The following podcast contains explicit language.

Welcome to Mom and Dad are Fighting, Slate's Parenting Podcast for Thursday, May 31st, the Circumcision Conundrum Edition.

I'm Gabriel Roth. I'm an editor at Slate, and I'm the father of Eliza, who's seven years old, and Leo who is three and three quarters. I'm Rebecca Levoy. I'm a journalist and podcaster in New Hampshire, and I am mom to Henry, who is 16, Teddy, who is 15, and my stepdaughter Lily, who is 17. And I'm Carver Wallace, a writer and podcaster in Oakland, California, and I'm the father to Georgia who was 12, and Ezra, who was 15.

Boy, it's good to be back on the show.

Today we have a question about where babies come from and how to explain it.

And we will be joined by a special guest, Wendy Zuckerman, of the podcast Science Versus, to talk about the removal of the foreskin from the penis of a newborn human boy.

What does science have to say about circumcision?

Plus, as always, we will share our triumphs and fails.

We will make recommendations.

And on Slate Plus, I will tell the story of my own circumcision.

If you want to hear that segment, you know what to do.

Triumphs and fails, Carvel.

It's been a while since I've been here.

We've been hearing your triumphs and fails.

What about this week?

Triumph or fail?

This week was a fail for my son and maybe a triumph for me, but a painful one.

Anyway, he was working on one of his final projects for one of his classes, and he got this vision that he was going to make for his final project this short video.

And the short video involved, unlike, he does a lot of videos for

his project because he's now, he's really into filmmaking and he's into editing and he's going

to film camp the summer. And this is, this is, as of now, this is his stated sort of like passion.

And so it was great. So he had this idea for a film that he was going to make. And it ended up being rather complex because it turns out he needed to be at a certain location. And he needed certain props. And we had to require the props. And he also needed multiple parties to take part in this. He needed someone to do this and someone to hold the shotgun mic and someone to do camera. And he really was trying to do this thing.

...