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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To call DD's vagina her vagina?

247 replies

LauLauLemon · 03/08/2011 15:44

I don't think I am but this has now caused hell to the point where my 93 year old Grandmothet has refused to see me, my Bampi is yelling at me and everyone is up in arms.

Apparently it's a sexual term, not one to be used by little girls and I'm a bad mother. It's got to the point where my nosy grandma tried to find in laws in the phone book to complain to them about their horrible son using the word to his daughter "Get your hands off your vagina" after she was messing around.

What exactly is wrong with a three year old knowing her vagina is called just that. I'm not going to make up names for it.

Also, if DD uses this term in nursery Bampi seems to think I'll be called in for a meeting and asked not to return.

AIBU or are family just a load of bonkers twats?

OP posts:

nickelbabe · 03/08/2011 16:40

can we stop focussing on the Bampi, please?
it's completely irrelavant to the topic.

I call my Grandfather grandad, but that doesn't mean i'm being twee about it.
fgs.

we're focussing on genetalia, not regional variations on a grandparent's name.

kingbeat23 · 03/08/2011 16:41

I was brought up to call it a vagina as a child and was ridiculed by my peers. I desperately wanted to call it a cutesy name but I have an extremely pedantic mother.

I call my daughter's nuny. (i don't know how to spell it phonetically - "nu-nee"?)

nickelbabe · 03/08/2011 16:44

i think fanjo, because it's a MN term, could be misconstrued as a swearword.

malinois · 03/08/2011 16:47

So do people who insist on vulva and penis also insist on patella, phalanges and pinna? If not why not? Should the genitals be considered so special that we must not use common English names for them but instead have to go with fancy Latin and Greek anatomical names?

'Do make sure you clean behind your auricles darling!'

VelvetSnow · 03/08/2011 16:48

nickelbabe the Bampi thing is perfectly relevant, the OP is against made up words or not calling something by it's real name.

She contradicts herself in her own OP.

mumnotmachine Sorry I didn't realise it was a Welsh translation, I naturally assumed that the OP spoke English, and therefore did not take into account that Bampi could be translated to another language.

VelvetSnow · 03/08/2011 16:49

And hey, I call my grandfather "Pops"

I'm quite fond of the odd made up word though (as per my first post in this thread)

PerryCombover · 03/08/2011 16:50

but shurely festri the point is that your examples cover the other bits
like vulva covers the other bits

so a mouth has many other parts involved
a nose has many other bits involved

but a vagina is only one part and not really a part that has much to do with the everyday business of lil girls ime. so on that reasoning shouldn't be used as a descriptive term for something that has a perfectly good term

vagina when you mean vulva is just wrong innit like

PerryCombover · 03/08/2011 16:52

I don't have a grandfather but would call him something outrageously descriptive if I did

nickelbabe · 03/08/2011 16:57

malinois
that argument only works for penis, because there's a widely accepted term of willy.
the girl's equivalent doesn't have that.
we can use Fanjo, but i know that only MNers know it, and any of the other terms don't work either

boys also have balls and knob...

we've got foofoo or flower etc, none of which is a satisfactory description.

when I was a child, it was tuppence, and then fanny as i got older.
but there's discrepancy there too - cos tuppence was the outside bits and fanny was the inside bit.

ShowOfHands · 03/08/2011 16:57

malinois, as I've already pointed out, no people who say vagina/vulva, don't say patella or phalanges, because we have perfectly acceptable, common use words for those things. A vagina merely means vagina, a vulva means vulva, we don't have a willy equivalent (a widely understood non-anatomical term) and foofoo and twinkie and flower mean different things for different people. The material point is that vagina and vulva are just words and the screams of 'good God no' from some quarters and the childish sniggering and accusations of pretension are really very strange indeed.

And Bampi is an accepted term just from a different region and not relevant to the discussion at all. But there is frig all wrong with a child using an anatomical term when the alternatives are either made-up cutesy nonsense or words now used in offensive ways.

You want to say foofoo or twinkle or marydarylala, you do what you like. But afford me the same respect.

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:01

My parents were really hot on using correct anatomical names for everything - yes, even anus and defecate!

Personally, I think it is fine; I hate that people think it is 'cute' to have little girls saying stupid made-up words. Basically, you only want them to have stupid made-up words about that one body part because you are ashamed of it. IMO. You don't think they should be able to talk in a confident, grownup way about it. It is not the same as saying ears/ auricles because 'ears' is a common name in English - 'foofysmudybutton' or whatever the fuck ridiculous crap you want to teach them to say, isn't.

Bollox to that. When I have children they will know what stuff is called.

And actually I was never ridiculed by my peers, rather, they thought it was hilarious that I knew all these dirty sounding words. I was very popular when I was about 5

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:01

xpost with SOH who said it much better.

shouldbeelswhere · 03/08/2011 17:13

here here. Tell it how it is. My children know the anatomical words because when my DD said "what is this hole?" it just didn't seem right to tell her anything different to "that's your vagina" in the same way that she pointed to her eyelashes and said "what are these?"

Rhinestone · 03/08/2011 17:15

I am 100% with AmberLeaf and Bampi!

pinkthechaffinch · 03/08/2011 17:21

dd (2) call penises 'willets' and vulvas 'willettes'

i think it's hilarious, and she's made up the terms all on her own

nickelbabe · 03/08/2011 17:22

that's not fair Peasant - i said exactly the same as Showy did.
:(

shouldbeelswhere · 03/08/2011 17:23

what does your DD say at the doctors?

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:26

Aw sorry nickel I hadn't seen yours. It was very good too! Would you like a gold star to post on your icklewickle chestywestykins?

Original poster

LauLauLemon · 03/08/2011 17:26

She says vagina.

OP posts:

ShowOfHands · 03/08/2011 17:27

I said it twice though. Because I'm dull like that.

Original poster

LauLauLemon · 03/08/2011 17:29

I'd just like to add that I am not against made up words it's just I don't want to use a made up word for a body part. I choose not to. It's not wrong whether you do or don't. I grew up calling my vulva a twinkle. I didn't like it then and I don't like it now. Calling a body part by another name seems odd to me.

OP posts:

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:31

You can have two stars, ShowofGraspyWaspyThings.

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:32

Seriously, can you imagine saying to a midwife, 'I've been having pains in my twinkle'.

Failsafe · 03/08/2011 17:34

Peasant "Seriously, can you imagine saying to a midwife, 'I've been having pains in my twinkle'."

RevoltingPeasant · 03/08/2011 17:35

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