To ask you for a name for daughter's bits?

[lucamom]

Apologies in advance if this is inappropriate.

My two boys (6 & 4) are mildly obsessed with the fact that baby sister (1) doesn't have a dinkle. We deal with the anatomy explanations quite well I think until it comes time to 'name' her bits (appropriate to their age, but avoiding twee names like foo-foo/Twinkie etc)

I hate the 'v' word (rubbish I know-sister is a midwife who believes in using medical terms for everything!), and I think as a kid we used fanny, which I also hate.

So tell me, what do you/your daughter's call yours? Inspiration needed please.

Sorry if this is weird!

I'm horrified that adults are failing children in such an awful way. Nice to see so-called professionals let child abusers walk free because they're too dim to work out what children mean,

Tuppy short for tuppence

perhaps there is a deal of embarrassment in using certain words, but there is also fun and affection too in attaching ""twee and mimsie" names to parts. After all they have to be used and attended to on a daily basis, so why not make it fun, un-threatening or just part of family bonding ?

I remember hearing a well known, young female media doctor being very snooty and amused on a radio call in about women who called their daughters' bits "sixpences" etc, I think she was genuinely surprised,

All the pregnant teenage girls I worked with over the past thirty years called their sexual organs many things, but not many phrases were "twee and mimsie"

Not armchair ponderings about sex abuse I am afraid. Clear conclusions drawn from lever arch files of interview transcripts and watching the DvDs of interviews.

Crashdoll - what do you think 'three bottoms' means? How would you have questioned that 4 year old, in a way that couldn't be later challenged as influencing a child? Wouldn't it just have been easier if that child could have used a word with a clearly accepted definition, not some slang known only to her immediate family?

softly funny that isn't it.
spero hypocritical then ur comments just get silly....

I would have asked her to point to pictures. I think your victim blaming is horrible.

Spero

i am uncomfortable with your descriptions and anecdotes of specific cases you've witnessed

are you still employed within CP?

I would be genuinely interested to know when I have been hypocritical. My daughter knows the word anus. At home we call it a 'bum'. What is hypocritical about that?

I don't say all slang is bad and stupid. Not if the child also is taught the right' words.

But if all that is used is 'down below' or 'foo foo' etc, then I think that is both bad and stupid, for all the reasons I have offered.

I haven't used any details that cold possibly identify any proceedings. But if you are uncomfortable with my postings, I can PM you my name and chambers and you can make a complaint about me to the Bar Council.

You do realise that you're all arguing the same point?

It seems to me that you all teach your dcs the correct anatomical names but choose to use nn in everyday language.

You can't ask a 4 year old to point to pictures. There is a clear risk of influencing the child or getting a very unreliable response.

If you think I am victim blaming, so be it. I disagree with you very strongly. There is no 'blame' that can possibly attach to a little child finding an interview process very upsetting and stressful.

You are effectively blaming her family for not teaching her the correct names at the age of 4.

i don't want to know who/what you are/were

but you are talking about RL people whom you have no personal contact with, this sits very uncomfortably with me

i would hate to think of any professional using my very personal details to prove a point on an anonymous internet forum

so if you learn your child the correct term first .. you can then call it a flower, twinkle... is there a spiro list of acceptable words

so sad that this harmless thread got turned in to a child abuse case

I think it is a pity a 4 year old can't say 'vagina' or 'penis'. I am not blaming anyone. I just think it is a shame because it did have a negative impact on this case.

I have not used any identifying details of any case and nor would I. I repeat, if you are seriously concerned , then you are free to complain about me and I will give you my details.

When my daughter has asked questions I have explained things in a matter of fact way, using words which have a widely accepted and understood definition. If my daughter wants to talk about 'flowers' or 'fannies' that's fine by me. So long as she can communicate clearly with a doctor or anyone else as and when needed.

Nicknames - fine, do whatever you want to of course, but they don't work for me. Mimsie/minnie/tuppence (christ! on that one, makes me think of a slot machine fgs!) I just can't do it. Why rename? We have 3 DDs in the house. Eldest is 5 and she knows where her anus, vulva and labia are, and has heard about vagina (because I was asked how my last baby was born) but it's situational, we don't sit around discussing it all the time and they seem to be able to gauge things appropriately themselves. They aren't running around playgrounds and supermarkets screaming about their vulvas, because we don't make a big deal of it. It only comes up in the bathroom when washing/weeing/pooing etc and if asked, we tell them the correct words for things but it is perfectly appropriate for my daughters to know the names of their body parts, and they can know that they are private and personal, without having to give them special names. If they want to, then fine, that is just part of how they speak about themselves, but I'm not going to force that on them. They are interested in their bodys and if they ask we don't have a full scale biology lesson about it, and we don't go into clinical detail, but the words are not ugly or disgusting to me and my DH or my children. They are the proper names for these body parts and you can't compare it really to 'tummy' and stomach etc, or say that we are going all 'tibia and 'femur' about it, because there is no universally accepted 'other' word for vulva/penis like there is for leg/tibia etc. Genitals is a good compromise I think.

Robbabank - well said. These are not ugly or disgusting words, and I think it is a shame some people treat them as if they are.

My daughter has never run about shouting about her 'vulva' either. Se generally asks questions when I am on the loo or she is in the bath. We have a quick discussion and then she talks about something else.

Doodle

Good God - foo foo, frou frou, fanjo even (yes MNetters I hate that one too) and all the rest of the twee hideeous names? WTF are we teaching our daughters? It is pretty sad and shows how squeamish and embarrassed we are about our bodies and how we merrily pass this on to our daughters.

I have even encountered a doctor who asked me how things were 'down there'. I was embarrassed for her and have refused to see her ever since.

Undercarriage.

And why is it seen as disgusting if a little girl says the word vulva or vagina? One weird poster said that she 'didn't agree with it' which made me laugh!

Girlie bum in our house!