Circumcision

Jacobs year is framed by the conception and birth of twin sons. At the end of his sojourn he describes the bris of his eight-day-old sons. He also discusses the circumcision of his two-year old son which he was much more ambivilent about at the time. His wife had put her foot down at the time, but he would have been just as happy not to have done it, and hides in the bedroom during the procedure. He watches this time.

I am glad I had a girl. My husband and I never did decide what to do about a circumcision. I was squarely on the no side, but he was not. We could have saved ourselves a lot of anguish if we had asked during any of my eight sonograms what the sex of the baby was, but we wanted to be surprised. We never did completely agree on a boy's name either.