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I didn't read all of the responses so forgive me if this is a repeated idea. My husband was surprised to learn from the nurses at our birth center (admittedly a slightly different demographic than a regular hospital) and our pediatrician at an interview to learn that the decline in circumcision is significant. I wonder if making an appointment to chat with your future pediatrician or some other knowledgable third party might help. Good luck!

I was also against and my DH for was for it. In the end I left this decision up to him - there were many many other decisions that he let me make, and generally he's fine with whatever I decide. But this particular was very very important to him - for whatever reason, it was really going to bother him to not have his son 'look like him' down there. That's not something I can understand, probably since I don't have a penis, but he is entitled to his feelings on the subject and getting into a debate with him about whether he was right or wrong wasn't going to do any good. Frankly, I don't think most of the posts on here will be helpful because this isn't about whether or not HB users agree with you or not - it's about the fact that your DH doesn't, and if you've discussed it with the doctor I doubt anything an internet discussion board will say is going to sway him.

So, it sounds like your DH's reasons basically involve cosmetics and likely his own insecurities about having a son who looks 'different,' and your reasons involve it being painful and not really necessary. And unfortunately this isn't an issue you can compromise on - someone's going to get their way and the other person isn't. I agree with a PP about discussing this again with a neutral third party - pediatrician, counselor, someone. But this won't be resolved by bashing each other's reasons, and I think it's important that both of you at least try to understand the other person's point of view so neither of you ends up feeling resentful about this.

the op's question (or concern rather) was that she wasn't able to come to a decision in her relationship because each of them had a diff opinion (& both parents' reasons should be considered and respected equally). Her question was not "how do I convince my DH against his beliefs?"

My answer is that both of you should research each other's viewpoints and maybe that'll help. Also, it could be a decision made for after the sex is determined too. I hope you BOTH can be happy with whatever decision you two come to. It isn't fair that people answer your concern with persuasion towards one side or the other. The bottom line is that both parents be 100% satisfied with the decision. I think lots of couples struggle with this

@mrbee: I think the OP laid out the reasons why her husband is for circumcision and she is against and it paved the way for posters to give their opinions on the matter instead of explaining how they resolved the debate in their household. An example would be calling the OP's husband's reasons ridiculous.

@swedishfish: it seems ok to me to describe a disagreement when asking how to resolve it.

I have some growing concerns around what I've been feeling is the changing tone of the boards. I'll address this in a separate thread...

@mrbee: I don't think there's anything wrong with that either usually but circ vs. anti circ is a hugely controversial issue. I'm not really sure what you mean by changing tones on the boards....I feel like I'm being singled out by that. Did I do something wrong?

My DH felt strongly and I felt like I couldn't/didn't/wouldn't understand since I don't have a penis so I deferred to him. It didn't feel fair to me to override DH's decision on something I really would never experience. I could research until I was blue in the face, but no amount of research would ever grow me a penis.

We are both happy with the outcome. It may not be the best way to resolve the disagreement, but it worked well for our family.

Good luck

Good luck! I deferred to Dh for both boys as he has the equipment and I don't. Also like other posters have noted Dh leaves a lot of decisions to me. I should note that I didn't have a strong opinion either way.

I hope you both come a decision soon.

We disagreed about this but I ended up deferring to him for similar reasons to others. He felt very strongly about it and I felt like it was an decision that I just couldn't completely understand but trusted him. If it were 100% my call I wouldn't have done it but it wasn't and I don't regret it either.

We didn't circumcise, and agreed about it, so that's where I'm coming from.

In general I think if one partner wants to take a permanent, non-urgent action and the other isn't comfortable with it, we shouldn't do it, or should at least postpone it. To me circumcision fits that category.

Beyond that, our kids will all be teased for one thing or another, guaranteed. If the worst he faces is some taunting from culturally illiterate locker room kids, he'll be lucky. And pretty sure he'll be able to handle it.

Also pretty much guaranteed that your son will have a different penis than his father, foreskin or not.

So basically I think DH's arguments don't hold water. For something so painful and permanent, there should be some compelling reason, in my opinion. "Because I wanna" doesn't cut it.

@swedishfish: For what it's worth I completely agree, I also felt it was phrased in a way that made it all too easy for people to jump on OP's DH's reasons when clearly the issue here isn't whether he is right or wrong (really, there's no such thing when it comes to this debate, it's a personal choice/opinion), the issue is how to come to an agreement. Bashing her DH's reasons will do nothing but make him feel defensive, they've clearly already discussed these points and it's not getting them anywhere.

I go with the idea that the person in the relationship with a penis gets final word on penis decisions for our child.

We were team green on #2.

In the event of a boy we did our research ahead of time. at the beginning husband was pro. I told him I would give his side more weight in the matter but my only thing was we wouldn't do it unless he had some strong reasoning for it. And not his original reason of "well isn't that what you do". We read up - talked to OB and Pediatrician and ultimately did not do it. We did have a boy and I am so glad we had those discussions before hand and were able to enjoy new baby instead of intense research and discussions those first few days.

@caitlanc: I love your reasoning!

Im not going to touch the circ vs un-circ issue. However, when we have disagreements, we normally debate about it. Normally, if we find we cant agree then whoever has the bigger stake/it effects the most gets their way.

For instance, my husband paid off my student loans, so he wanted me to finish my degree at my same university rather than transferring and risk losing credits. I didn't want to go back. In the end, he shelled out a lot of money to get me out of debt, so I conceded. In the end, I realized he was right and it's the responsible thing to do.

And for the record, I would have let him decide on circumcision if we had had a boy. He has a penis, I don't. Im not saying that's for everyone, but that's what I would have done since I have no strong feelings either way.

My husband and I also kind of disagreed, in the sense that I had thought it was more important to him than it turned out to be. He is circed and I thought he would want his son to be as well. We were team green as well and my husband was insistent on not finding out the sex.

When we were in the hospital and we asked about it, we were told that the procedure required general anesthesia, and they will not administer that to newborns. So, there really was no decision to be made and our son is not circed. He's 3.5 and it has caused him no issue so far.

@caitlanc: agree. My husband has the exact same reasons the OP's husband does. I feel like men have very few vanity-type arguments for things, but this is one of them.

We'll have quite the interesting case with this as we're adopting and I have absolutely no idea if our future son is circumcised. Doing it at an older age would definitely be an additional discussuon.

We haven't found out the gender of our baby yet but we're disagreeing to! DH wants circumcision, but his reasoning is that he isn't, and he thinks a man's life is more convenient if he is. My reasoning against is that DH is fine without it so why bother?! You just need to be a little better w/ the hygiene aspect, which you should anyway! So we will continue the debate once we find out gender for sure.