Janey Lee

Wow, our doula, who is now training to become a midwife posted a really interesting blog post on circumcision.

Circumcision as we understand it today originated when God commanded that Hebrews were the chosen people and that circumcision was to be performed on male babies as part of agreeing to such a covenant. Today, circumcision involves removing the vast majority of the prepuce (foreskin) of the penis, but back then, they removed only the tip of the foreskin, just “taking a little off the top,” so to speak. This procedure was called the “Mosaic” circumcision, and it didn’t require retracting the foreskin from the glans (head) of the penis. (It’s called “Mosaic” because Moses’ wife circumcised her husband in just such a way, ’cause he lived with the Egyptians and they didn’t do circumcision.)

But the Greeks, you see, who revered the male figure and wouldn’t have dreamed of “mutilating” the penis, did a lot of socializing and making public policy in bath houses, naked. Any Jewish man who wanted to assimilate into this scene needed to fit in somehow, and many circumcised men would attach weights to their now-shortened foreskins, to stretch them out to a passable length. The Rabbis got wind of this and it didn’t fly. They decreed that now Jewish baby boys needed to have all the foreskin removed, and the “Rabbinic” circumcision is how we circumcise boys to this day, no matter what their heritage.

We didn’t circumcise Mateo because its not a part of Pablo’s culture, and I am dead against it unless you are Jewish. Read Jocelyn’s full post here. It has the details on how they actually perform circumcision. You might want to avoid reading it if you are squeamish, or prefer to be in denial because your son has had one. However, if you are considering having it done to your son, PLEASE READ IT!