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?

"(I once mentioned, at a meeting in Peterborough, that I was nipping off for a pee. The woman closest to me went purple and spluttered 'we do not use language like that here'. I was utterly mystified and still am)"

Really? You don't think it's too much information? That 'going to the toilet' would have been enough? Would you have said that to a teacher at school?
I do have friends and colleagues who'd say that, but not in a meeting.
Would you also say you were 'going for a poo'?

Muffy in my househld

Haha, calling it a fanny is a definite no-no here in Scotland. It's the equivalent of calling a penis a dick. I don't even use it as an insult, it's so coarse.

I'm in Scotland and don't think 'fanny' is that outrageous.

Tummy
Belly
Boobs
Noggin
Bonce
Bum
Bottom

All pet names Danielsmum.

"What do americans call it as isn't Fanny their arise?"
It probably varies regionally, but around here the go-to term for young children - both boys and girls - is Peepee. When they get a bit older they seem to prefer either 'privates' (if adults are around they're being polite) or 'dick' and 'pussy' if they're not. Those words are considered a bit crude, but they're childishly crude if that makes sense - if an adult used them they'd be told to grow up.
Incidentally and randomly, I had a friend in high-school named Dick, who was constantly being told not to act like such a Richard. Well, it was funny at the time. Maybe you had to be there...

We use vagina and vagine for dd's. To my American husband, fanny means bum. I slip up though and use fanny often when referring to my vagina. (Not that my vagina is really a huge topic of conversation..)

Honeylulu Knackered - there's The Knackers Yard for old, worn out horses to be killed, so I think it's from that.

niknoo misnomer I now quite like the idea of an Amelia and an Olly...

Southerner here and fanny all the way. It mirrors willy nicely.

It some find it offensive, how on earth do you cope when you hear 'cunt'?

The other names on here are a bit too twee for me. It saddens me that women are still so prudish about their own body.

In my mind, "pussy" is the vulgar option and "fanny" is the softer (as it were...)

Fanny also sounds bad to me, being Scottish

'shut it ya wee Fanny '

I am fond of calling DD' s her foof or her wee foof.

I am immature but I did snigger ad someone's MIL saying 'let me wipe your vagina' in the public toilet. TMI

And surely noone actually says 'minge' to their child

sofa in Scotland (possibly some other places too?) Fanny is like dick or cock. I'm well able to cope with hearing ( and saying) it. Doesn't mean I want my 4yo to say it - or cunt for that matter.

I called it a fanny when I was little .

Don't like all this prettying up of female body parts.

It's nothing to be ashamed of.

Heard a grown woman calling her vulva a fairy recently and I took me a while to understand what the hell she was talking about.

Peeper seems a bit odd for penis as peepers are generally your eyes.
DD (almost 3) asked me "what's this?" The other day, I said vulva and she just went "nooo", like silly mummy. No word of her own for it yet, we generally say bits or girly bits. We never really had a word when I was little and as such I feel a general repressed uncomfortableness about what to say.

I don't like the word fanny but not cause I find it offensive. Not that keen on the word willy either tbh.
Also people should really stop saying vagina unless they actually mean the internal part, vulva is the correct name for all the external parts as a collective.

I guess a lot of people in Scotland use boaby/bomb or weemannie instead of willy.

Boab not bomb

I agree exactly shouldwebeworried. I feel stupid for not being comfortable with vulva, but I'm just not, and I wouldn't want her calling it that to her teacher.

We're with bottom at the moment, although I would probably be ok with foof too. I get that it's stupid to call it a stupid name but.... evidently I'm still repressed by my childhood!

Aside from the point, I have no problem with penis. I actually said the word penis in a meeting with higher management at work the other day, and I'm now vaguely worried they would have been offended....

The rudeness of twat as an insult is definitely regional.

Where I grew up in the SW it was a bit like calling someone an idiot, and teachers sometimes used it. When I moved North and used it at a team meeting the whole office gasped, since realised its a bit like calling someone a cunt, had a few apologies to make!

I don't think it really matters what name you use, but I think it's really important to call it something, and be comfortable using the name.

Otherwise there's a risk girls might grow up feeling their vulva is this awful unmentionable thing.

Minnie or didgeridoo

'Bikini line' always strikes me as very twee - it's a bit like referring to your feet as your 'shoe area' or your head as your 'hat region'.

love hat region!