced could have given me. Somehow, my travail during labor had unlocked a door to an inner place of knowing that I was previously unaware of. From behind that locked door I found reserves I had no idea I possessed. Courage. Strength. Fortitude. Sensitivity. Love. Passion. Endurance. Wisdom. Out of that secret room walked the mother I would become and continue to grow into.

What would my self-image as a mother be if I had left the birthing room broken, sad and filled with a sense of failure or shame? What if my experience had been one that underscored my secret fears of inadequacy? Or worse, what if it was an experienced that left me feeling raped, abused and mistreated? This is a reality for many of our sisters, people! Maybe it has even been true for some of the people reading this. How many women have experienced a birth that seemed to confirm their deepest fears about their adequacy as a mother? I cannot pretend that I understand this but my heart goes out to each and every woman who’s experience was one of negative trauma and pain.

The process of birth is so much more than the normal, physiological process of baby-ejection. The natural process of birth is meant to not only bring forth a baby but to bring forth a mother. I have heard birthing described by some as a Rite of Passage. I feel this is an entirely accurate description. It’s an unfortunate truth that the majority of women in our society do not experience it as such. Our culture does not celebrate birth as an accomplishment of the mother. Instead, our culture celebrates a successful birth as the accomplishment of whoever caught the baby, in most cases, the doctor or some other person of the medical establishment. Mom is just a necessary machine at best, an inconvenient problem-waiting-to-happen at worst. We see this clearly when we read reports of babies born in taxi-cabs or on airplanes. “Hero Taxi-driver saves the day!” I’ve read article after article of “miracle babies” and their “hero baby-catchers” but rarely do I ever see any mention of the enormous accomplishment of the mother. I’ve never seen an article titled “Amazing Mother Delivers Child by the Side of the Road” and if I did, I guarantee you it would be about one woman catching another’s baby. This lack of recognition for the mother’s work in the process is so deeply ingrained in our society that most of us think nothing of acknowledging the baby-catcher as the person that “delivered” our babies instead of ourselves! Many women in our society today, some would even argue most, begin motherhood with an experience that is invalidating.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard “you delivered your own baby?!” spoken in tones ranging from horrified to incredulous. I always want to shout “Well who ELSE would have?! You think the doctor pushes the baby out?” I’ve hired midwives to assist me twice and as much as I appreciate their time and the work they did, they certainly did NOT deliver my babies. Nobody can birth the baby but the mother. Yes I bloody well delivered my babies and that would be true whether I had them at home or in a cave, with a “professional” or not. And you know what else? I’m damn proud of it.

Mother’s need to walk away from their births feeling proud of their accomplishments, not beat down by the system, invalidated or coddled. It’s not just what happens in the birthing room, either, it’s about societies attitude in general about birth. It’s either “no big deal” or it’s an imminent emergency. It’s NOT either of these things. Yes, it’s no big deal in the sense that it’s an ordinary part of life. So is death, right? I doubt very seriously any person is going to tell you that facing death or loosing someone that you love is “no big deal” just because it’s an inevitable part of living. It’s as much a normal part of life as loosing a tooth but it’s a very, very big deal and so is giving birth. Giving birth is one of those “crossing a bridge” moments in life that changes you from the inside out more completely than anyone can possibly describe. This is true whether it happens in a teepee by a fire or on the operating table. Respect and yes, even reverence, is due to the women who walk across that bridge.

It’s absolutely not an inherent emergency. It does happen that pathology rears it’s ugly head during a birth however, birth itself is not pathological at all. We, as a society, need to get away from the idea that women need “saving” from their births. This is an absolutely insidious idea. The subliminal message, there, is that mother’s can’t be trusted to give birth. And if they can’t be trusted to birth the baby, who can say that they can be trusted to raise the baby? Giving birth, in all it’s majesty and glory is still just the very beginning of what will be a very long, maybe even life-time journey. The awesome responsibility only BEGINS with the birth! When mothers walk away from their births without any acknowledgment of what they’ve accomplished, feeling as if they’ve failed somehow, they leave with an unhealthy perspective of themselves from which to mother their children. Where is their pride? Their confidence? The assurance that if they can bring forth a child, under their own power, surely they can raise it, too?

