With my first son, I didn't really think twice about circumcision.  It was part of our spiritual culture and belief that this should be done to all males as stated by the Nazarite vow.  A vow that my husband and I took before we conceived. 

But then they brought my 2 day onld son back to me after having it done and I really began to question if I had made the right decision.  My son had tears all over his face and his penis was so red and tender.  It seemed like such tremendous shock to put a newborn child through, as if transitioning to the world of light was not enough, now he had to have a precious part of his foreskin removed and the hardest part was I wasn't exactly sure why.

Yes our culture said it was the right thing to do, but perhaps when these words were written thousands of years ago there was a neccessity for this practice, but is it still neccessary today?  I pondered over this even after my second son was born.  I gave birth to our second child at home, and we had an unassissted birth, so there was no one to perform a circumcision at the time, but for the first year of his life I went back and forth in my head about whether we would circumcise him.  I thought about what he would think when he got older and saw that his brother and father were circumcised and he wasn't.  I thought about if my older son would be upset with us because we did it to him and not to his brother.  I thought about the breaking of a vow that I took with my whole heart in it.  And then I saw a circumcision being performed and that was the end of my wondering what to do.

I knew that I could never put another child that I gave birth to through such pain without a legitimate reason.  And I made peace with the Nazarite vow which I begin to interpret as one can also be circumcised (or cleansed) in the heart.  Which I believe my whole family is.

I don't encourage or discourage anyone either way, but for us I learned what works.

www.nocirc.org is a wonderful site for Circumcision Information and Resources