Adamant father syndrome

Adamant father syndrome is the term used to describe the behavior manifested by many circumcised men when they become fathers. There is a strong desire in circumcised men to have their son's penis look like theirs. The "adamant father" typically insists that any son born be circumcised even though there is no medical reason for it and it is contrary to current medical advice.

According to Brown & Brown (1987) and Rediger & Muller (2013), the circumcision status of the father is the most important determining factor in whether a boy is circumcised after birth.

Other closely connected circumcised males who are not the father may exhibit similar behavior.

The compulsion to repeat the trauma

The leading reason for adamant father syndrome is the compulsion to repeat the trauma. Some traumatized people remain preoccupied with the trauma at the expense of other life experiences and continue to re-create it in some form for themselves or for others.

Goldman (1999) reports that circumcision is trauma and that trauma tends to repeat itself:

The behavioural re-enactment of the trauma is a compulsion for some trauma victims. Circumcision of infants may be regarded as an example of re-enacting the trauma of one's own circumcision. A survey of randomly selected primary care physicians showed that circumcision was more often supported by doctors who were older, male and circumcised.

To illustrate the compulsion to repeat the trauma, George C. Denniston (2000) tells the story of the intern who was in the hospital nursery circumcising newborn boys in the middle of the nightː

For instance, a medical colleague informed me that, a few years ago, the night nurse on duty in an American hospital telephoned a senior resident in the middle of the night. She said to him in alarm, “You had better come down to the nursery right now. One of the interns is circumcising babies.” When he arrived on the floor, he found the intern circumcising a newborn infant. The resident said, “Don’t you think that, before you perform circumcisions, you had better get some training? Aren’t you concerned that you might be removing too much skin?” The intern looked at him, and replied, “No more than they took off me!” Sadly this young man had failed to recover from his own trauma. Like many victims, he did not realise that, since the trauma of circumcision should not have been inflicted on him, he certainly should not be inflicting circumcision on other human beinɡ.

Hill (2012) commented:

The best way to stop the cycle of trauma is to stop circumcising infants. Non-traumatized intact infants usually do not grow up to become circumcisers, so the cycle of trauma would end.

Denial of loss

Denial of loss is a second reason that some fathers adamantly insist that any son be circumcised. This reason is not incompatible with the first reason, so the two may coexist in the same individual.

Persons who have suffered the loss of a body part must grieve their loss. Failure to grieve one's loss may leave one permanently stuck in the first stage of grief which is denial of loss. Men who have failed to grieve the loss of their foreskin and its functions may not want an intact boy with a foreskin around to remind them of what they have lost, so such an individual may adamantly insist that any son be circumcised.

It is very difficult for a father in denial of loss to protect a son from circumcision. One father exclaimed, "What was so difficult in leaving my son intact was not that my son would feel different in a locker room, but that I would feel different from him. I would then have to accept that I'm an amputee from the wars of a past generation."

Prolongation of an outmoded, harmful, surgical amputation

Adamant father syndrome is credited with keeping an outmoded, medically-unnecessary, non-therapeutic surgical procedure alive. For example, in Australia, the paediatric authorities announced in 1971 that circumcision is not necessary and should not be performed, however, in 2018, Circumcision Information Australia reported that four percent of Australian boys are still being circumcised, apparently because their fathers are circumcised. The drop in circumcision incidence in Australia is credited to fewer fathers being circumcised.

See also

• Psychological issues of male circumcision
• Circumcised doctors
• Bias
• Trauma

External links

• Young, Hugh.. Adamant fathers, and others. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
• Bradley, Ryan (21 October 2017). A Regretful Father Talks About A Normalised Cultural Practice, Intact Australia. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  Quote: Circumcision started in the western world as a means of sexual oppression for boys and girls.