To Get on This Team, You've Got to Make the Cut

For once, I'm glad the biblical patriarchs didn't give as much attention to their girls. Circumcision is weird.

I remember clearly when the thought first hit me, even though it was 16 years ago. I was nursing my infant son, surrounded by loved ones who had gathered to celebrate our firstborn's circumcision.

	More on Circumcision News: Rabbinical Group Confronts Doubts Which faiths perform the ritual? See our circumcision chart. A Jewish Mother Questions Tradition by Lisa Braver Moss "Why I Perform Circumcisions" by mohelet Dorothy F. Greenbaum Paul Got Christians Off the Hook by Thomas Lynch

The mohel (ritual circumciser) gently asked me not to nurse the baby because my son might pee on the spectators. Over those first seven days, I too had learned to move quickly with a new diaper--and to giggle at the tender outrages of parenthood. So I laughed. But then I panicked. It was as if I suddenly came to my senses.

This was crazy! I had yearned for this child, doing everything I could to protect him during my pregnancy. Now I should submit him to have--of all things--the tip of his penis altered?! A penis that was perfectly healthy just the way it was! Was this a perverse joke?

I felt betrayed. I had assumed that the naming ceremony would bring the same warmth that other Jewish rituals had brought to my life's events. Big mistake!

Tradition wisely dictates that the mother should not be present during the circumcision, so I fumed and gnashed my teeth in another room. Luckily, it was over quickly--long before my sputtering hardened to courage. One second longer, and I would have stormed the living room to rescue my baby and apologize to my guests for involving them in this disturbing ritual.

If my son cried, I didn't hear him. In fact, I never ever saw any indication that it hurt him at all. But reality is no match for my anxiety. After a day or so of caring for the "area," which had turned an alarming shade of scarlet, I went to see my pediatrician.

"Is this the way it's supposed to look?" I asked. He peered over his glasses to make sure our gazes locked, and dripping with sarcasm he said, "This is the best looking penis I've ever seen in my life."

I fired him. But the implication stuck. If I was so upset by this business, why had I done it? Especially since pediatricians say circumcisions have no effect on health.

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