Loading...Q. I am very concerned about my wife’s practice of giving our boy’s enemas on the last Thursday of every month. Our sons are 14 and 12.
When I ask why she does this, she replies that it’s good for them. She says “it cleans them out,” keeps them regular, and cuts down on their chance of colorectal cancer.
I believe a diet high in fiber is enough, but she insists on this measure. Are these enemas harmful or helpful for our sons?
A. A diet high in fiber that includes lots of fruits and vegetables as well as whole grains is your sons’ best insurance against constipation and colorectal cancer!
We share your concern about your wife’s enthusiasm for administering enemas. Most teenage boys would find this practice embarrassing.
Pediatricians generally counsel against regular enema use. Some commercial preparations are high in sodium phosphate which may be absorbed and upset the body’s mineral balance.
P.S. We know of no evidence that enemas protect against cancer.
Not surprisingly, this Q&A stirred some powerful emotions for our readers. Here is just one response:
Q. Since your expertise is in pharmacological matters and medical anthropology, I realize that you had to give a gentle answer to the husband who questioned his wife’s “perverse” need to subject her teenage sons to enemas. I am only a high school dropout, so I am free to voice my opinion.
This mother should be taken to a head shrink. She has no insight into her own incestuous need to bind her sons forever to an anal fixation. The sexual damage done to them needs treatment immediately.
You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the correlation between tortured children and adults who are mentally disturbed. Telling this woman that there’s no proof enemas prevent cancer will not stop her compulsion. It’s like telling her to take up Bingo instead.
A. People have reacted emotionally to the question about enemas administered monthly to a 12- and a 14-year-old boy by their mother. She insisted she was trying to “clean them out” for their health and to prevent cancer.
We are not in a position to diagnose medical or psychological problems. We agree with you, however, that this situation does not sound healthy.
We certainly discouraged the practice. Too many people are overly concerned with bowel function and regularity. Use of enemas and laxatives can become habit-forming and counterproductive.
Anyone who would prefer a more natural approach to digestive problems including constipation, diarrhea, heartburn, hemorrhoids and hiccups may find our book, The People’s Pharmacy Quick & Handy Home Remedies from National Geographic quite helpful. In addition to GI problems we deal with everything from arthritis and acne to high cholesterol and sinusitis. Let’s leave the enemas for emergencies.
Carol
Giving “cleansing enemas “ to one that age seems to be a tad bit strange.
I remember being given an enema by my nurse aunt a few times. But, no older, as far as I can recall, than 7 or so.
Steven
I previously commented about this story being false. It angered me, because from the ages of 12-16 I got regular enemas from my aunt & grandmother (my pre-teen & teen F & M cousins were allowed to watch & participate
I was a kid. I thought I needed them along with the rectal temperatures she insisted on at home AND at my Drs office.
For the record, I had my first enema at age 7 from both my parents. It wasn’t sexual, but I couldn’t figure out the huge fuss my youngest sis & big bro had abt enemas.
My sis & I had bunkbeds she slept below, so I always knew when ‘Carol’ the girls’mom was going to do an enema.
She’d be putting together the equipment carefully, almost lovingly. If I happened to be there she’d take great pains to explain the action of an enema to me, and offer to demonstrate the procedure for me and the friends that were with me.
This would come to backfire on me when ‘Lizzie’ turned 9,the age from which Carol thought that girls needed regular enemas.
For boys, she had that age fixed at 12,which was my age when she married my father.
The first time I saw her give an enema, was to my father. They’d tried to keep it quiet, but in a single – wide mobile home, there were few secrets.
Lizzie whispered in my ear that her mom was about to give my dad a ‘PE’, initials I would learn too well in coming months to mean Punishment Enema.
Lizzie, her friend Hillary, and myself crowded into the upstairs crawlspace and huddled around a round cutout hole that afforded us a perfect view as Carol subjected my father Michael, to several enemas of various types. They had my rapt attention from first drop to last.
I later asked my father about the enemas. He told me that he needed them but also told me not to be surprised if I were to be called to take my turn lying naked on the cold bathroom floor while being filled with soapy, stinging liquid.
Robert
USA
WHY, why, why, I have asked myself this question probably millions of times as I am now a senior. I do not have the time or patience to bring to you all of the psychological implications this heinous practice imprints on a young child and his future coping skills in life. It is a nightmare that you never put to rest via therapy, meds ect. It is a pandoras box. Edgar Gacey, whose mother gave him disciplinary enemas in Chicago took the lives of over a dozen young boys. what more can be said about such a monsterous violation of a young childs precious world. He will never trust or feel safe for the rest of his natural life, mentally, sexually, socially. G/d be praised if these comments SAVE but just one precious child. People tell me to stop with the victim mentality / this goes way beyond victim this is a crime! Thank you / with hope for a better future for our children
In Your Regard, Robert
Brad
NYC
Enemas have been around since ancient times. Yes, ancient medical was archaic but we are only now realizing that they had ways of curing diseases and infections far more simply then we do today. For instance, they used honey as a antibacterial for cuts/wounds…we now know honey has benifical effects and does in fact aid in healing.
Let’s choose to have an open mind and consider that modern day medicine could benefit from studying history. After all, we are here yet tend to forget how our relatives survived and prospered for if they did not, we would not be. Have an open mind and learn from the past.
