Are mothers or fathers more influential in circumcision decision?

In my own case I suffered horrific bullying at school because I wasn't circumcised when every other boy was. .

When I went to school in the US in the 1950's-60's, I cannot think of any occasion when or where a fellow student would have seen my uncut penis. There are none that I can remember in school. I did join the local YMCA and that was at a time when swimming was done nude, mandatory. No getting around it. So obviously the other kids (and supervisors) saw me.

But the thing is, no one, not one of the kids ever said any single word about it. No teasing, no joking, no bullying, not even pointing it out. Nor was I intimidating or strong looking at all. If anything I tended more towards the 100 pound weakling that Charles Atlas so loved to use in his ads, but then as a 10-11 year version. Prime bullying material one would think. But I was never bullied for anything at all. There were 3 or 4 other YMCA boys uncut I think, but I never paid it any mind either.

I read accounts about bullying in schools, but seriously, I never experienced it. And this was for 2 different Catholic schools and 2 different public schools in the US, in New Jersey (we moved around a lot and my parents never knew what they wanted for me scholastically). And the same went for my friends at home. I was something of a goody-goody back then, but that did not translate into me being the brunt of anyone's sadistic personality disorder.

Were kids more polite back then? Maybe so ...

When I went to school in the US in the 1950's-60's, I cannot think of any occasion when or where a fellow student would have seen my uncut penis.

I find your experience @agracier to be quite different than mine, and I suspect out of the norm for the time. Maybe it was the particular schools you attended, or they just did things differently in New Jersey. Or perhaps it's my experience that was unusual. I attended school later than you (60's and 70's), but in high school in particular, the boys most certainly had plenty of opportunities to see each other's penis.

In P.E., a complete change of clothing was required for class, which meant everything (including your underwear) had to be removed while changing. Shorts with a jockstrap underneath and a T-shirt was the required outfit. Then after each class, showers were required. And they were certainly not private. They were a large gang shower where you had plenty of opportunities to get all soapy and up-close with the other boys. Lots of opportunities for penis comparisons.

And as I've written about in the past, my sports physicals in high school were always done in a large group in the gym. The required outfit for the exam was a jockstrap (and nothing else), so at least we had a little bit of covering as we moved from station to station. But without fail they always had a station where the hernia and genital exam was done. And you ended up removing your strap as you got in line at that station and you stayed that way until you were done. The actual hernia and genital exam was done right there in the open so all the other boys could watch. No privacy at all. So again, lots of opportunities to see what the other boys were packing.

Yet throughout all of that, I can't remember seeing an uncircumcised penis! We were all cut.

I grew up in the 1970s and 80s. In all of my schools, the boy’s restrooms had trough urinals with no privacy so you could see the other boy’s penises when peeing. Starting in 7th grade, we had mandatory physical education with no privacy changing from street clothes to PE uniforms and during mandatory showers after class was over. Everyone was naked in the locker room and showers so you saw a lot of guys’ penises. There were no uncircumcised boys in any of my classes. I had one friend who was uncircumcised, but was never in my PE class. He told me he found it very awkward to be different and tried to avoid being seen.

Well, you wanted him to feel "normal"...........there is a reason, whatever it might be that there is a foreskin and its surely no to cut it off, so far about "normal"

In my case, my mother was the decision maker with regards to my non-circumcision. I went to boarding school in the 1970s and during my first medical, the doctor was of the opinion that my foreskin was tight and it might be beneficial if I was circumcised. My mother sought a second opinion and at the time said she did not want me to be circumcised. The same doctor gave me 2 more medicals, and was of the same opinion following both those medicals. My mother did not allow it to happen. I was not examined by this doctor again, thankfully, and no doctor has suggested I have had a tight foreskin since.

I know that some boys were cut whilst I was attending this school, but I do not know if it was as a result of recommendations of this doctor. Although I did not realise it at the time, as someone mentioned in an earlier post, in the 70s, some boarding schools seemed to “encourage” circumcision.

I think fathers are and thats that way it should be. My dad is uncut and insisted I stay uncut, family tradition he said.

As someone born in the 1960s in America it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that I was to be circumcised, a decision of which I am eternally grateful. It isn't the default position nowadays, but having worked in a newborn nursery in children's hospital I learnt that the decision was usually down to the mother wanting the baby to "be like his father" (that was in the 1980s). Since then things have moved on and more and more babies aren't circumcised. I'd never played with an uncut cock until I came to the UK.

Hello titusmoun, I was born in the USA in 1950when the circ' rate for my community was 99%. Fortunately, my dad was very anti-circumcision.

