What do you call your daughter's private parts? pom pom, fanny, frou frou?

[e11ie5]

serious question ... I've been pondering it for a while only to find that the Telegraph has a piece on the very matter as well ... so far people have suggested pom pom, frou frou, bits, Mary ... and fronthind ... any thoughts!! I've written about the matter here
crazypregnantperson.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/by-any-other-name/

[ItLooksLikeRainDear]

DD only 1 so not come up yet. My mum referred to it as a 'fairy' too but not sure what we will call it yet so am watching with interest.

DS 2.10 calls his penis his 'louis' & has done since he could speak... Something we were thankful of a while back when we were at a family funeral in church & he pipes up 'mummy my Louis has got bigger!' thankfully no-one knew what he was talking about!

[MumsKnitter]

Gosh! So many vulvas, who knew! We call it a ginny. I did teach my girls clit too, but regretted when they were with Grandma and shocked the poor woman! I do, however, think that it's important that they have unambiguous names for their genitals for their own protection. They need to feel comfortable with their bodies and be able to talk about them.

[scrumpkin]

Fanny

[milkysmum]

I had been thinking about this a while back (my dd is 3.8) we settled on vagina as everything else sounded ridiculous! her nana nearly died on the spot when she heard dd saying the word vagina though!

[IfYouSeeMeSayHello]

Vagina. Or more frequently, gina.

Cannot bear cute euphemisms like froufrou, flower etc. Ridiculous

[Spero]

My exes' ridiculously squeamish mother thought it was some kind of child abuse to use anatomical terms. So she insisted on Noo Noo which apparently is the name of a vacuum cleaner in the teletubbies, which caused my daughter some distress and confusion in her formative years.

On a serious note, the use of 'front bottom' did really banjax an interview with a very young child who was thought to be alleging sexual abuse. The interviewer got confused as to what bottom was being referred to and in the end the investigation did not proceed as it was felt that a reference to a 'bottom' could have been innocent, help with toiletting etc. that may well have been the truth, but it wasn't fair to that little girl to disable her from telling her story in the clearest way possible.

[e11ie5]

: ) that's all ... I love this forum ... thanks so much girls ... I'm going to bed grinning about fantoosh and Auntie Betsie ...

somehow this all makes me think of Pauline Collins as Shirley Valentine talking about the cli-torrrris ... and re the vulva / volvo thing there is a restaurant near Cambridge called Vuva which makes me chortle every time I drive past it ...

keep on with the pet names ... I'm fascinated!

[MrsMushroom]

spero I loathe "front bottom" but what idiot couldn't work out that it means vagina? Front bottom is not bottom.

[3b1g]

I'm a bit flummoxed about the references to vagina for very young girls. Unless a child accidentally sticks something up there in the bath, why would she need to be referring to something that is inside her body? (Obviously it would be useful to know where her vagina is once she starts her periods, especially if she wants to use tampons). If we're saying that it's important for a child to know the correct names for her genitalia, then surely vagina should only be used to refer to the actual tract.

[squareheadcut]

my mother in law calls it a vaggy! PRON Vajjee

[YouSeveredHead]

Dd has adopted the bottom so I go with that

[AndiMac]

Vagina. It's not quite correct, but it's a word that would be acceptable and understood by anyone who needed to know, including a doctor.

Plus I read that giving it an anatomically correct name could help you pick up on possible sexual abuse (heaven forbid). If you taught them to call it vulva or vagina and they are suddenly calling it a cupcake, you should follow up and ask from where they got that name.

[DumSpiroSpero]

Girly bits, although DD did briefly coin the expression 'underbum' which I quite liked!

[DumSpiroSpero]

So she insisted on Noo Noo which apparently is the name of a vacuum cleaner in the teletubbies, which caused my daughter some distress and confusion in her formative years.

There's also a book about dummies called 'The Last Noo Noo'...!

[CheerfulYank]

I'm going to begin calling mine an Aunt Betsy now, Hully. "No thank you DH, Auntie Betsy is not receiving visitors this evening." :o

I don't know what I'll call it if I ever have a girl. Vulva probably? No idea. I call DS's penis a penis. He was quite amused to tell me "Papa (my dad) calls a penis a 'pee-winker'!" They'd been taking a sauna together when DS was staying at my parents and apparently my dad told him to "wash your pee-winker."

Of course, that's the man who told me not to say 'uterus' when I was about 16, so he's a bit uncomfortable with real words for anything vaguely below the belt.

[Spero]

Mrsmushroom - because sometimes she said 'front bottom', sometimes she said 'bum', sometimes 'bottom' and at one stage she said the man involved had 'three bottoms' and showed her. It did not help that the interviewer was all at sea and made it worse by inappropriate questions... but I can't help thinking if the little girl and known how to distinguish 'bottom' and 'vagina/vulva' things would have been a lot clearer a lot earlier on...

I suspect 'bottom' was just a catch all phrase for the entire pubic region, but you can see the confusion that can cause.

[tethersend]

We're a house of fannies.

[3b1g]

Poor DS1 had some mild balanitis a few weeks ago. I gave him some fucidin cream and some instructions on what to do with it. After a couple of days, I needed to know whether it was clearing up, but didn't want to embarrass him in front of his siblings, so when I went into his room to say goodnight, I asked him how things were going 'downstairs'. He had no idea what I was talking about, and this led to one of those conversations at cross-purposes until it dawned on him that I was trying to subtly ask about his penis.

[WithTheDude]

Vulva, clitoris and vagina. I don't do twee.

[AndiMac]

Yes, because it would be much better if she walked in and said she has an itchy frou frou.

[LibrariansMakeNovelLovers]

vulva and vagina although it comes out more as foofa and Jina when DD says it which suits me fine. She knows the names just can't say them properly yet.

[cartblanche]

Labia and sometimes "bits" if I'm feeling a bit coy (stupid I know). I've explained that she also has a vagina where a baby can come out (and then have to explain that neither she nor her brother came out that way!) Haven't yet explained its role in getting a baby in there in the first place (she's 5).