Robb
Florida
I have 8 sons, all poop regularly and normally. The oldest is a history student and read about coffee enemas in ancient Egypt. He bought the equipment and asked me to help him, which I did. He reported feeling invigorated after the procedure and now does it by himself once a month. His doctor said it’s beneficial and does not do any harm, so I leave him be.
Rarely, if one of the boys loads up on pizza and gets constipated, I given him a suppository which he inserts himself after the first time I showed him how, and that works fine. I’ve only give one of the boys an enema, he had become dehydrated and really stopped up. Doc said to do it, and after the FLOOD, he felt so much better.
I agree this mom is sick, playing with boys butts is not normal unless medically necessary and with my herd it’s only been necessary twice in 20 years. Fortunately, in my family all the guys have no hang ups about nakedness, so its not a mental shock for them.
Shira
New York
I don´t know what the big deal is about this? ABUSE???? I can´t say I LIKE getting enemas, but, I am a 14 year-old girl and I get one from my Mom or Dad every Sunday for cleansing. Even though it´s kind of embarrassing and stuff, I set that aside because afterwards I feel really light and energized. So I don´t think there´s anything wrong with this.
Anonymous
I hope the father has the courage to read and think about the feedback given on this thread. I was raised by two parents who did abusive things because they “loved me” and “because it’s for your own good”.
Even with years of counseling I couldn’t get past some childhood memories. What has helped is reading any of the books by Alice Miller. They are hard for me to absorb, but very healing.
From what I have learned, I am guessing that if the father doesn’t recognize this as inappropriate, then he was probably mistreated as a child and has never known how to set boundaries. It would be easy for people who were raised in a loving, healthy home to be outraged at the mother; and the father for letting the mother do this to the teen boys.
If the father is still reading this – PLEASE go to a therapist, even if you have to go by yourself or go to a free clinic. If you didn’t know this was unhealthy (in so many ways) for your sons, then you can learn how to stick up for them and yourself. You can only teach what you already know.
EL
This letter raises more issues for me than do those responses already submitted. If the mother in question does not heed the advice given, I think she needs psychiatric help to uncover her motives for her barbaric practice.
Dallee
To add a bit of perspective … this type of health belief was popular in Europe at the turn of the century and before antibiotics became available. Not only was this viewed as a treatment, but a heightened concern about “regularity” existed — which was viewed as being a diagnostic indicator of a person’s health.
The parent in question probably learned these practices and views from the parent’s family. And, as reported, these views can be very hard to change.
MB
THIS smacks highly of sexual abuse–Her sons may report this to teachers,doctors and dear Dad-you are a man-put a stop to this practicebefore it does irreperable harm to these teens-respect thier privacy!!fruis -veggies-high fiber and plenty of water prevent constipation.
L E S
I don’t know the woman in question so I won’t comment on her mental health but I do know that the boys are suffering, what she is doing is not helping them in any way. The boys will have problems with their bowels and I think they will suffer emotionally. I suspect that she is trying to control her boys as long as she can, she needs help now and the boys need help right now.
HJ
I doubt this comment will be published, but I have to say it.
This reminds of ‘The Shining’ – but instead of heeeere’s Johnny, it’s heeeere’s Mommy.
Those poor kids.
ebm
I agree with all comments above, plus: she is removing the natural flora from the colon
and at the least should re-introduce probiotics! I used to do coffee enemas all the time when I had bad food allergy headaches so I could function. My chiropractor stopped me because, as he explained to me, the probiotic/natural flora removal.
rgcmd
I am a pediatric colorectal surgeon as well as a mother of two sons, both now grown. This woman has serious problems. It is likely that her perverse anal fettish involving her sons is only the tip of the iceberg. THERE IS NO MEDICAL OR PSYCHOLOGICAL DATA ANYWHERE THAT SUGGESTS SHE IS ANYTHING BUT CRAZY. She needs serious psychiatric evaluation and help.
In the meanntime, please, Sir, get her away from these boys or are you a participant in this domestic terror. Yes, it is a horrific form of child abuse that will have longlasting effects on them and those they subgsequently affect. Please bring this to the attention of their pediatrician and psychologist .
Robin D
I am shocked, to say the least !!!! Read Sybil or see the movie. If those kids emerge “normal” it’s only by the grace of God!
DS
I would like to read any updates to this conversation.
AC
How disturbing. The mother is setting up those boys for a lifetime of troubles and the father needs to stop deferring to her and stand up for his boys. Moms are not always right and this one is downright abusive.
T.M.
I am a recently retired mental health professional who dealt with adolescents, as well as a parent of adult children. I agree with “high school dropout” and with Betty, CAH, and Margie, above. Even if the boys’ mom means well, her behavior is abusive and needs to stop. I would recommend family counselling for the entire family as soon as possible.
Margie
This is child abuse and needs to be stopped immediately.
CAH
No, no and no–this is NOT OK. I agree 100% with the poster who identified himself as a high school drop out. The embarrassment factor is certainly a reason, but more than that, the all too real possibility of life-long disruption of normal sexual development to say nothing of normal bowel function. . . . .very worrisome.
I am a registered nurse as well as a mother of adult children, so speak from some experience here. The lady in question needs to start by discussing this with her health care provider.
betty
Good grief. Those poor poor boys.