My husband / mother / mother-in-law is determined that my baby should be circumcised “to look like his father”. What should I say?
A13. 1. If a father wants to look like his son, he can restore his own foreskin. 2. When the boy looks at his father’s penis what he will notice is how big and hairy it is. What does his father propose doing about that? 3. Your son is going to spend perhaps five minutes of his life looking at his father’s penis, but about four-fifths of his life away from his father (and 20 or 30 years of his life after his father is dead). This is about the adults’ insecurity, not your son’s. Mothers and mothers-in-law want to justify having had their sons circumcised, and husbands want to justify their own condition. (But it won’t help to tell them that.) Seriously, say, “That’s not a very good reason.” Click here to see other short answers.
A. 1. If a father wants to look like his son, he can restore his own foreskin. 2. When the boy looks at his father’s penis what he will notice is how big and hairy it is. What does his father propose doing about that? 3. Your son is going to spend perhaps five minutes of his life looking at his father’s penis, but about four-fifths of his life away from his father (and 20 or 30 years of his life after his father is dead). This is about the adults’ insecurity, not your son’s. Mothers and mothers-in-law want to justify having had their sons circumcised, and husbands want to justify their own condition. (But it won’t help to tell them that.) Seriously, say, “That’s not a very good reason.” Click here to see other short answers.
