Parents from non circumcised cultures/countries with circumcised children

This is a topic that has long interested me - perhaps some forum members are able to contribute here.

When you get parents who have migrated to a country where circumcision was considered 'normal' and have their kids there, how do you think their cultural background weighs up against either doctor's recommendation or the norms of the new culture?

I know myself, growing up in Australia I had many friends from culturally diverse backgrounds, but only the Greek kids seemed to be uncircumcised.

My friend with German parents, my friends with Scottish/English parents, my very best friend who was half Swiss and half English, my buddy on the soccer team who's parents were these loud happy Italian migrants...they were all circumcised. I often wondered if it was something their parents questioned at all, if it was a conscious decision to allow them to 'fit in' (if they even knew that that was a thing), or if they just followed a recommendation. I know RIC was incredibly widespread at the time in Australia but I don't think it was just an automatic 'take the baby away and bring him back circumcised' type of situation. I could be wrong but I don't think so.

Does anyone fall into this category or know people who do? Can you add any insight for me?

My parents were from a non-cutting country, but had I not been born very prematurely, I would have gotten snipped. My mom in particular was very swayed by the hygiene argument.

Feesii

Where were they from? Any ideas what your father's thoughts were (I'm assuming he is/was not circumcised).

I know myself, growing up in Australia I had many friends from culturally diverse backgrounds, but only the Greek kids seemed to be uncircumcised.

I am often amazed how everybody apparently seemed to know about everyone's circumcision status. You'd think kids did nothing but compare their pricks with each other all the time so everything became common knowledge.

This is not my experience though. I am not cut, yet grew up in 1950's-60's USA, the heyday of circumcising kids at birth, and yet I simply cannot for the life of me remember any of us kids talking about the subject. I went to the YMCA at the time and there was the mandatory nude swimming thing, so there was no real way to hide my statistically unusual condition from anyone. Yet I still never got any reactions, one way or the other. No discussions, no questions no talking about me or about others. No one seemed to care.

Agracier

Experiences are obviously different from person to person. As the lone uncircumcised kid (other than the few Greek kids) in my school, I certainly noticed the differences between myself and the rest of my peers.

As the lone uncircumcised kid (other than the few Greek kids) in my school, I certainly noticed the differences between myself and the rest of my peers.

Can you say which years those were for you? For me it was the 1950-s to 1963.

Now, I will say that I noticed the difference, in an offhanded sort of way, not really caring one way or the other. And I certainly never had anyone comment on my un-cut penis.

Luckily, I now think, my family left the US the year before I would have gone to High School. I have a sneaking suspicion that had I ever been to a US High School, I would have had my ass kicked 3 ways from here to Sunday for any number of typical reasons, one among them I suppose for not being circumcised, or maybe for reading too many books. Any reason is apparently good enough in High School ... ha ha ha

Where were they from? Any ideas what your father's thoughts were (I'm assuming he is/was not circumcised).

An East Asian country. My mom did all the bathing and stuff when I was a young boy since she was a stay at home mother. Growing up, she thought my foreskin was too long and not hygienic. What I can recall is that my dad, like many East Asians, has a short foreskin. Either that or he got circumcised, but that is not something I'm going to ask him.

Feesi: Was she tempted to get you done at a later age?

The Hygiene Argument is (nowadays) the most stupid argument.....unless you lieve in the jungle and around 1000 miles away from civilization

It’s an old argument that comes from the people living in the desert without and or with very limited water

Nowadays it’s old fashioned and unless there is a real medical reason and really no other way around I’m totally against it and call it a crime doing it on kids

Can you say which years those were for you? For me it was the 1950-s to 1963.

This was mid 80's to early 90's.

I have a sneaking suspicion that had I ever been to a US High School, I would have had my ass kicked 3 ways from here to Sunday for any number of typical reasons, one among them I suppose for not being circumcised, or maybe for reading too many books. Any reason is apparently good enough in High School ... ha ha ha

For me it was worse in primary school. Much worse. In high school I just used the stalls to pee in and kept my mouth shut if people talked about circumcision. In primary school I was bullied regularly. As you say, kids don't need much reason to turn savage, especially when there's a group of them.

