"Boobies" in nursery?

[Sat32]

The nursery that my 19 month old attends seems to think that it is acceptable to use the word boobies when telling my child to cover up. Apparently she likes to lift her top up and keeps showing her "boobies". I was horrified that they are sexualising her at such a young age when they could just as easily tell her that she needs to cover up. Does anyone else have this experience?

According to Google's dictionary definition, a booby is a stupid person, a member of the gannet family or "a woman's breast". Toddlers don't have breasts. 19mo children of any gender do not have boobies. Utterly ridiculous that they should be taught otherwise. In my mind it's akin to people referring to a 19mo girl's male friend as her "boyfriend". It's inaccurate, unnecessarily sexualising & just a bit yuck.

But then in our house we're quite hot on accurate word usage. DS1 has a penis, as do DH & DS2 & I have a vulva. I have breasts on my chest, they don't.

The nursery my children went to did something MUCH MUCH worse.

They teach impressionable toddlers to use the word "Ta" instead of "Thank you".

Now that is horrifying.

In a childcare setting it is ok for a childcare professional to tell a child to pull their top down. It is teaching them behaviour appropriate to the setting. We would discourage children from putting their hands down their pants too despite it being perfectly normal behaviour, it's inappropriate for nursery.

As has already been established boobies for some is another word for chest along the lines of bum or willy which is likely the case for the nursery staff. Unfortunately for others boobies is a more sexual word and this is where wires become crossed.

'Boobies' isn't actually a swear word - so you can't equate it to saying 'cunt' or 'fuck'.

It's just a silly word, if anything it's the opposite of sexualising as it's a childish term, like wee-wee or piddlestick.

For my DS, can I call them his 'boybies' instead then?

Why can't she pull her top up if she wants though?

In case decent people are horrified by her tits.

I'm assuming the ketchup word is dip-dip. I don't know where it came from, but every child I know seems to call it that. I find it irrationally irritating.

Haa dd called it dip dip for ages , now she just calls it 'WHERE'S THE KETCHUP' if none appears to be present

Hi OP I wouldn't really like that term for such a young child anyway, they're not boobies she has! It's a lazy expression I think on the part of the nursery staff.

Horrified would be OTT for me though. The situation could be solved quite easily by gently explaining you don't feel it's appropriate, and why. I hope you manage to sort this out.

We all have boobies in our house, boys, girls, mummy & daddy.
Boobies is actually incredibly innocent to me unlike tits, now that I would be about.

Weird they'd tell a 19 month old to stop lifting her top up and very weird they'd refer to a toddler as having boobies.

My very good friend (when I had my first 24 years ago) to my then 15 month old 'put your tits away'.

A small child has to cover up her chest, so that people can't see what she hasn't got.

That's beyond foolish, it's just plain stupid. Let the child enjoy being a child. She'll grow up and become sexualised all too soon.

Yabu

Bertrand exactly.

apocolypse

river Tam agree with you on all points except the top pulling up. That wouldn't bother me in my setting for either sex. It's a bare chest that gets shown.

And Boobies is a ridiculous word and totally stupid for a child care professional to use either the word or the phrase. Ffs

Sorry not disagreeing with you river tam but meant to agree with Vanilla

I honestly don't think I have heard anyone over the age of 4 refer to a man's chest as "boobies". Why? Why woild you??????

Notso: "It is teaching them behaviour appropriate to the setting."

Really? At 19 months? I'd have thought at that age pretty much anything goes. The idea that you have to teach someone who's only just learnt to walk and talk that they ought to be covering themselves up is so depressing I don't even want to think about it.