I’m not just talking about natural birth, here, either. My first birth wasn’t a “natural” birth. It was a vaginal birth and I daresay I had far more of a “natural” experience than most of the women I know! But it wasn’t natural. It was monitored and checked and tracked and artificially enhanced. However, the attitude I was surrounded with and the attitude I had, personally, is what made the difference. Nobody was trying to tell me they were handling everything. I received a little assistance because that is what we all thought I needed but at no point was I ever given the impression that I was not ultimately in control of what was happening. MY birth. Mine. This wasn’t a procedure. This wasn’t the day-job of someone else nor was it their responsibility. “We’ll take care of you” never reached my ears. This was about me giving birth, period. And that is what I did. I didn’t leave feeling like birth happened to me. I will never look back on my birth and feel anything but accomplished, proud or happy. I believe this is possible even for women that need serious interventions to remain safe or for the sake of their babes. The attitude she has and the attitudes of her caregivers and support team make all the difference in the world.

Viewing birth as a Rite of Passage and something that is entirely within the mother’s autonomy is absolutely essential to making any kind of lasting changes in our birthing system. Yes, shout and holler about the unnecessary increases in cesarean rates. Continue to storm and vent about our abysmal maternal and fetal mortality statistics. But understand that the changes that need to be made START in our hearts and in our minds. They start first in our women. Feminism needs to embrace birth as an issue to rally together behind. Mothers need to recognize that the responsibility for their births is their own and nobody else’s. Fathers need to trust the mothers of their children, family members need to support HER in HER decisions and look to HER to birth the child, not the caregivers. Caregivers need to recognize that theirs is a role of support, not of dominance. Society as a whole needs to honor it’s mothers and raise their daughters not to fear birth, but to respect and revere it. Period. Because from our mothers comes our future. Emotionally and spiritually whole mothers raise emotionally and spiritually whole children and maintain the same for their families. Healthy families ARE a healthy society.

However, before I get into the issues I feel so strongly about, I’d like to share my story. I find it infinitely fascinating how good people are at deceiving themselves, believing what they want and generally being oblivious in their thinking. I am certainly not above this, it’s a very human thing to do and the last time I checked, anyway, I was still human. I mean, it might not be believable in the morning, but trust me, technically it’s true.

Circumcision is one of those issues that has mom’s flaring at the nostrils and screaming in protest regardless of how they personally feel about the issue. I remember the first time someone challenged me on the topic and how furious I was when she suggested I was advocating for infant mutilation. I was, to put it blandly, enraged.

I grew up being raised in a blended faith. My family are Messianics: Jews who embrace Jesus as the Messiah promised in the Tenach. I remember my youngest brother’s Bris quite well but because his Bris was a reception only (the actual procedure was done in the hospital), and the only other one I’d ever been to happened when I was so young I couldn’t really remember it, I had no idea, really, what circumcision entailed other than my parent’s sublime explanation: “It’s when a little flap of skin is cut off as a sign….”

Years later, I married a man who wasn’t circumcised. Not to go into too much private detail but I will tell you that I thought it was so COOL he wasn’t. I had this idea that it made him unique, almost exotic. I laugh a little at myself now, of course. I have only ever “been with” my husband so it’s not as if I had anything at all to compare it to and now, of course, it seems ridiculous to consider something entirely normal as “exotic”.

However, as we talked here n there about our faith, future children, that sort of thing, circumcision came up a lot. At that time in my life, I truly believed that our son(s) needed to be circumcised. That not doing it to him would be a sin. For me. Not him, for me and for my husband.

I am explaining this to demonstrate the backwards and completely blinded point of view I had at that time. When I conceived my first child, I still felt that circumcision was just something I had to do. Thankfully, she came out without a penis, lol. I deeply cared about my child and had she been born a boy I would have had her circumcised believing I was doing the very best thing for her physically AND spiritually. I wasn’t any less of a loving person then. I haven’t become more intelligent over the last 6 years, either.

That said, I was definitely thinking backwards. See, I would never have dreamed of asking my husband to be circumcised. If asked, I would have explained why by saying that it was his body, not mine, and that the decision to cut himself was between him and God.

Are you catching the discrepancy here? It wasn’t ok for me to ask a grown man to choose for himself but it was entirely ok with me to make that decision for my defenseless baby?!

