To Snip or not to Snip

Overheard between Small girl aged 4 and Small boy aged 6 while in the bath.

Small boy: “Girls don’t have willies.”

Small girl: “We don’t need them.”

Small boy: “My friend only has half a willie.”

Small girl: “Why?”

Small boy: “When he was born his mum chopped half of it off.”

I was floored, speechless and apoplectic with hysteria. That poor child.

Circumcision is a touchy subject. 

Do you or don’t you? 

I hadn’t given it a moment’s thought until my eldest made his appearance.

Unless it is for specific religious reasons, circumcision is not offered in the United Kingdom. In South Africa you give birth and the little tyke is whipped off to be snipped before you can say, “Is it a boy or a girl?”     

On the second day of my firstborn’s life in London we took him to the hospital for his shots. The nurse had to draw blood and my husband became more and more irate as she tried and failed. Eventually he threatened to take her life if she so much as thought about putting another needle in the fruit of his seed. There was no way he was going to let some surgeon wield a scalpel anywhere near his son.

By the time the second son made his appearance in sunny South Africa we had time to think about it. Once more we balked. Now I reckon if either of them ever decides it is something they want to do, they can. I do not want to be in a similar position to the parents of boy who went to school with my husband. Said boy is now in his forties and suing his parents for circumcising him at birth without his consent.

Parenting is one of those adventures plagued with those pesky damned if you do, damned if you don’t decisions.