Living in a nudist home environment as a youngster, I regularly saw my father nude, and was aware of his uncut penis. I do feel his status influenced any decision regarding me being circumcised. My mother was quite open about her appreciation of my fathers member, and as I learned later, she hoped for my enjoyment as an uncut adult. So, yes, parental pleasure from an uncut penis, weighed heavily on their decision to leave me intact.

My mother chose to leave mine as it was made. My father was not cut either but I'm not sure that had anything to do with it. When she told me about the difference I might see, before starting school, she said the doctor asked her if she wanted it done and she didn't want him doing anything to me.

I am circumcised, as is my younger brother. Our father was not. Although never discussed openly, our status was probably determined by religious belief. Our father was German Lutheran, mother Croatian Catholic, what was considered a "mixed" marriage back in the 1940s. For a non-Catholic to marry a Catholic, they had to pledge that any children would be raised Catholic. And that meant boys being circumcised. I don't recall any of my Catholic childhood friends or high school classmates being un-circumcised. There were plenty of opportunities between sleepovers, gym classes, swimming parties and just youthful fooling around to "compare and contrast". In college dorm life with open showers one saw everything, not just presence or lack of foreskin, but an endless variety of shapes and sizes. There, I felt distinctly in the minority being un-cut.

For a non-Catholic to marry a Catholic, they had to pledge that any children would be raised Catholic. And that meant boys being circumcised. .

I fear someone was telling very tall tales. Catholics are not in any way required to be circumcised. Where does that idea even come from, who told you (your family) that? In fact, ever since the early centuries of Christendom, circumcision has been proscribed by church authorities. It was considered a Jewish and later Muslim practice that was at odds with church dogma and moral law.

American Hispanics are in the main Catholic and it is known that they do not in general circumcise. Europe is full of Catholics who would probably recoil in horror at the idea alone.

http://www.cirp.org/library/cultural/catholic/

I'm guessing moms. Because here in the states it is mostly done in the hospital shortly after birth. And mom is the one there and most easy to get permission from.

Hello chamed, I think you are correct but it isn't necessarily because she is the mother. I have a friend that works in the Obstetrics ward at a local hospital. She commented that the mother often signs her son's foreskin for circumcision during admissions. The old sign here, sign here, sign here. The mother is in labor and is in need of getting to a birthing room. She doesn't read all those forms in detail. She is told that this is all "standard operating procedure". She unknowingly signs the circumcision slip. And "snip". The "good" deed is done.

For Dixon:

A Catholic marrying a non Catholic where I grew up was certainly a "mixed marriage" just as much as Christian and Jew, maybe more. I dated a Catholic girl when I was 17. She was a battery hand in a cotton mill where I worked. Her father, a second hand, was renting a camp for our 1 week vacation and she wanted me to go to church with her when I visited on the weekends. I told her I would on the first Sunday if she she would go with me the second Sunday. She had to ask her priest for permission. I knew the answer was going to be NO but she was devastated. A friend of mine married a Catholic and they both had to go to classes with her priest for several weeks. They also had to promise to indoctrinate any children in the Catholic faith. As a Protestant of the Wesleyan version (we're the worst) I was always jealous of the Catholic boys because it seemed they had the cutest girls in school. I bet they thought the same about us Protestants.

BTW I didn't have to get anyone's permission and I went with her anyway but only the first week. I had to pay a quarter for parking, a quarter at the door, a quarter seating charge, a quarter toward the new carpet then they took up a collection. I was all quartered out by the time I escaped.

I don't recall any circumcision differences between us and the Catholic boys though that were attributabal to our religions.

Dixon, agracier, Roscoe: I can attest that Catholics, in general, outside the United States, don't have their sons circumcised routinely.

In WWII, one methods the Nazis used to ascertain who was a Jew was to check the men's or boys' penises. A cut foreskin did not necessarily mean a trip to a concentration camp, but one had to argue it had been done for medical purposes, provide certificates of Catholic baptism, etc.

When my cousin was circumcised for medical reasons, my aunt was adamant that it was actually not true circumcision, as per religious purposes. Her doctor had made the surgery palatable by claiming that it was not the same as religious circumcision and less was removed (according to my cousin, and to my recollections of seeing his penis back then, bullshit - it was complete removal). Apparently it was important to my aunt, raised a Catholic, that her son had not been submitted to a Jewish or Muslim rite.

