(Untitled)

[laynamarya]

So, I am going to have a son! Allegedly. In Korea, it is apparently still technically illegal to disclose the gender of your child to the parents, because it was not so very long ago that daughters were aborted at a much higher rate than sons. So our doctor pointed out a certain, um, aspect of our ultrasound, and Seunghyun asked, "Sooooo, it's a

Comments

[athene]

Congrats on your son! I have to say sons are pretty cool. Well, my son is! :)
I was worried about the son thing too because I could come up with a million girls names that I liked but very few boy ones. It worked out alright in the end though :)

How common is circumcision in Korea? It's a pretty hot topic here in the States. We opted not to circumcise DJ and I think it was the right decision.

Pee-pee Tee-pees. If you can get them, you want them. Trust me. I thought they were silly at first. After seeing how that boy can spray, I don't think they're silly anymore.

[laynamarya]

Hmmm, I have not thought of circumcision at all...but apparently it is almost universal in Korea. I will have to discuss it with my husband, he probably has more of an opinion than I do. (I have no opinion whatsoever.)

Also! I've seen pee-pee tee-pees! But they seem unreasonably expensive. What are they made of? Can I make them myself, do you think?

[oochie83]

Yay for a son! I knew it would be a boy! How exciting! I had no opinion on circumcision either, we ending up getting it done, and it was fine and completely healed after about 10 days.

[danae]

actually circumcision for babies is rare, they just don't do it. Boys don't get circumcised until they are about to entire the military from what I hear. Our son isn't and we've decided that we're not going to. I've read a bunch of articles on how it's actually it's not necessary and very painful for them

[danae]

I've had boy students named Jae Sun, E Sac (he went by Isaac), Samuel (Sa Moo El), Yu Jin (Eugene)

or you could go the English first name, Korean middle name like we did Alexander Taejin

[laynamarya]

That is really really helpful, thank you!

I am afraid it will take a lot of convincing for my mother-in-law to be remotely ok with any name not bestowed by a fortune teller, but there are very few pure Korean boys' names that make sense in English, so I feel like going to a fortune teller will be kind of a huge waste of time.

One thing I am wondering about: our baby is going to have dual citizenship, so I was wondering if the names on both passports need to be exactly the same? If they don't, we have a lot more freedom.

[igrok]

We didn't want to take anything for granted. Some men feel quite strongly about circumcision.

You can read more on wikipedia. It's not really safe for work:
NSFW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreskin_restoration

[jilsynchro]

Yes, as you may gather from Eliot's post, Anders is not circumcised, and it is just about the only parenting decision I ever made that I unequivocally believe was the right thing to do. Like many things in the Old Testament, the practice emerged in response public health issues, which are no longer relevant (There is a big movement to circumcise in Africa because it makes AIDS less likely to be transmitted. And, even though AIDS is terrible, I am still not totally sure that circumcision is the right thing to be doing to halt its spread.) I don't know how to bring up my opinion without being blunt, so I am just going to go ahead and say that without a good cultural/religious or health reason behind the practice, it is pretty terrible to cut off the most sensitive part of someone's body.