MGM and FGM: A comparison

Look. These aren't the same. I'm not saying they are. There are different types of each, some more and less severe. The most common type of female genital mutilation is more severe than the most common type of male genital mutilation.

But they are the same in that both rob a child of his or her right to his or her full body.
They both take away part of a human being without consent.
They both cause excruciating pain to the victim.
They can both cause death.
They both are attempted to be justified by religious reasons
They both are attempted to be justified by medical reasons.
They are both societally considered acceptable, albiet in different parts of the world.
They are both intended to rob the victim of sexual pleasure.

Consent is what's important. Watch this wonderful video, by youtube's freedom0speech. This may help explain to you what I mean.




The line between what should be allowed to be performed on minors belongs all the way at the bottom. ALL children deserve their full, intact bodies. I am as strongly against female genital mutilation as I am against male genital mutilation. No one here is minimalizing female genital mutilation. By supporting a ban on the forced genital cutting of minors, you show that sexism should not be allowed to be written into our laws. Males and females should be offered equal protection from those who wish to mutilate their genitals, no matter how severe or how mild it may be. Boys and girls have every right to intact bodies. No procedures save life saving, immediately necessary surgeries should be allowed to be preformed on ANY minors. This includes females. No one is trying to minimalize female genital mutilation. I am against all genital cutting.

 I'm sorry if I sound repetitive, but people really seem to need to hear it said a few different ways before they understand.

Peaceful Parenting And Atheism

I obviously believe in parenting kids with love and attachment and affection. I also definitely don't believe in any gods, and to me, it seems as if peaceful parenting comes as a natural affect of atheism and skepticism in general.


Allow me to explain. If I start with no gods, that means I have no "divinely inspired" books to tell me how to parent. I have to rely on what I can see in the real world. So, when I wonder how the best way to take care of children is, My obvious first thought is that I should be nice to them. I would think that the more they can feel loved and safe, the better things would go for them. Then I wonder what possible exceptions there could be to the simplicity of always giving my kids what they want and need.


Well, if we can't afford a material object, I could have to deny them that. So, I'd explain how we couldn't afford something like that and that we would save up our money for it. If my child wanted to do something dangerous, it is only logical that I would stop them, and explain how it would hurt them, and why they shouldn't do it, as well as physically preventing them from doing the action in the future. If they aren't yet of a mind to understand, simply the physical prevention should suffice. 


The most powerful convincing tool for peaceful parenting is the question "why?" And when you start with the given of loving your child and caring for his/her/xyr well-being, the following things come up.

There's a good answer for why to hold your child. Being held makes the baby feel secure and releases hormones that encourage bonding. 


There's a good answer for why to breastfeed. It's the normal, natural way, and the wonderful things in it cannot be replicated by formula. 


There's not a good answer for the things that fall into the baby training school of parenting. Whether studies say they are harmful or not, why do them in the first place?


Why hit your child? why hit him or her gently? why on his/her/xyr bottom? you shouldn't. There's no reason to assume it's beneficial, and even if it's completely devoid of psychological harm, there is at least physical harm at that moment, and no reason to assume "oh, I should hit my child".


Why amputate a part of your child's penis? again, regardless of if there are no psychological effects, it's a simple violation of human consent to remove any part of your child that can never be replaced.


I could go on and on, giving examples of both, but I'll stop there and simply say that there's a connection between having a logical mind and avoiding behaviors that aren't clearly loving. This silly ideal of tough love is born out of a parental selfishness, as well as biblical and religious support of spanking. Skeptics and atheists should, by all logic, be more a part of the attachment parenting world. Our children want and need us, and it only makes sense we should give them the comforting, safe atmosphere, both physically and psychologically.

DO NOT WATCH- The Change Up

Remember when I said we walked out on a movie? well, it was called The Change Up, and if you're a peaceful parent, or support peaceful parenting, but aren't a parent yet, do NOT give this movie your money to see. Hell, if you just believe in not neglecting children, you should NOT give this movie your money. We walked out on it within the first 15 minutes of movie time for many, many horrible parenting decisions being portrayed as okay. It didn't seem to be about an awful father who changed to be better, so I seriously doubt it did anything but get way worse after we left. Anyway, the following is a list of instances of bad parenting I saw in just a few minutes of this movie, along with why its not okay.

Here's a picture of a baby being breastfed so you all remember that good parents still exist

Seperate Sleeping

Even if you don't sleep with your baby in the bed for SIDS concerns or other reasons, you should sleep in the same room, because common sense dictates that, in an emergency, you can get to your baby more quickly. If there is a fire, it can be lifesaving not to have to run across the house to get to your baby, especially if the fire starts between you and the baby. In the event of a kidnapping, it's going to be easy enough to get to your baby before you can if there's an entrance to the house from outside  between the two of you. But this couple was portrayed sleeping in a far away room.

