It s ironic that in an era when experts encourage parents to chat with or play music for their for their unborn progeny, that medical professionals are still debating infants ability to suffer. Perhaps some doctors assumptions about circumcision are partly a gender thing. Welcome to the world, little man. May as well learn right off that men don t cry. It s also another symptom of a culture that both romanticizes and dehumanizes our youngest citizens.
Babies are cute and cuddly and great for selling everything from peanuts to politicians.
But scratch the surface, and the Victorian attitude that children should be seen and not heard is alive and well. And it goes deeper than those glares of annoyance from a businessman who must share his flight with a babe in arms, or the breast-feeding mother who is asked to leave a restaurant. It has to do with the unspoken belief that children don t deserve to be treated with dignity and respect. They can t vote, so they have no political power. They don t usually have any money.