And immediately the power struggle begins...

The BBQ Pit
21

Preamble: I’m aware that this falls very squarely in the “none of my damned business” bullseye. So, filing accordingly is entirely expected.

But: factor out the MIL and family peace and religious tradition issues–in an alternate world where those things weren’t around, would you still elect to have the kid snipped? If yes, the rest of this post can be tossed into the bin even more quickly than otherwise.

If no, though…a couple thoughts. I understand the balancing act of keeping family peace, if only from the standpoint of having been terrible at it. And I understand the importance of deciding where and where not to make allowances for that goal–but it seems to me that it’s one thing when those allowances hurt the people choosing to make them, and and another when it causes pain to someone else. The proverbial JDT anti-circ lunatic fringe aside, it’s still going to hurt the kid, and I figure that even small pains are wrong to cause deliberately to another person when there’s no real benefit to that person. (As always, see filing notes about whose business this is above.)

Secondly, and more importantly: the inner cynic of me sees quite a few people (I’m leaping to speaking-in-generalities mode here) being, well, jerked around by other folks. And a lot of the time, these people say they’ve got to make allowances to keep the peace. Not worth fighting over this, and so forth–but they’ll fight over the next thing down the road. Tomorrow, or next week. But not today. It just seems to me that “give an inch and get taken for a mile” is a cliche proverb basically because it’s got a large nugget of truth to it–and when stands have to be taken, there’s no better day than today, because action never happens on any other day.

For what it’s worth. Best of luck with things.

22

Dave and Robyn,

Congratulations on the the birth of your son and welcome to the wild, wacky, and infinitely wonderful world of parenthood.

It sounds as if you’re in a difficult spot but just because you are staying with the parents is no reason to act any differently than if you were at home.

If you had no intention of having a Bris then I would stick to that decision no matter what anyone says.

Parents can be a great help and resource but there should be a line where you (as parents) have the final say in how your son will be raised. Conceding to their wishes on something you had no intention of doing sets a bad precedent, asking that you spend the $200.00 on something you never wanted borders on ridiculous.

Just my 2 cents…

23

Ah, in-laws. One of the toughest things I learned after becoming a parent (lo these six months ago) is that nobody is going to look out for my son’s interests except for me and his dad. Everybody else has an opinion on how he should be raised, and many people seem to feel it is their God-given mandate to explain these opinions to you at great length and in great detail, but ultimately you’re his parents and responsible for his upbringing. Now is the time to make your son’s grandmother understand that you are the parents, not her. You make the decisions, not her.

That having been said, I also agree that you have to choose your battles. If the bris isn’t a big deal, OK, don’t go to the mat over it. Save your ammo for 13 years down the line when she wants him to have a bar mitvah. On the other hand, maybe now is when you want to make the point that you’re not raising him to be Jewish (unless someday he chooses that for himself) and that therefore you won’t be going through the Jewish ceremonies.

This is a tough one. I concur that it will be a lot easier once you’re not living there anymore. In the meantime, good luck! It’s hard enough getting used to life with a newborn without meddling relatives to deal with.

Oh, and one more thing: No way in hell would I be paying that 200 bucks. If she wants the bris so bad, she can pay for it herself. Here’s how I envision the conversation going:

MIL: “I want you to pay for the bris.”
Me: “No.”
MIL: “But he has to have a bris.”
Me: “OK.”
MIL: “So you’ll be paying for it, then?”
Me: “No.”
MIL: “But you have to!”
Me: “Bet I don’t.”

24

Please don’t have him circumcised. Who pays for it is irrelevant.

I don’t wanna re-open the whole circ debate. Let’s just say it’s unnecessary surgery that can’t ever be reversed and leave it at that.

I would never perform unnecessary, irreversible surgery on my new born son unless I had overwhelming religious reasons for doing so (which you don’t by the sounds of it).

I have a nephew who has a (lapsed) catholic father and a (lapsed) Jewish mother, kinda like your situation. The kid hasn’t been circ’ed or baptised and will go to a non-religious school (despite the feelings of the Jewish and Catholic in-laws).

You say:

A wise decision but by performing the circumcision you are allowing religion to become an issue.

25

Dave and Robin

What you have here, is a failure to communicate.

This isn’t about religion, this is about control. You can’t “bribe” MIL to get her off your backs anymore than you can bribe a bear to leave people alone by feeding it. The traditional expression is, “teaching wolves to chase sleighs.” By giving in to these demands, you are simply encouraging her to make more of them. She will never be “satisfied” because she can always think up some new hoop to make you jump through.

