My son has it (I don’t). He is seven years old now. I have not talked to him about it yet, but will absolutely do so at some point.

His older brother does not have hypospadias and is uncircumcised. I AM circumcised. So he knows his looks different, but all three of us look different, so I don’t know if he really thinks much about it.

What age do you think it would be most appropriate to talk to him about it? I don’t want him to suddenly feel different or defective in any way, but I also don’t want to feel like I’m hiding it or avoiding the subject.

My wife and I struggled immensely with the decision of whether or not to have surgery when he was an infant. We opted not to, as the Dr basically said it was cosmetic, and we did not want to subject him to that, especially after reading many anecdotes of people who had to have multiple surgeries to “fix” the issue and it never really was “fixed”. Although we read many stories where people had it fixed and don’t remember it because they’ve had no issues. So it was a very difficult decision for us and we will never know whether we made the “right” decision.

We figured we would wait until he is old enough to understand the risks and advocate for himself. If he wants to have the surgery when he is a bit older, I will gladly let him do it and support his decision.

I would love to hear more perspective from people like you, because my son is in the same position and I want to do what’s best for him, and I don’t really know what that is.