my kid's hypothetical wenis is a big deal

There's a lot to think about when one has a kid;

Vaccinations or no vaccinations. If so, which vaccinations do you administer? and when?

Home school, public school, charter school, magnet school, or private school?

Daycare or no daycare?

Breast or bottle feeding and then; formula or only breast milk.

And the real kicker....cut or uncut wenis!!

Now, there's not a lot of hassle for most of the rest of these things. Ben and I agree about most of the big stuff. No problems here. Actually, I think I care a lot more than he does, sometimes. So, it's not too hard to talk with him about it. I'll read everything I can get my hands on about a particular topic, condense all the information, share it with him and then he decides where he stands on the subject. He's taken the smart way out of learning about all this shit. Very sneaky, if you were to ask me.

When it came to the subject of circumcision, I was immediately opposed to the idea. I don't think it's medically necessary and therefore seems un-necessary. Not bad, mind you, just not necessary. Something like 70% of the worlds population is uncircumcised, did you know that? I didn't. Not until I started reading about circumcision.

Our collective decision not to circumcise has my mother-in-law all freaked out. She's not happy about it. At. All. She is on a mission. She's called Ben twice now to talk with him about it. The first time she told him that we need to have the baby circumcised. I think she thought that call was sufficient. That was until she came with me to my most recent prenatal appointment when the subject was addressed. She found out that we're still not into the idea. Not being pleased to find out that we're holding strong, she did not decide to talk with me about why we've made the decision we've made. Nope. Instead, she called Ben and told him that he needs to call her back (when I'm not around) to talk with her about circumcision.

Apparently, she feels like he is either; 1) being bossed by me and can be more bossed by her (puh-leeese), if only she can get him on the phone without me around, 2) the more malleable of the two of us or 3) secretly in agreement with her and if only they could talk privately and come up with a plan of attack to convince me to change my mind. Poor lady, she's so wrong on all fronts.

I'm a bossy lady. I know it. In fact, it doesn't really bother me. Not because I don't care what other people think, but because I'm not an asshole. I'm plenty bossy about lots of unimportant things, but I ask for feedback with important stuff, like whether to remove our (potential) son's foreskin or not. I don't just make an executive decision and let it stay at that. I'm bossy, but I'm not a jerk. I asked Ben a million questions about what he thought about circumcision. You see, I don't have a penis- it's true- so I don't pretend to have any idea what sort of unique issues comes with having one. I asked Ben all about penises (penii?) and penis-related issues. When all was said and done, I decided I still didn't like the idea, and Ben agreed.

I never thought circumcision was such a big deal until I got knocked up and it was an issue I had to consider. Neither one of us is freaked out by the idea, but we're more comfortable with the kid making the decision on his own. If, one day, he tells us he wants to have a more uniform penile physical appearance with his peers and that means circumcision then we'll pay for it to be done. But not until then. We just don't think it's that big of a deal. The main reason my mother-in-law is giving in support is; cleanliness. I'm more than slightly insulted that she thinks that we'll just let our baby boy walk around with a nasty wenis. I mean really! If you can teach a girl to wash her vagina (which I would argue is slightly more physically complicated than a penis) then you can teach a boy to wash his penis.

Anyway, it's a little unreal that we're even having to deal with this silliness. It's the tiniest bit of skin on a very private part of the baby's body. I would argue that the only people who would ever know that he has a nasty, uncircumcised penis would be the people he chooses to share it with. It's not like it's on his nose! Now that would be nasty!