I’m afraid what underlies the quiet need to conform with the others that the original post alludes to is a mixture of medical misinformation, peer pressure, bullying and even racism.

American women often say they’d always circumcise their child to ‘prevent self-consciousness’ when naked around other boys. Children in particular can be vicious, and if it’s not the victim’s foreskin (or lack of) it’ll be their height, nose size, build or skin colour offering no easy options for change.

Circumcised children mixing with a majority who aren’t may feel just as awkward but have less they can do about it.

Going back to Roman times, when business was often carried out naked in the baths, Jewish men would use skin stretching techniques still used today to slowly restore their foreskins, to avoid racial disadvantage.

And as others have said, the ‘medical justification’ is mostly nonsense. Even the few with tight foreskins impeding sex will find, studies have shown, that it will quickly loosen anyway with the sexual activities following puberty. Encouraging young boys to retract their foreskin when washing (or masturbating) serves the additional purpose of reducing tightness.

Away from the religious dogma of some areas, unwarranted circumcision is widely seen medically as genital mutilation and so an assault on the mostly young boys who cannot consent. I suspect that Law will slowly catch up with this belief and makes surgeons more cautious.

So, ignore what the locals are doing wherever you may live.

Feesi: Was she tempted to get you done at a later age?

She offered to pay for it if I decided to. I did not opt to get cut.

The girl I went to school with went to the USA. There she gave birth to a son. She refused to be circumcised after giving birth, despite being encouraged to do so. Then she changed her mind. She did it because she decided that her son would be different from others. At the age of 8, the boy was circumcised. His mother said she was relieved when the surgery began. She regretted not having decided to do so right after birth.

I don't know if adapting to others is good. But often children who differ from others are ridiculed and humiliated.

I don't know if adapting to others is good. But often children who differ from others are ridiculed and humiliated.

Do people/parents really think - or even wish - for their kids to be comparing genitalia with other kids? Do they think this is even a frequent enough occurrence to warrant genital conformity through surgery?

I really and truly highly doubt that parents approve much of kids comparing penises. So why in the world would they come up with such illogical arguments in the first place? It seems to me they are being shamed into something that few people would know about in any case.

Believe me, kids who are different in other far more obvious respects get ridiculed too, such as for wearing glasses, different fashions, having funny teeth, skin color, hair type and the perennial favorite: for being too smart compared to others.

That some people are weak enough to follow fashions for fear of ‘looking different’ is well known; likewise that children in particular will turn against any others who appear different. Animals do the same, and as we Humans evolved from these, it should be no great surprise that the less evolved/intelligent of our species, e.g. children who have yet to develop/mature or adults who never did at all, act similarly.

But some fashions are permanent. If your parents choose to give you a hairstyle or clothing that blends in with other children, no lasting harm is done. But some choices, like tattoos, are forever, and should therefore only be made by the individual in adulthood with appropriate advice/cautions in place.

Circumcision is (almost) irreversible; it should not be the parents’ choice. In most Countries you can no longer choose Female Genital Mutilation for your daughter, no matter how common it may be there. Likewise, the choice to circumcise your young son should and probably will be gradually taken away, as with FGM, lead by surgeons fearing prosecution who’ll want a better reason than ‘To look like the other boys in the locker-room’.

It is indeed perverse that mothers, the givers of love and nurture to their young sons, are so often the drivers behind male circumcision. It is one thing to be a fashion victim oneself, but quite another to be one by proxy to a child under your care.

The clitoris of course starts life in the womb no different from a penis, and even after later development and birth has the same central importance in sexual stimulation. If I was to offer any female an operation to remove the hood and permanently expose it, causing discomfort for many weeks, a risk as with any operation of complications like blood loss or infection, rarely leading to organ amputation or even death, and the likelihood that lifetime sexual sensitivity will reduce by something between a little and a lot, the female population’s response would be one of horror and revulsion. Male circumcision carries exactly these consequences & risks.

It is not any parent’s right or choice. Hands off the little boys.

