To just call a fanny a fanny?

[teafortoads]

Apologies if this has been done before/to death but i am new to this Mumsnet Lark (posting not lurking, I have happily lurked for years). What on earth word do you give to your toddler to describe their girl parts? I have and always will, have a fanny, where as I am aware of friends who have foofs, fairies (could cause some confusion when you go to put the fairy on top of the Christmas tree) lady gardens vulvas and so on. I see no reason to pretty things up, and always arrive back at good old trusty fanny in the end having massively overthunk things. When DD2 is a little bit older I will furnish her with all the proper words, but are fanny and willie (not that she will encounter any of THOSE until she is at least 40 given that I am a single Mum and our house is happily a man free zone nowadays, and boyfriends will not be permitted until she is at least 40) acceptable? Is fanny a bit coarse?

When dd was little she was talking about her brothers 'bits' and how come hers were different? I said they had special words because they were special places. What do I call mine ? ds has got'bits' she complained. Then she smiled truimphantly and declared " but I've got bitsies!". And thats what we called them, until they asked for the 'special' words a doctor or nurse might use if ever those special places hurt and they needed to tell them...

My granny called it a 'tutti-frutti'

Step dd uses 'noo noo' which seems to be fine. I never knew fanny was considered offensive! I'm from the north but now live in the south east and have never known anyone be bothered by the word.

One thing that really gets on my nerves is the use of vagina when referring to external gentialia. There are a fair amount of ladies around here who don't even know their own anatomy. "I need to get my vagina waxed".........really?!

When I was a child there was a rather 'unique' little lad in our class who called those parts his 'unmentionables' - I was very impressed and from then on used the same word.
I've never heard a better word to cover all eventualities in that area.
Nowadays I often ask my husband to check if my t-shirt or top is riding up or if it is appropriately still covering all eventualities.
I think everyone would know what a child meant if they referred to their unmentionables. Alternatively you could use the phrase 'the place under my pants.'
Personally I don't know what is wrong with saying vagina/vulva or penis - perfectly usable words although I'd think twice about saying them loudly in church or at a dinner table. Then again I hope I'd never need to use any sentence requiring those words in those circumstances.

There's more than a whiff of Last of the Summer Wine prudishness about many of the views expressed on this thread.

I made a conscious decision to use the word fanny, because (as MattDillonsPamts pointed out upthread), it has similar origins to willy, and I wanted to reclaim it! I don't want her to see her brother casually referring to his willy, and feel that she must either be more formal or more coy.

It's a really important point of equality, IMO.

Their vagina is never what a small girl is pointing to, the vagina is all internal. I wish the outside parts would be called what they are, the vulva. It's not a rude word and it's completely anatomically correct and what we called it with our little girl.

I guess it depends where you live. I detest the word fanny. It is really coarse and as has been said, here is used as a put down "I canna believe you drapped yer Buckie, ya Fanny"

I also hate the "correct" words, don't know why. Mr Foo has a toodle, I have lady bits. We also used the word "Mary" when our daughter was younger. I'd heard someone talk about it and we joked about it and it stuck.

Was that to me?

LuluJakey1, was just coming on to say it's a 'tutti' in our house (couple of generations) and we love singing ' tutti frutti all rudey, wop bamba loo- ah ah woo bam booo' at any opportunity

Precious gem??

I agree with pp who say that 'fanny' is as course as 'cock', and definitely not the female equivalent of 'willy'.

If it was, well I never said small girls were pointing to their vagina. Just that when they mention a 'flower'' or 'fairy' being sore and they are pointing in the direction of what they call their 'flower' or 'fairy' it can't be that hard to deduce what they're talking about.

There was a 5 year old girl used to live near us (thankfully they've moved from the area) whose favourite saying was "your nanny's got a smelly fanny". This was one of her more tame dittys that she'd delight us all with. Sorry for missing the point but just thought I'd share it with you all.

Hi
We encountered this last year when my little girl first saw her brothers willy at a nappy change.
We call her private parts her 'lily"
Which seems to work great for us and isn't goin to cause offence x

We say flower, dd's best friend says it's a Mary! They're in reception.

Another northerner (Yorkshire) shocked to learn that fanny is considered to be very rude by so many. I think it was universally a fanny amongst my little mates and my family when I was little. And my mother's a bit Hyacinth Bucket.

Barry! What an excellent name - though I think I'm going to start calling mine a ' 'precious gem' from now on, or maybe Princess FooFoo Barry the Precious Gem. It could be my fanny's show name

So glad to see that someone asked this question! My husband (whose first language is not English) asked me the other day what the little girl equivalent to willy is and I was a bit stumped! dd is not yet talking so I hadn't considered it. But I know a friend's little girl calls it a Fandangle!

Niknoo88 - do you not foresee any problems with calling your daughter's genitals a really popular girls name?!

I think fanny is fine as is vulva, min, noonoo or whatever. We use petouski, i have no idea why.

We call other parts of our bodies slang terms (tummy, arse, noggin etc) so calling our bits something slang'y is ok for us.

It's a complete non issue. There seems to a LOT less angst about calling dicks dicks or willies or whatever.

I've also noticed on other threads where they discuss mammory glands (eg brest feeding threads) that no one comments if posters use boobs. It's weird how het up people get over things that don't matter in real life.

When my ds was small he announced that he knew the correct word for vagina other than private parts etc- he proudly announced it was called a "seginia" obviously I agreed!
Fast forward to when he had sex eduction in school and he actually said the word out loud- oh dear

[misnomer] and on less formal occasions you'd call your fanny what

I did not know fanny was crude and vulgar
I thought it was innocent and the equivalent of willy.
Some people have mentioned it is crude in Scotland. Where else?
What would someone say in Scotland?

I'm in the North East and I'd do a real catsbum face if I heard a child using fanny as a description. I'm often found telling dh to 'stop fannying about' or describing a lad about town as a 'bit of a fanny rat' but it's not a word I'd be comfortable hearing a young girl use. Maybe it's a regional thing?
Mind you, in our house it's 'under meats' which is horrendous but we childishly find hilarious.

Princess FooFoo Barry the Precious Gem.

We have a winner!