Reason won’t work. Bribery won’t work. Begging won’t work. The only thing that will make the rest of your life bearable is a course of behavior modification (hers, not yours) that is functionally equivalent to house training a puppy. The goal here is not to get her to “see your point of view” or to “agree with you.” It is to define limits and train her to act within those limits so that it does not unduly disrupt your life.

Here is a simple (at least to explain!) method of dealing with your problem.[ul]
[li]Rule 1 - Robin & Dave always agree.[/li]

[li]Rule 2 - Bad behavior is punished.[/li]

[li]Rule 3 - Good behavior is rewarded.[/li]

[li]Rule 4 - Robin & Dave get to define good and bad behavior.[/li]

[li]Rule 5 - NEVER get mad.[/li]

[/ul]

Good luck to the both of you. It will be alot easier once you have your own place. Don’t think, however, that simply having your own place will solve the problem – it won’t. Until you take the matter in hand, MIL will be a constant source of conflict. However, if you guys set appropriate limits and rigorously enforce them you’ll probably get along with her just fine. At the very least, you’ll prevent the problem from getting completely out of hand.

26

I could be wrong, but judging from the OP it seems that the circumcision isn’t the issue. The religious ceremony itself is. There are other reasons for circumsion than religion, and it sounds like they’ve already made that decision.

What a tough situation. I feel for you. I understand that you’re only doing it because you’re staying with her and want to keep things civil, but it really is unfair of her to expect you to pay. Tell her that you would be willing to go through with the ceremony, but you can’t afford the travel expenses. If it really means that much to her, she’ll pay. You’ve already comprimised by doing the Bris in the first place.

Congratulations, and good luck to you both :slight_smile:

27

Yeesh!

What should be a joyous, though hectic time for you is turning out to be quite stressful.

Good luck with whatever you decide. Personally, I’d try to come to a compromise, and say you pay for it, or we won’t do it.

Hope it goes well.

28

Wait a minute–you’re saying that she doesn’t call him by his actual name?? Maybe I misunderstood, but it sounds like you are saying that she calls him Justin. If so:

She is a control freak. You must put your foot down NOW.

As I’ve mentioned before on the boards, we decided we didn’t want to get the Sprout snipped. Both our families were upset about it–my family over the fact that he wouldn’t be circumcised, and Jeff’s family over the fact that there would be no bris. In the end, the issue has been dropped. We responded to them by saying that our decision was final and that was that. Really, what choice did they have but to drop it? If anyone had persisted in giving us a hard time about it, we would have avoided them like the plague.

In other words, I agree with TruthSeeker.

29

No, she does now call him by his actual name, but until he was born and we named him she told us that we were “cursing him” by naming him that. You see, Robin had previously had a son who, tragically, had died very young, and his name was Andrew Joseph. AJ, you see? She also said that she couldn’t “bond” with Aaron unless we changed his name.

In fact, she literally lobbied until the VERY last second for us to change his name. She came in the day after his birth all but begging us to change his name, not knowing that we had named him earlier that day. That’s the extent of her determination to interfere and piss me off.

Until now, I thought she couldn’t be any more idiotic. I was wrong.

30

Dude, you’re making a mountain out of a… no, let me try again.

Look, man. I don’t have any actual experience in this, but…

You want this lad to have all the best, right? Maybe a Wing Commander someday? Perhaps JCS? President?

Well, you have to start early. Get the little boy into the club with the snippage, then get him baptized. Then convert to the LDS for awhile, and then go for something low-resistance like Methodism. Study the Koran with him, and try to introduce him to the Dalai Lama on his deathbed.

Be sure to teach him Hebrew, and Latin, and Arabic, and Hindu in his formative years, so he can come back to them later. Make him play soccer and a real sport. Teach him proper gun safety at the age of five, and small-motor mechanics by ten. He should be well-versed in the teachings of Oscar Wilde and the subtleties of Walt Whitman before it becomes a novelty to him in college, whether he chooses Colorado Springs or Annapolis. Get a subscription to Nature, Science, the New Yorker, The Economist, Film Threat, The Blade, and Maxim.

Above all, keep him away from Olentzero. That’s the really important part.

What you’re doing is hedging his bets for him. He’s going to be the greatest, but the greatest what?

That’s his decision. You just be sure to provide him with the basics.

31

Why not take the child to Houston for the ceremony? Inform MIL that if she wishes to attend, she will have to travel to Houston at her own expense. The end result is the same, isn’t it? The child gets circumsized and the two of you get to spend an evening in a nice motel/hotel—hopefully not the one where MIL stays. You will still be out some money, but on your terms and not MIL’s.

32

On a completely different topic brought up in the OP…you’re gonna have years and years to take the wee little one to the store. Unless you wanted to show him off, a teeny tiny one really doesn’t need to be out traipsing around in stores the first week or two.

