Joshua St. Claire

Don’t worry, sweetheart. Keep smiling. You’re doing great. I’ve been doing this for 30 years and I’ve seen over 10,000 moms and babies. Your first? Well, pat yourself on the back, you’re acting like a pro. Let me take a look at him. Oh, he is marvelous. Look at him, just two days old and looking right at me. So with it. So awake. So happy. I suppose you didn’t have him circumcised. Ah hah! I can always tell. These parents just hand their newborns over to the doctor. Then, their baby is tied to a table, drugged, cut, and burned. It’s so barbaric. Then the parents ask us why their sons are dead-eyed and why they scream like they are in agony. It’s because they are in agony. I just point to the blood in the diapers. That’s their first experience in the world. Pain. Just a day old and already betrayed by their parents. The dads only seem to care about what will happen when their boys are in some future locker room or in some far-distant car back seat. They want them to fit in! They don’t miss—or don’t properly understand—what they never had. They’ve also never seen the pediatric urology department. Three-quarters of their business is circumcisions gone wrong. They usually turn out horribly. When it’s burnt off with a cauterizer, there’s just nothing the surgeons can do. Imagine having to tell two new parents that their son will never live a normal life because they chose to have an irreversible procedure performed on their infant son, often just for cosmetic reasons. And the mothers…they are just worried about cleanliness and ex-boyfriends. Then, they do something to their sons they would never to do their daughters. These are smart, compassionate women, mind you—ones who would fight for their daughters’ right to control what happens with their bodies—but steal that right from their sons on the day they’re born. We lactation consultants try to bring this up. No one else does. We’re just trying to make a kinder, gentler world. Just imagine…Well, here he is back, my dear. Now, try to hold him like this. Put his head here. We call it the football hold. Do you hear that? It’s working. He’s gulping it down. Hold him tight…keep him close…

Budding Moon

eradicating the inconvenient

cucumber blossoms