GRANOLA BABIES: Responses to "Celebratory" Ad

Since Granola Babies posted an inflammatory ad on Facebook, people have tried responding in different ways. While defenders of Granola Babies and their ad claim that their message was not meant to be inflammatory, and that all they've seen since posting the ad were "judgment" and "personal attacks," even gentle responses questioning the ad have been deleted, and some people have been outright banned for kindly and non-judgmentally suggesting the ad could send the wrong message. Granola Babies is not letting the other side be heard, silencing any dissenting views, which was the whole reason for my previous post.

Granola Babies has made it clear that they are not going to allow anyone to contradict them, and play the victim card to try and gain sympathy and corroboration from others, so intactivists have taken it upon themselves to publish the fact on their own blogs, and/or creating parodies of the Granola Babies ad themselves. (You've already seen mine.) Within the past twenty-four hours there have been a few recreations of the ad. A compilation of them can be seen on the Facebook group Saving Our Sons.

In this post I will share some of my favorites.

Given the fact that the name "Granola Babies" gives the impression that it's a crunchy group, the ad should have looked like this:

Originally posted on the Facebook group End Routine Infant Circumcision (4ERIC).

Among co-sleeping and breastfeeding, circumcision is a non-sequitur, beginning with the fact that co-sleeping and breastfeeding do not involve bodily mutilation. Furthermore, it is usually parents who co-sleep and breastfeed who are constantly having to justify themselves and find refuge among the crunchy crowd. Parents who circumcise don't have to work very hard to find support from their family members, their doctors, the news media etc. Just check out major parenting forums like CafeMom. To be more accurate, Granola Babies should have included "He is circumcised." with "My baby will never sleep with us.", "I let him cry it out."and "I exclusively bottle feed her."

It's interesting that advocates of Granola Babies and their ad say that intactivists have been nothing but "judgmental" and "attacking." It seems while any criticism of circumcision is misconstrued and exaggerated as a "judgmental attack," crunchy moms who choose leave their boys intact have to endure comments like "You didn't circumcise him? Ew, gross!" Or "He'll never get laid." The same people that utter these comments will turn around and say "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! WE'RE THE PARENTS, WE DECIDE! DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE ME!" if you suggest there's anything wrong with circumcision.

It's parents who choose to leave their children intact who have to take the heat, and who find refuge in crunchy groups. Parents who circumcise their children do not have to work hard to find the support for their "decisions" that they need. Most parenting forums will go as far as deleting any comment that has anything bad to say about circumcision, as thoughtful and constructive as it may be, in order to pander to moms and dads that circumcise. But for whatever reason, Granola Babies thought it is parents who circumcise their children who deserve a break.

It was easy to spot the non-sequitur here, wasn't it.

Somehow, I don't think female circumcision is a "parental choice" Granola Babies is willing to "celebrate."

I ask, do parents who "choose" to circumcise their daughters love their children more, or less than parents who "choose" to circumcise their boys?

This is probably Granola Babies' ad at the most basic level. They are a business after all. Pandering to mothers who chose to circumcise their boys and making them feel entitled for the sake of gaining their business will probably have been the worst business decision they ever made.

Up until now, the responses have been sarcastic and vengeful. But let's take a look at a different response. This one, on the Saving Our Sons Facebook page seems to be the most liked:

 

Perhaps this is what advocates of Granola Babies claim their ad was going for?

It's been pointed out to me on this very blog and in other mediums that there are mothers who have come to regret having had their sons circumcised. These mothers will have circumcised their sons because they actually thought was best for them. The fact that they come to regret a decision they made, and admit that they were wrong shows how much they love their sons, and how open minded they are to new information .

But this isn't about that.

I've said it in my last blog post, but I can't blame parents that "chose" to circumcise their sons. I think most parents have the best intentions for their children at heart, even parents that chose to circumcise their children. I asked in my last post, what parent would NOT choose to circumcise their child, having heard from doctors the horrors that would befall him were he not?

Some blame parents still; in my minds eye, parents are given information by the doctors they trust, and doctors take advantage of this trust to profit at their children's expense. "This is the age of information," some say. "Any parent could look up this information and come to the conclusion that circumcision is something they do not want to do to their kids." But why should they trust what they find on the internet over the authoritative "advice" from the doctors they trust?

Whose responsibility is it to know better? Who wields the knife? Who waives their credentials about insisting everybody call them "doctor?" Who went to school for 10 years or so to earn their degree? Whose professional responsibility is it to KNOW better? But somehow when it comes to circumcision they're suddenly "too stupid to know," and parents must weigh the "evidence" ("evidence" which no medical organization in the world can use to recommend circumcision by the way...) and come up with their own conclusion as to whether a surgical procedure their DOCTOR is offering them for their child is medically necessary or not?