It is indeed perverse that mothers, the givers of love and nurture to their young sons, are so often the drivers behind male circumcision. It is one thing to be a fashion victim oneself, but quite another to be one by proxy to a child under your care.

I give you my word at least that any son of mine will get to keep his skin, barring major problems.

Here it was optional and depended upon culture as well. The Dutch boys all had foreskins along with the Maori boys.

When you get parents who have migrated to a country where circumcision was considered 'normal' and have their kids there, how do you think their cultural background weighs up against either doctor's recommendation or the norms of the new culture?

This happened to my Belgian mother when we moved to US in the early 1950s. My younger brother was born in NJ and even though my mother was adamantly against circumcision, after labor she found out that he had been cut after all, despite her personally expressed wishes to the doctor.

It was something that still pissed her off when she was old in her 80s, of being totally ignored because she had a different opinion on a cultural matter. Every now then the issue came up among other culturally related matters she had to face while living in the US.

Conversely, I can attest that when moving to another country, even one with relatively similar norms and customs, there will always be areas of difference with conflicting ideas that can at times become problematic for the newly arrived person.

Not my specific situation but I do have mates who's fathers were born in Europe (so probably uncircumcised) who were circumcised themselves. I was supprised by this but I assume it was offered by the doctor and the parents just "went with the flow". Be interested in others experiences/observations

This is a very loaded question. Religion is often the strongest factor, so families moving to countries where circumcision is practiced for religious reasons are likely to circumcise their children. In Lebanon, for example, Christian males are often circumcised because the practice is favored by the Muslim majority. Similarly, Jews who immigrated from the former Soviet Union to Israel were often expected to undergo the procedure.

In the US, the decision is often made in consultation with healthcare providers and is highly dependent on an immigrant family’s access to healthcare, which varies not only across states but also across localities. If children have good healthcare coverage through one of their parents, they are likely to undergo annual physical examinations, and their physicians are likely to discuss the potential benefits of the procedure with their parents.

It is a very different situation if the family lacks adequate coverage. In that case, children are more likely to be enrolled in a state Medicaid program and/or rely on community-based healthcare, which is often more limited. Additionally, some states no longer cover routine infant circumcision under their Medicaid programs.

There are other factors, of course, but in many cases decisions are made based on the recommendation of a pediatrician or a primary care physician.

I was born in the USA in the early 60s and I was not circumcised from what I was told was my older, male pediatrician did not agree with the prevailing medical opinions that boys should be circumcised. What my parents apparently were not told was that almost all boys born around the same time were indeed circumcised and I didn't really understand why I looked different until I saw a different woman pediatrician at age 9 that recommended circumcision on all boys and wanted to refer me. My father at the time thought I was too young to make that decision but then in 6th grade when almost all the other boys were circumcised and some of them made ugly comments about my penis and laughed at me I decided I wanted to look like almost everyone else but when the surgeon showed where she would cut I started crying and didn't understand why just that it terrified me so I didnt do it despite the bullying.

The topic is very interesting. First, I'll start with myself and my brothers' experience, a little of what I know, after we emigrated to the US for a while because of my dad's job.

Being from Spain, here in the 80s to the 2000s was a time of change and transition. Circumcision, referred to in the medical and social system as the phimosis operation, why was it usually only recommended for that one reason.

When my parents went through the entire visa process, one of the requirements was a general medical exam, done by doctors recommended by the US embassy. I was circumcised for medical reasons when I was practically 7 years old. But from comments made by my brothers and parents, I know that circumcision was recommended for my three brothers, two older and one younger, either in Spain before emigrating or in the US, once in the medical system.

My parents say they weren't sure and since it wasn't mandatory, they decided to wait to investigate and see how my siblings adapted to life in the US.

In the six years we lived in the US, the subject never came up again, but my siblings did mention that it was somewhat awkward in the school showers; luckily, they're intelligent.

I was the only one who stayed in the US, got married and has three children, none of them circumcised. Of course, they're not in the same era anymore; to date, they haven't experienced any social pressure, but medically, I have had to change pediatricians a couple of times because of his inappropriate comments. Clearly pro-circumcision, one older doctor and one younger doctor.