OP here. I don't find this persuasive. In fact, it is attitudes like yours that affirm my desire not to have a circumcision. I don't appreciate being bullied into doing something by my "community", nor do I believe that my child shouldn't be able to participate in Judaism just because of something his body does or doesn't have. I understand my husband's point of view but we are both the baby's parents so I don't see why I shouldn't have a say in the decision as well. There are lots of things that have been traditions in the past or that are supposedly "required" that we don't do anymore, and there are Jews who practice Judaism to varying degrees. I don't understand why so many other aspects of Judaism are flexible but this one is not. I don't believe in God, so the argument that God commanded something does not hold value for me. Some of the parts of Judaism that are valuable to me are the imperatives to be kind to others, to not harm others, and to ask questions and seek meaningful personal answers and decisions. In that sense, I think I am acting in alignment with Jewish values and with my own values by questioning whether circumcision is the right choice for our family.

Anonymous wrote:Just have the darn bris. It is a tradition that your husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc all were part of. There are a lot of things as parents we want to protect our kids from and I completely understand that but ths goes beyond that.

If you are Jewish and plan to raise your kid Jewish, just have the damn circumcision. Plus, didn't you say your husband wanted it? He has a penis and still would have it done...why overthnk this?

Took a couple of minutes to find that research which has been cited hundreds of times. Age of study is irrelevant if nothing has superceded it.

Anonymous wrote:Wanna know what else hurts? Vaccines. We do them anyway. In Judiasm, G-d commands that we circumcise. This is not up for debate.

I'm a bad Jew. I eat spare ribs and cheeseburgers and don't go to synagogue except for the high holidays. But, as my grandmother would say, not circumsizing a Jewish baby is a real shonda.

I often think of my grandparents when making big decisions- what would they say if I did xyz? It's a very useful guide.

Breaking the rules for your own pleasures, sure. Oh, the hypocrisy!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just have the darn bris. It is a tradition that your husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc all were part of. There are a lot of things as parents we want to protect our kids from and I completely understand that but ths goes beyond that.

If you are Jewish and plan to raise your kid Jewish, just have the damn circumcision. Plus, didn't you say your husband wanted it? He has a penis and still would have it done...why overthnk this?

+1000

Talk about peer pressure...

Anonymous wrote:Just have the darn bris. It is a tradition that your husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc all were part of. There are a lot of things as parents we want to protect our kids from and I completely understand that but ths goes beyond that.

If you are Jewish and plan to raise your kid Jewish, just have the damn circumcision. Plus, didn't you say your husband wanted it? He has a penis and still would have it done...why overthnk this?

+1000

Just have the darn bris. It is a tradition that your husband, father, grandfather, great grandfather, etc all were part of. There are a lot of things as parents we want to protect our kids from and I completely understand that but ths goes beyond that.

If you are Jewish and plan to raise your kid Jewish, just have the damn circumcision. Plus, didn't you say your husband wanted it? He has a penis and still would have it done...why overthnk this?

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/118/5/2231.short. This is the 2006 American academy of pediatrics guideline on management of pain in the neonate. Please point me to the place in this quite line which shows that increased sleep in the neonate is a sign of pain.

Who is posting references from 1971 and 1985? Why so recent? probably took you a long time to dig this out. btw read it yourself it says that as cortisol levels return to normal 240 minutes after circ, that's 4 hrs. None of the newborns in these samples the sample size was 80 btw, received anesthesia. Your 1971 reference has a sample size of 6. I would be embarrassed to post something like this to reinforce my point. Again, previous posters stated that we have effective ways to control pain during circumcision. You can be pro or anti circumcision whatever, this is a religious question. If you are planing on raising your child Jewish, this is one of our covenants.

Anonymous wrote:Wanna know what else hurts? Vaccines. We do them anyway. In Judiasm, G-d commands that we circumcise. This is not up for debate.

I'm a bad Jew. I eat spare ribs and cheeseburgers and don't go to synagogue except for the high holidays. But, as my grandmother would say, not circumsizing a Jewish baby is a real shonda.

I often think of my grandparents when making big decisions- what would they say if I did xyz? It's a very useful guide.

In what way is a vaccine comparable to cutting off the most sensitive part of the penis?!

Wanna know what else hurts? Vaccines. We do them anyway. In Judiasm, G-d commands that we circumcise. This is not up for debate.

I'm a bad Jew. I eat spare ribs and cheeseburgers and don't go to synagogue except for the high holidays. But, as my grandmother would say, not circumsizing a Jewish baby is a real shonda.

I often think of my grandparents when making big decisions- what would they say if I did xyz? It's a very useful guide.

http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1130094?uid=3739584&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21102457696231

Anonymous wrote:Actually newborns signs of pain are irritability, lack of sleep, crying, hyper reflexes and poor feeding. Increase sleepiness only happens with diseases of the Cns such as meningitis. So stop spreading misinformation.

Read this: http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/33/6/491.short

Anonymous wrote:For those who think that circumcision does not cause pain, can you provide any research studies to support that claim?

The argument that the baby won't remember is not convincing to me -- you can do a lot of painful things to a baby or to a child that they won't remember, but that doesn't mean it's right to do those things.

+1. I never get the "he won't remember" argument - seems pretty callous to me.

Anonymous wrote:This had nothing to do with OPs question, FFS

It does. Her reason for asking about the Brit Shalom ceremony was that she didn't want to cause her newborn pain, and then some posters tried to convince her that the pain was absent or not that bad. So yes, this is a legitimate tangent. Don't read the thread if you don't like it.

This had nothing to do with OPs question, FFS