In my opinion, it's not parents who are to blame; it is the doctors who take advantage of parental naivete and the bloated sense of entitlement they help stoke. A parent can look up all the information, but most do not know how to discern it, not to mention it is a doctor's professional responsibility to know better; it's why he gets paid the big bucks. It is medical fraud that a doctor can get away with placing the onus of "the big decision," one that cannot actually exist without medical or clinical indication, on parents, in order to absolve himself from the responsibility of a surgical procedure HE PERFORMS and should thus KNOWS BETTER than parents as to whether it is medically necessary or not.

It is a mistake to attack and humiliate parents over something they honestly didn't know any better about, and who would take it all back if they knew what they were doing to their children.

I'm not advocating that.

But I also do not advocate corroberating with parents, rewarding willful ignorance, making them feel justified and entitled by calling circumcision a "choice" to be "celebrated."

This ad comes off as pandering to parents who circumcised their children in order to gain their confidence and business, all at the expense of children's basic human rights, and it's why it is so infuriating to me.

EDIT:

Saw this in my Facebook news feed today and I thought I'd add it:

 

One of the comments (in response to other Facebook users who expressed disgust) read:

"I am stunned that people are missing the irony in this photo; no one advocates circumcising girls, but people seem to think of circumcising boys as an acceptable ”option” in parental decision making. By switching the sexes around this picture shows our cultural blindness to the brutality of male circumcision, the same cultural blindness that parents in countries that circumcise females also have."

I couldn't agree more.

DISCLAIMER:

The views I express in this blog are my own individual opinion, and they do not necessarily reflect the views of all intactivists. I am but an individual with one opinion, and I do not pretend to speak for the intactivist movement as a whole, thank you.

REPOST: If You Can't Stand the Heat...

Even after posting an inflammatory graphic, Granola Babies has the nerve to insist that their Facebook page is "not a platform for the circumcision debate." Another page, "Bitchin Parents," has reposted the same graphic and is currently dealing with deleting comments made by people who disagree, dismissing them as "hate," and outright blocking them.

Apparently, Granola Babies is a business and their graphic was supposed to be some sort of business move. Well, they should have thought things through before shooting themselves in the foot.

Crunchy moms, now you know where NOT to shop, and where to steer other crunchy moms AWAY from.

Once again, they're gravely mistaken if they think they can just post controversial material, and just expect nobody to say anything. May this be a lesson to them; if you don't want the "circumcision debate" on your page, then don't incite it. YOU'RE GOING TO HEAR FROM INTACTIVISTS.

In case people haven't noticed, it's no longer socially acceptable to mutilate your child's organs. If you're going to post material endorsing it, you better be ready to deal with the blowback.

This reminds me of a post I made a long time ago. One good turn deserves another, and I think it warrants reposting:

If You Can't Stand the Heat, STAY OFF THE NET

Originally posted Tuesday, March 6, 2012

You know what absolutely gets on my nerves? When some idiot parents find it gracious to post their child's circumcision on the web for the whole world to see. Some parents actually think it's "cute" or "funny" to post their son's circumcision "story" on a blog, or they actually have the nerve to record it and put it on YouTube of all places. It's the one time on the net where it's perfectly kosher to be pimping your child's dick online and not have it be called kiddy porn.

But you know what pisses me off even more? When said parents actually have the NERVE to tell people leaving comments to "MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS! WE'RE THE PARENTS, WE DECIDE. DON'T YOU DARE JUDGE ME."

Really?

You actually post your son's naked body, figuratively or literally online for the whole world to see, and then you're surprised to read that some people actually find your cute little "story" offensive and/or disgusting?

Seriously?

I've got news for you.

Once you post shit online, it's fair game.

People are going to give you a piece of their mind, whether you want it or not.

If you don't want to hear it from others, or be "judged" for the so-called "decisions" that you take, then at least have the decency to make posts about your PERSONAL, "PRIVATE" LIFE visible ONLY TO THOSE IN YOUR PERSONAL, PRIVATE CIRCLE.

Or better yet, keep your sick, disgusting "life" OFFLINE. NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOUR SON'S GENITALS BEING MUTILATED, much less KNOW about them. They're not even YOUR privates, how in the HELL do you feel entitled to have them mutilated to suit YOUR tastes and preferences, much less POST THEM ON THE FUCKING INTERNET FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE???

UGH!!!

Such parents should get thrown in JAIL for pimping their children's PERSONAL PRIVATE PARTS ONLINE. This is tantamount to S&M KIDDY PORN.