I decided to circumcision as an adult, it was my own decision. The reason was incomplete phimosis. Because it was neglected in my care, I would pay attention to parents of small boys among friends and relatives, to make sure that their sons do not have phimosis. After my remarks, three of them were found to have phimosis and three were circumcised. As far as I know, the people who decided were mothers of boys. In one case, the father agreed with the mother's opinion, in the other he had some doubts, but he was persuaded. In the third case, the parents were divorced and the mother decided about the child's health matters, the father took note of them.

This third woman tells me that she agreed with the doctor that circumcision is necessary for her son. She convinced the boy about the need for surgery. However, she herself had a lot of fears which she did not speak about. She told me that when on the day of the assassination she signed her consent for her son's surgery, she was relieved that the decision was made.

Her son was 11 during the procedure and was getting more and more nervous while waiting for the surgery. When she signed she was calm and able to calm him down (of course, as far as possible).

I think the decision is on the women's side, because the mother always has more than the father to say about the child. If the father is uncircumcised, he may think of this as a mutilation. She said that when she saw the boy's circumcised penis after the operation she felt pride that she was dealt with it and that the problem - phimosis was removed

I would pay attention to parents of small boys among friends and relatives, to make sure that their sons do not have phimosis.

She told me that when on the day of the assassination she signed her consent .

God, I hope the boy wasn't assassinated ... ha ha ha

More seriously though, I have to wonder though how parents took to your interest in the condition of their children's penis? Seems like an inordinately improper nosiness and intrusion into something that would normally raise a lot of eyebrows.

I would pay attention to parents of small boys among friends and relatives, to make sure that their sons do not have phimosis.

I would suggest the parents speak privately to the children’s pediatricians to be certain they are checking for retractability of the foreskin after the boys are old enough that it should be retractile. I know a man who was circumcised in his twenties for a nonretractile foreskin which he told me was never checked by his doctors during childhood. It struck me as a bit of an oversight.

In my case I think both my wife and I thought it would be a good idea. My whole family is circumcised and most boys were in my era. There was no argument, it was just done.

As far as Kellogg goes, I stopped eating cereal years ago.

We had our son at home. His home birth was planned and decided ahead not an accident. To get him cut would have been the whole process to get him examined and such for the procedure. As no doctor was present and involved in his birth.

We, his parents, decided jointly to not have him cut. Why have an unneeded procedure.

My sub, husband, is cut. So father and son do not match.

So father and son do not match.

That is something I've never understood, the issue of both son and father being cut or not.

Perhaps in a nudist household it might be something to think about. And even then.

There were lots of physical attributes in which my father and I were never similar. And I'm just talking about clothed ... if people were to start on the naked physical attributes, how humiliating, even if the discussions and comparisons were kept in the (extended) family.

I posted this in "Circumcision same status as father"

'My father was uncut, but I am cut. My four sons are cut, they were done the day after birth.

My mother was a nurse in Australia at the end of World War 2, and witnessed a large number of male soldiers returning home injured and also had severe penis infections because of the lack of hygiene. They had to have an operation to remove their foreskin. I know hygienic practices are a lot better now.

The operation and recovery is a lot quicker for a baby.'

So it was our joint decision to have our sons done.

My brother, like me, was left uncut when he was born and remained as such until he left home. He had two sons and left them both intact as I understand. Unfortunately, he and his wife divorced after 11 years of marriage. His wife gained custody of the two boys. As I understand, she took both boys to the doctor and had them circumcised. The boys were ages 10 and 12. My brother disapproved of such but could do nothing as the deed was done.

Moms and Dads, read this before you make your decision: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16286143/

I was born in Germany, and it is not customary to prune penises. It is a personal decision of adults whether to be circumcised or not. Trimming children without medical reasons is a crime. Children are not the personal property of the parents.

My parents were strict about it, my father was circumcised and I was not even though I needed to be circumcised and I had problems with foreskin removal until I was about 12, my dad was often absent so he left the job of foreskin removal to his mother who was also strict and forced it a lot, especially when bath, in the end I somehow managed to strip the whole foreskin to see the head and avoided circumcision, although I was repeatedly told that I would have to go.

My Dad I recon was instrumental in getting me circumcised. I think he thought it cleaner, easier to maintain and the right look. So I got the same style as Dad.

His wife gained custody of the two boys. As I understand, she took both boys to the doctor and had them circumcised. The boys were ages 10 and 12. My brother disapproved of such but could do nothing as the deed was done.

Sounds like a mean-spirited and somewhat vicious way of getting back at the divorced husband by taking it out on his sons. How low can one go? Not the kind of woman I would ever care to know.