Delayed Crying Response

In the movie, screams come through the baby monitor in the opening scene. No one does anything for a good 10 seconds, then the woman in the couple tells the man it's his turn, they sit there for at least a minute with the guy groaning and upset he has to get up so early. Finally, he leaves his room for the walk to his kids, but once he gets there, he stares at the kid for a few seconds first and says something I don't really remember, but finally picks her up.

Circumcision

During a diaper change meant to be humerous, we get a brief glimpse of his baby boy's penis, which appeared to have the divide you do not see in whole infants. I'm not entirely sure that I saw this, so I won't focus too long on it. But, yeah, circumcsion is harmful and violates basic human consent.

Ignoring Indicators of Mental Difference

In the movie, the man's son was portrayed banging his head off the bars of his crib, rather hard, and ignoring the pain. Although neurotypical children with occasionally relatively gently bounce their heads off of things, head banging with the force and seeming lack of realization of pain depicted here, this indicates a mental difference such as autism, which needs attention to control the negative symptoms for the child. This went unnoticed by the father except for an exasperated comment that "I thought we'd talked about this, buddy". If a child does this, he needs to see a doctor promptly to diagnose these things.

Allowing the Head Banging Itself

I don't know if you've heard, but babies heads are sensitive. Babies get concussions more easily than older people. And head banging in the context shown could've caused serious damage, but the father didn't interfere. Any child hitting his/her/xyr head this hard needs to be stopped immediately and given some other task to focus on before he/she/xe gets a serious brain injury. Also, the pain itself will be bad when the child comes back to be mentally able to focus on it.

Formula Feeding

I've mentioned before some of the many reasons formula is bad for babies, and I'll give brief mention again of the increased incidence of colic, diarhea, ear infections, allergies, upper respiratory infections, and childhood cancer, and of the decreased reporting of a strong parental bond during teenage years, and, only anecdotally, a general sense of unease for the baby. Bottom line, don't formula feed.

Improper Bottle Feeding

Bottle feeding isn't best for baby, but if it's being done (and bottle feeding can be breastmilk feeding, which is acceptable, morally) wrong, it can cause even more problems. The father in this movie was feeding his twins without the proper angle of the bottle. He was holding the bottles at such an angle that the air was meeting the nipple. This is never supposed to be done, as it causes a baby to swallow the air and will give them tummy aches.

Sleep Training

Sleep trianing was not shown, but the father alluded to the idea that he would do it. Sleep training, for those who don't know, is like "cry it out" methods of teaching, which allow the baby to cry without responding. When babies stop crying due to sleep training, their bodies are responding as if they have been abandoned. It wastes energy to cry, and a baby's hormones tell it that something is seriously wrong because someone hasn't responded to it, so, they must conserve energy before they starve to death. This is a horrible way to treat a human, especially a baby. Babies cry when they need something. No more. And you can never, ever spoil a baby.

I didn't think I could stomach the rest of the movie without wanting to kill someone, and neither did halley, so we left, but I'm sure there were more bad things throughout the movie. So, please, peaceful parents of this world, boycott this movie.

Hypothetical

Okay, so there's this guy without any toes. He's happy. He loves himself and his life, and even though he has a harder time balancing than the guy next to him, it's not a big deal, because he's never known what it was like to have toes. His parents had them removed when he was just a newborn. Now, this was excruciatingly painful for him, but he doesn't remember it, so he doesn't really think about it and he doesn't really care. He has a son, and he wants his son's toes cut off. Toes are hard to clean between, you know? And whatever balance problems exist, the man figures if he's totally happy with his balance, why should his son care? Besides, removing them has some other health benefits too, such as later in life, a toe could get a hair or small string caught around it and have serious problems; This happens to at least a few babies a year (both hypothetically and in real life). And feet have a lot  more surface area with toes attached, which means they make more sweat, and that's really just gross.

Is it okay for him to have his son's toes removed? Chances are, you'll say no.

Now, imagine this guy lives on another planet, and on this planet, this toe removal happens to most children in the world at birth. In fact, they refer to those who haven't had it done as "non-de-toed", and kids with toes are sure to be made fun of in the locker room.

Does this change anything? Chances are, you'll say no.

Now, go back through and replace toes with foreskin, harder time balancing with decreased penis sensitivity and sexual enjoyment, toes are hard to clean between with an intact penis is hard to clean, the string or hair around toes with the zipper issues, greater sweat production with smegma, the other planet with america "non-de-toed" with "uncircumcised", and kids with toes to boys with foreskins