I DO NOT WANT TO SEE, NOR KNOW ABOUT YOUR CHILD'S GENITAL MUTILATION.

WAKE UP PEOPLE.

The world is waking up to the fact that yes, like female infant circumcision, male infant circumcision IS TOO GENITAL MUTILATION.

If you don't want to hear it from others, if you do not want to hear other people's "opinions," then do the world a favor and DON'T POST ON THE INTERNET.

This fucking PISSES ME OFF.

If you don't want people talking about your unmentionables,

DON'T AIR THEM OUT IN PUBLIC.

GRANOLA BABIES: BIG MISTAKE

It's the internet; it's a freedom of speech free for all. I've seen quite a few pro-circumcision propaganda posters, and I've seen so many that I thought I was used to it.

Which is why I was surprised to find the this picture in my Facebook news feed today, particularly from a group that calls itself "Granola Babies."

Can you spot what this group craftily decided to sneak in there?

"Granola Babies" gives off the impression that it's a group for crunchy moms, and as far as I was aware, crunchy moms want everything that is the most natural for their kids, which is why I thought it rather revolting to see this picture trying to pretend like circumcision fits right up there with co-sleeping and breast-feeding. The "I work outside the home" seems pointless up there; who cares WHERE you work, as long as you're taking care of your kids.

The caption that accompanied this filth read:

"Let's celebrate our differences as mothers and that we love our babies the same. ♥"

I was fuming.

No, seriously, what self-serving, self-congratulating crap.

As if circumcision were this "choice" parents are entitled to, much less a "crunchy" one.

This to me seems like nothing more than a deliberate inflammatory piece of propaganda aimed at inciting the ire of human rights activists.

And they knew exactly what they were doing. Oh yes they did.

The caption continues:

"Update on this picture ~ Unfortunately the message was lost on some and many unkind posts towards other posters (now deleted) have been made and are not such that Granola Babies is willing to host. There were even a couple of posts stating that mothers do not love their babies the same if she did ___ (insert box) different than her.

In particular -
All posts that continue the circumcision debate will be deleted. This isn't a platform for this debate."

I've said it before on a different blog post, but if people don't want to hear it from us intactivists, if they don't want to host the "circumcision debate," why post inciteful things at all?

I posted more than a piece of my mind, and as promised, my comments were promptly deleted.

But they are gravely mistaken if they think they're going to post this crap and not hear about it from intactivists.

These self-serving idiots just want to pretend like mutilating your child is "just another choice" and we should all be "celebrating our differences."

Well, what do they think of mothers who have gone ahead and circumcised their daughters?

Should we "celebrate" that?

Maybe it's "different" with said mothers of circumcised daughters, and they don't "love their children the same?"

Sexist, self-serving double-standard to be treating male circumcision, and male circumcision ONLY as a "choice" mothers can be making.

The fact is, if being a parent justified everything you did with your children, then there wouldn't be a need for child protective services.

There is such a thing as horrible parents out there, and at some point what they do to their children crosses over into abuse, and shit has to hit the fan.

"Granola Babies" seems to be in the business of pleasing the masses and just issuing out touchy-feely slogans and propaganda that congratulates idiotic parenting.

In the words of John Steinbeck:

"No one wants advice, only corroboration."

And, it looks like "Granola Babies" is more than happy to supply it.

I've taken their sick disgusting poster and made a parody of it:

Yes, "Granola Babies," let's celebrate.

But you know what, this isn't about parents.

I don't blame parents for making a "choice" based on the "advice" their charlatan pediatrician or OB/GYN gave them. Can parents be blamed if they were told that not circumcising their children would result in their child getting penile cancer and dying of AIDS?

No.

That responsibility lies in the charlatans that sell the lies they need to to profit at the expense of children, and at the expense of parental trust.

The bottom line question is always this:

Without medical or clinical indication, can doctors even be performing surgery on healthy, non-consenting minors, let alone be giving their parents any kind of "choice?"

Without a medical or clinical indication, how is it doctors are even stoking in mothers this false sense of entitlement?

That is "Granola Babies'" biggest failure; they are perpetuating the myth that parents are entitled to perform needless surgery on their healthy, non-consenting children.

Does "Granola Babies" celebrate the "choice" of mothers who chose to have their daughters circumcised?

No?

What if it were a "ritual nick" as once approved by the AAP, where they said it dwarves in comparison to male infant circumcision?

Let's see how much support "Granola Babies" gives mothers who had "sunat" performed on their daughters.

Shameless, self-serving, disgusting pieces of shit.

Give TRUE crunchy advice, you lousy people-pleasers.

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