I’m Afraid Of My Baby’s Penis!

The thing that worries me the most about having a boy is not the early-morning hockey practices one day in the future, or even visits to the hospital for broken bones. If I can be so blunt, what scares me the most is his penis. Make that his teeny weeny penis.

I once caught a glimpse of my nephew’s penis shortly after he was born, and I was shocked, to say the least. It was the weirdest looking thing I had ever seen. All balls and, well, a a teeny weeny penis. At least I think it was; I didn’t really stay long enough to find out. I ran out of the room that my brother was changing him in, screaming, “Oh my god! Oh my god! What was that?” Needless to say, I never helped him change my nephew’s diaper again.

That was seven years ago and my first and last glimpse of a baby boy’s penis. I think, make that I know, I’m still traumatized. I’m actually saying to friends and other mothers with boys that I’m terrified of my baby boy’s penis. ‘They just look so weird,” I said to one of my friends over coffee last week. She has a boy and she laughed and said, “I know, I know.”

Maybe it will be different when it’s my baby boy and I’ll not think of his penis being so weird, like something you make out of Play-Doh. Because if I continue to think the way I do about baby penises, my fiancé is going to be doing a heck of a lot of diaper changing.

But that’s not all. Whenever I mention I’m having a boy, everyone can’t help but telling me stories of being peed on. As a gift, I received a package of Pee-Pee Teepees, these little cloth things, shaped in a triangle, that you are supposed to put over the boy’s penis while changing him, so in case he does pee, he doesn’t end up peeing on you or in your face (which seems to happen a lot according to everyone I know who has had a boy). I looked at the Pee-Pee Teepees and thought, “Seriously? I need these?” I put some on a high-up shelf and gave the rest to my daughter to use as party hats for her stuffed animals.

People, it seems, love to share stories of being peed on by their babies, just like people love to share their own labor stories. Just like bad labor stories, I’m like, “Please, stop! I don’t want to hear any more!” I don’t think it’s funny, and I know I won’t find it funny to be peed on at 3 a.m., especially in my face or hair. My gag reflexes are already on ‘ON’ just thinking about it.

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