Congratulations on Aaron’s birth, and good luck!

33

Oh, pshaw, kittenblue. Whether or not a baby NEEDS to go to the store isn’t an issue. He’s not gonna MELT, fergossakes.
There’s absolutely no reason not to take the baby with you wherever you go (the obvious exception here would be movie theatres.) Provided an infant is appropriately dressed and securely car-seated, he can go pretty much anywhere.

34

No, he isn’t.

Religion, beliefs, career choices or aspirations are decisions you can make on your own behalf and have the freedom to change your mind on

Circumcision is the reverse. It’s once only, no going back, irreversible. I understand ‘hedging bets’ to mean exactly the opposite of that.

Either the Airman Doors is having it done for cosmetic reasons, or he is leading his son down a path from which there is no return for religious reasons. If it’s the former, well that his decision, but it’s the kind of decision I think should be made by the owner of the body in question. If it’s the latter, then I think it’s a very big and irretrievable step for something that both parents consider largely irrelevant to their lives.

35

Did I read right? Are you currently living in her house?

If so, she can indeed exert influence over you and your family. It comes with the territory. It’s difficult to assert your wishes when someone else is paying the bills. Presumably the couple hundred bucks is much less than you have saved living with her for however long you have. It sucks, but it’s the price you pay for not living a completely adult life.

I do not mean to criticize. I have been in EXACTLY the same situation. You basically are in limbo until you can get out on your own. Don’t expect to be able to make fully autonomous decisions about your family until you have a place of your own.

If I misunderstood and you are not living with her, kindly disregard entire preceeding comment.

BTW, congratulation on the new arrival. It’s the best thing in the world!

36

If someone is living with you, you get to make rules like, “You must not make any noise in the living room after 10 PM,” or “You must launder all your own socks,” or even maybe “You must make breakfast for everyone every morning.”

You don’t get to make rules like, “Your son must go through this religious ceremony and you must pay for it.” Yeah, they’re living with the mother-in-law (or at least one of them is), but they’re still responsible for making decisions about their own son, no matter whose roof they’re living under.

That having been said, I also agree that the sooner they move out, the better. (Although it appears that Dave and Robin are fully on board with that sentiment.) And one final note…

Dear Everyone in this Thread Who Is Trying To Turn it Into a Big Debate About Circumcision:

Shut up. They obviously already made their decision; now leave them alone.

37

I have a place right now lined up that I will be moving into in anticipation of Robin and Aaron moving to PA. She’s staying with her parents because I was at BMT and Tech School, and so she moved in with her parents so she wouldn’t be alone, just in case. By the time I was done with my schooling she was too pregnant to travel and all the arrangements were made. In six weeks, after her checkup, she’ll be moving up with me. So this was a temporary arrangement to begin with, and her mother knew it.

I am living a completely adult life. I have arranged everything as best as is humanly possible for the benefit of my wife and child. I can do no more. I don’t need the interference of my MIL making things just that much more difficult right now. And like I said before, $200 makes things a LOT tougher.

And as MsWhatsit says, the decision is made. For better or worse. I was circumcised, and I’m not up in arms about it. From both a religious and sanitary standpoint, it’s desirable, and any alleged loss of sensation will clearly not be missed.

In other words, that subject is closed.

38

My Perfect Child[sup]TM[/sup] was born on a Thursday, and we were walking in the mall with her on that Sunday. It doesn’t seem to have had an ill effect, other than her love of shopping… hmmmmm…

Regardless, babies are little people and they might as well get used to being around other people as soon as possible. My view, anyway…

39

I see. It’s ok for Airman to complain about his MIL for unreasonably insisting a tradition is followed. But it’s not ok for him to be questioned for following another mindless tradition at the same time.

Cos that what it is. Despite what he says there are no ‘sanitary standpoints’ involved, so the only reasons are his own family traditions and the religious ones he says mean nothing to him.

It makes no difference to me what he does to his son. But if you’re going to open a BBQ thread bitching about your mother-in-law’s position then you have to be prepared to have your own questioned, especially if you’re justifying it with a fallacy.

40

I know very little about Jewish traditions, Christian traditions, or circumcision. But if I’m not mistaken, Dave and Robyn are the parents, not any of us. Last I checked, they were grown adults who could make their own decisions. I’m sure anything they decided was made as a pair, and well researched/thought out. I’m sure they both knows the pros and cons of either way, and did what they thought was best. I doubt anything said in this thread will make them realize they made a wrong decision. Why not cut them a break…they’re already pretty stressed as it is, do they need to be flamed for their decisions too?