Then, one day, when my oldest was about a year old, I become involved (to my embarrassment, now) in a flame-war going on in a wonderful little yahoo-group that revolved around birthing. As I’m sure you can imagine, mother’s are vicious and don’t really pull any punches when they are advocating their motherly choices for their children. This little war was epic, yes it was. Someone had posted an informative link regarding circumcision awareness and someone else had immediately retorted about being judged and it went off from there. I kept my mouth shut at that point as my personal opinion was that circumcision for any reason other than religious was stupid. But then, the fateful words hit my inbox: “Mutilating your son in the name of your god is still wrong, regardless of your religion.” Ooh I was hot! SO angry. It was like someone punched me in the stomach. How DARE this woman comment on something so intimate and personal as another person’s religious beliefs! I’m afraid I wasn’t even really “hearing” her point, I was just pissed she presumed to know another person’s heart when making decisions like this. Looking back on it, she didn’t say anything cruel or intentionally insulting, she was just speaking the truth. But it was ON in that moment. I wrote a lengthy, heartfelt, passionate response. She returned it with one of her own. She made me look like a complete idiot without even trying because she had all this “information” about what was done and it’s life-long implications and I realized I had no idea what I was talking about! So I set about researching her claims, intent on digging up the opposite research to shut her up.

That isn’t what happened, though. I had been told growing up that the anti-circumcision movement was “the Enemy’s” attack on God’s people. That it was anti-Semitic, etc etc. And I was convinced that I could prove her wrong by going to science. After all, wasn’t it true that being circumcised was healthier? I mean, obviously she was just bigoted or misled…right? RIGHT?

Nope. No, in fact, every click I made drew me further and further into an education I didn’t even know I needed. I learned, for the first time in my life, what a foreskin really was and how it compared to female anatomy. I also learned about other forms of ritual genital mutilation that are NOT socially acceptable but defended with the exact same arguments as what I was using! (referring to Female Genital Mutilation, here) I watched circumcision videos (not for the faint of heart, let me tell you! I cried…a lot). I read medical websites devoted both to defending the practice and ousting it as an outdated unnecessary and yes, harmful procedure. I learned things I never dreamed could be true, including that just as many baby boys die during the neonatal period of their lives from being circumcised as do from SIDS. THAT interesting fact spurned me to learn even more and by the end, I was a changed person. I was humbled and I had some serious thinking and soul-searching to do.

I, like so many others, looked for ways around the religious “need” without actually denouncing circumcision. I researched “gentler” ways to remove the foreskin from the son I hoped for, even going so far as to consider doing it myself so that it was done “Biblically” and with the least amount of harm possible!

It was then, when considering doing it myself that I realized that I had lost my friggin’ mind! I mean, I’m sitting there, considering cutting a piece of my son off myself in order to protect him from harm!?!?! What was WRONG with me? I came to the conclusion that there was something seriously wrong with my thinking. My husband, of course, had been going through his own thoughts and research about it and obviously, being uncirced himself, came to the same conclusions. It was a relief, in a way, but posed other issues for us. Concerns about “sin” and about rejection from my family (who still see this as something sacred and necessary). I’ll come back to my thoughts on that at a later time, though.

I’m happy and even proud to say that now I have a 13mo old baby boy who is happily and blissfully ignorant of what he’s been spared. His body was left intact, as it was designed and functions normally. It may be that someday he’ll grow up and, for his own reasons, decide to get circumcised. I admit that as his mother I hope he doesn’t: I think he’s perfectly created just the way he is and it would be a real shame to mutilate a part of his perfect little body. But it’s his decision ultimately, and that’s what matters. HIS choice. Not mine.

I share all of this because I want people to understand that I get it. I know how complicated and difficult this “choice” feels because I’ve been there. I’ve agonized over it, defended it and seethed when anyone contradicted my perceptions of reality.

I really want to talk about this more, it’s a subject I’ve come to feel very passionate about. I want to help stop this horrible practice and help other parents to wake up and see what it is we’re doing! I realize this topic will piss people off. For a long time I hesitated to write about it because I don’t really like intentionally offending people. Unfortunately, though, the truth is the truth. Sometimes hearing it angers people. That’s ok. If someone hadn’t offended me, my son’s little penis would be mutilated today and I sincerely hope that I can share that gift of “enlightenment” with someone else.