Is It Appropriate For My Son To Be Circumcised At This Late Date?

Posting Date: 03/26/2001

Originally broadcast on March 7, 2001

Mike: I have a 14-year-old son and he's giving me some problems. He insists on being circumcised. I have two other boys at home and they are circumcised. I didn't have him circumcised because I listened to you years back and you sold me on that whole idea of not doing it.

He's taking swimming and he came home pretty upset. He is the only one out of a class of 30 kids who is not circumcised. I told him that all boys are born the way he is, but he says he doesn?t care. He threatened to run away. I just don?t know how to handle this situation.

Dr. Dean: To me, this is very much akin to the cases ongoing overseas of teen-aged girls wanting their breasts enlarged. It is plastic surgery; circumcision on a boy at this age is plastic surgery, and that is considered inappropriate. You can tell him that when he's 21 he can make this decision and that's okay. But at this age it?s not appropriate.

The numbers of boys who are circumcised in the United States will vary given what part of the country you are in. If you were on West Coast, that number would be closer to 60 percent, which is one hell of a difference. So in that class of 33, there would roughly be 11 kids who were not circumcised. And just as you would teach him that if his skin were a different color or if his face were different, it doesn't mean that he has to be like everyone else. But be supportive in this approach.

And I don't have the exact words for you because you know your boy better than I do. Kids will threaten to do drastic things: ?I'm going to run away.? But they don?t always mean it.

You might explain to him the sexual advantages of not being circumcised. You have to decide if he, at 14 years, is old enough to hear about this. You could also relate this situation to that of tonsils, and all the operations that doctors have done over the years. That just like circumcision, this is part of the tradition that had turned out to be wrong. Or you can tell him it's just because these other boys are jealous because he's got extra that they don't have.

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