To call DD's vagina her vagina?

[LauLauLemon]

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?

Now I've heard everything.

How is that possible?

thats insane. i stopped my self posting about my friends 2 yr old who shoves the end of the hairbrush up there..but thought was too much info. but the cherry pips

Yep, she had recurring vaginal infections, smelly discharge, Child Protection Procedures where in full swing, poor family in a total tiz. It really was not funny at all at the time (I was involved in a professional capacity).

It is more than 20 years ago and every time I teach yet another one of mine how to eat cherries without swallowing the stone, I remember ... They are encouraged to use the bin. And they are all boys.

YANBU to call her body parts by their correct name. I had a prfound embarassment over that word as I never heard it used as a child as if it was something to be embarassed about.

But I wonder if she is too young for it just now. For example do you refer to her abdomen or her tummy? Do you refer to her anus / rectum or her bottom? Why just the vagina, why not have her call all of her body parts by their correct names at three years old.

I have never heard a 3 year old boy say penis, it is always willy.

It perhaps would be best to wait until she's a bit older.

DD1, 2.7, always says, 'Wipe vagina' after she pees. Before she was getting the words right and wanted to wipe herself, she would yell 'My gina!!'.

A1980 my DS has always said penis, but then we don't say "willy" here.

I'm not sure if this has been said as I'm on my stupid i pod and it's hard to read up... But, Bampi, in Wales is a word for grandFATHER.....

Thebreastmilksonme-i take it then you don't have DD's, its just another hole to shove things in, ears, nose and lower. Thankfully my youngest never picked on anything that could rot because thats when the problems start.

I had an excellent loud parenting moment in our local department store yesterday.
DD pointed at the nether regions of a bare-naked display dummy and said "Look, it hasn't got a thingie".
I said "Do you mean it hasn't got a vulva darling?"
I don't think anyone fainted.
But I felt like a twat.

We have always used vulva and penis (although DS has picked up wily from school and that's fine with me too)

However yesterday in the swimming pool, my youngest ds (3) was swimming through my legs as part of his swimming lesson and he said (in a very loud 3 yr old voice) 'I'll try not to bump your vulva' I was unaccountably mortified, and still have no idea why. We do have a male swimming teacher but why the mortification? Would I have felt any better if he'd said 'flower' or 'foo-foo' ?

I didn't let on to my ds that I was embarrassed as he used the correct term that I have taught him in an appropriate way, but I am truly surprised and irritated by my own reaction

Do you know I don't think I've ever heard the word vulva used IRL!?
Except in anatomical diagrams I've only ever heard female genitalia referred to as a vagina.
Am I alone?
Vulva Monologues anyone?

Does no-one agree with me that the likely cause of embarrassment and cautiousness around identifying female sexual organs (ie vagina) at a very young age, is due to a fear of making girls aware of the nature of sex while they are too young for this to be possible?

Telling boys they have a penis requires no explanation - a 3yo knows it's for peeing with. Telling a girl she has a vagina raises more difficult questions - it has no purpose until puberty.

Does she therefore need to know it exists?

'Vulva' is easier to deal with - the area around where you pee from. Anatomically correct, and not far from 'front bum' and 'back bum' in terms of their being able to verbalise things.

I think I'm right, please someone agree

Macaroona hmmm I'm pretty sure any small girl will find out her vulva and vagina exist (and is quite likely to want to know what they are for) regardless of whether you mention them or what you call them.

Calling it a "foof" or not mentioning it at all won't stop the questions!

I agree with you minipie - I just think that's why people are consciously or subconsciously unwiling to tell little girls individual names for vagina, vulva etc - it involves more detailed and more 'facts of life' type discussion than telling a boy he has a penis. Even 'foofy' or similarly silly names are deliberately vague in terms of what they're referring to.

Tbh I struggled to find my vagina when using tampons for the first time as a teenager! In my case it wasn't something I would have discovered for myself.

My children know that females have an opening through which babies are born. As far as I'm aware they are not acquainted with their own vaginas and I don't see this as a problem. It's an internal structure, I don't worry that they don't know what a pancreas or an ileum is, so why would I worry about vagina at this age?

Do you know I don't think I've ever heard the word vulva used IRL!?
Except in anatomical diagrams I've only ever heard female genitalia referred to as a vagina.
Am I alone?
Vulva Monologues anyone?

Neither have I you are not alone!

I reckon we should all say Fanny.
Thats what kids call it at school anyway.
My little boy has a Willy. Everybody seems ok with Willy, so why is Fanny considered so unpleasant?
It's just the female equivalent of Willy.
Bring back Fanny!!

In the US, fanny is your bottom/arse. Might create more confusion. didn't we do this a while back, and people were all big with odd terms like 'fiorella' [wincing]. My dd says vulva.

I've always used fanny northern

This has to be far and away the funniest thread I have read on mumsnet (Momsnet!) so far! Hilarious. It was always fanny when I was growing up, and bottom but I can see why using the correct terms is more accurate and perhaps more sensible but the idea of my dd shouting about vulvas and vaginas in supermarkets and swimming pools both cracks me up and makes me cringe at the same time. Mind you so would foo foo!

I like to call mine different things depending on how I feel. At the moment it's a 'fadger'or a'fajita'.

DD calls hers 'minnie'. She picked this up at school and I'm happy with that.

I called DH's willie 'Foo foo' last night. He didn't mind and understood what I was talking about.

I remember from my childhood that my nana and great-aunts (of the generation born around the 1930s or so) had a phrase that went "wash up as far as possible, then wash down as far as possible, then wash possible!"

My daughter will be going to creche here in Germany where the words for labia and pubic mound etc explicitly contain the word shame. Lips of shame, hair of shame, "das weibliche Scham" = the female shame = vulva

Have yet to find out what the accepted lingo among the kids at the Kindergarten will be, though...

Good on yer seiglinde
The problem for me arose when my ds pointed at me naked and asked "whats that?" and I (cringe) said "thats my....lady bits"
I shoulda said Fanny!