Parents make decisions that have lasting impacts on their children on a daily basis. I appreciate that Elon and her husband spent considerable time exploring this decision and that her film shares this experience.

But I'm troubled by the comments on Salon that seem so disproportionate to the decision itself. Yes, circumcision has a lasting physical impact but tatoos and piercings come to mind as others. Yes it is a decision in which the child plays no role but others come to mind such as where to live, what to eat, what school to go to as other decisions that have lasting impacts that shape children as they grow. Parenting is all about making decisions for your children in order to best equip them to do the same for themselves as they grow older. I hope that the commenters here who have young children are as passionate about every decision they make for their kids as they are about this one. When we circumsized our son (not an easy day for anyone) we hoped we were doing something that would be meaningful for him and our family. Then we went home and started figuring out how we would deal with the next of many decisions: formula vs. breast milk; plastic vs. glass bottles; daycare vs. mommycare vs. daddycare; TV vs. no TV; apartment in the city vs. house in the suburbs. All of these decisions will impact who our son will become. We hope we can draw upon our widsom, our traditions and our instincts to do our best with each of them.

I personally believe that one could do far more short and long term damage to a young boy by sitting him in front of an Elmo or Dora DVD for an hour a day than by circumsizing him. Let's see activists start mobilizing around things that really matter and have been proven to be detrimental.

Nice to attack my comment directly without having read it. You doubt I have kids? My comment specifically mentioned my experience with my son. In any case, I have 2 kids and yes, I do care for them. I have also made a choice to avoid exposing my kids to television (they see some but not at home and not regularly). You display your ignorance not just with respect to my case but parenting in general when you dismiss the ill effects of television. There have been many studies linking television viewing among young children to various behavioral and developmental issues including ADD and autism. The American Academy of Pediatrics has warned parents not to expose young children to television. They have specifically highlighted the allure and the ill effects of the "tv babysitter" which you praise. TV is bad for them, no matter what the Baby Einstein people tell you. I know of no warning against circumcision by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Perhaps sexual pleasure is reduced as a result of circumcision but this is difficult to prove (as "pleasure" by definition is subjective and few circumcisions are performed during men's sexual prime limiting the ability to do fair comparisons) and, more importantly, this is not a health/safety concern.

The point of my original comment, which you did not read, is that circumcision is a big decision but one of many decisions that contribute to who a child will become. @marc22309, you prove my point by demonstrating how such passionate feelings about one decision (in this case circumcision) may blind people to the impacts of other decisions.

"As for circumcision, while I think it's stupid, it's none of my business if other people are doing it - I am not raising their kids and they aren't raising mine."

Please take you're own advice. Following this thread I find repeated examples of you being extremely critical of other people's views and choices. I also find at least two examples of you admitting you didn't read what those people had written before inappropriately commenting with your criticisms.

You are right that most of these parenting decisions are not public business and you should respect that people make decisions based on what they think is best. If there is no real harm done, zealotry is silly.

And I raise the TV issue not because I am a zealot. I don't care what others do. I raise it as a behavior that has documented negative consequences but gets little thought as opposed to circumcision which has relatively minor consequences yet seems to generate disproportionate debate. (And since you wrote "If you believe television is linked to austism, you're not thinking it through, and you just might not be as smart as you think you are." you might want to read this article: http://www.slate.com/id/2151538/. I've read the article and read the study. It's pretty compelling. You can and should do want you want.

If Obama could get his party under control when it comes to earmarks then rank and committee chairmanships would mean a whole lot less and maybe our we would start seeing some real change in Washington. I don't mean to blame Obama. It's not his fault. But unfortunately McCain campaigned as anti-earmark so Obama had to be anti-anti-earmark and he has not been able to take a strong stance against the practice. It has been clear from some of his statements that earmarks really bother him but it appears that congressional Democrats are as wedded to the practice as Republicans. I'd love to see Obama use his popularity with the voters to really challenge the House and Senate on this. Then we'd see some real change...a Washington where seniority means less, incumbents face true challengers, and representative think of their constituents before their contributors...a Washington that is truly changed and ready to get to the business of the people. It's a longshot but Obama might be the only one who could make headway here.