To ask...What do you mum's refer to your vaginas as to your little kids?!

[Zara87]

Not even sure this is allowed... but I have an almost 3yo who is now noticing and asking questions about how I wee without a willy!
He keeps saying stuff like "you do a wee out of your that bit" and pointing. I just want something to refer to it as, which doesn't sound ridiculous. I know it is called a vagina but i don't really want to call it that to him, I'm not sure why but it kind of sounds wrong at age 2. My mum used to call it 'a Mary' which i don't like!
Does anyone have any suggestions

Edwinbear, you have hang ups because your mum didn’t use the toilet in front of you?!?

I am with op on this 100%

“that boy just touched my cookie” it might get ignored, which is serious

In the real world though, that wouldn't be ignored. With the exception of words like goat, most people know that cookie is a nickname for a girls genitals don't they? I never use them but I have heard of all the names most people use. What rock do you have to be under to know when a child is telling you something serious and embarrassing, children rarely make passing comments about abuse. Whatever words they use, I have been in that situation and the child used a foreign word and I still knew what she meant because of the way she told me.

*to not know

“Front bottom” makes me feel really sad. I think it’s because a bottom - an anus - isn’t a particularly clean area and is associated with faeces. Whereas a vulva is clean and should have its own name.
I’m so glad I live in a country that has a good, child-friendly word for girl’s parts. Makes it much easier and everyone uses the same word, more or less.
When I was growing up it was a fanny 😌

DS knows the correct terms but we say fanny and willy for every day use.
When DS had his hypospadias repair, even his surgeon referred to it as a willy!

Linoleum I have genuinely never heard of it referred to as a cookie. I take your point, that you’d hope someone would understand various words for it from context and tone, but sometimes classrooms can be manic, nearly 30 kids getting changed for PE etc. A child once told the teacher that a boy was showing everyone his willy, so the teacher knew straight away what was going on. I just worry if a 4 or 5 year old was playing in a noisy playground and told someone a ball had hit their cookie/ goat/ quiche or whatever it could just be brushed off as it sounds like nonsense or not important.

I use the word pee pee 🙂

GhostCurry

Fanny means bottom, so is, in fact, the exact same usage.

'Fanny' is regarded a very rude word around here! I would be  if I heard a child say it

Cookie is awful. Vulva whilst correct makes me cringe. Its always been tuppence in our house or Vagina

Bits. Bottom for the front. Bum for the rear. Chest.

• just realised these all universal for both male and female. But for me, they're generalised, child friendly and polite terms.

Willy or penis - we use.

I dont like 'willy' or 'fanny',
But thats because I was told it was impolite. Now they just sound a bit cringe/childish to my ear.

I've taught, the underpants rule and that 'privates stay private'.

Whilst also trying to breezy enough that we can move away from body parts being shameful (as a twinge of that was around bk in my day) as that serves no good purpose.

Tbh as long as people are comfortable, can get their point across and be understood....any term is ok really

Bits. Bottom for the front.

This seems very confusing - so your kids would say they’ve hurt their bottom and mean their genitals?

I find vagina to be an uglier sounding word than vulva. Why use a word incorrectly? How to you differentiate what is really the vagina to the fake usage of the word vagina? The difference really is important.

How can the word vulva make you cringe and “tuppence” not?

I agree with Mominatrix

People feel awkward about using the word vulva because people aren’t used to it, if more people used the word then they would get used to it and it would be less awkward.

absolutely!
and I have just asked DP (a teacher for many years) and even with hints, did not recognise 'cookie" as a word for vulva
of course a surgeon used willy when talking to a child, you don't think they use that when talking to other medics
I recommend all the people who are struggling with the word vulva go and lock themselves in the bathroom, look in the mirror and repeat the word 20 times.
what's happening here is that people are failing to provide their kids with accurate vocabulary because of their own squeamishness, if you feel squeamish about naming parts of your own body I really think you need to reflect on that.

I don't like vulva,but then again I don't like penis either. I prefer dick. Since that's not appropriate for a 6 yo we use "willy".

I’m not sure how it happened but DS has a BoJo. In my defence, the then foreign secretary was in the news a lot and it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Also, lots of childish sniggering for myself and DP.

I, on the other hand, have a ‘gina.

We will be teaching him the proper terms when he gets a bit older though. Eventually.

Tuppy and willy for us.

Minnie moo

I told dd it's a a fallulah - no idea where that came from!

But really it's a vagina and has been since they were at secondary school

I don’t know anyone in the real world whose child says vagina - always surprised how many mumsnet children do. For our family it’s bit-bits for a girl and willy for a boy.

It's really, really important that children know and use the correct anatomical words. My son has a penis and I've explained female anatomy to him but also told him that people tend to use "vagina" as a general catch all term.

We call them "bits" for the whole area really. Not sure how it came about.

We've also used the word vagina (yes, I know it's not correct) but tbh she isn't all that interested and we don't want to push it.

We grew up calling it "auntie mary" which caused me all sorts of confusion because we actually had an auntie Mary but she wasn't really our auntie...

I think there are 3 issues with the word vagina:

1. It's not really correct. There are so many visible parts down there and it's a lot more complicated than a willy/penis. You can see that, by the posts on here and people correcting others. For a 5 year old who just wants to know how women wee, it's not particularly easy. I was about 13 before I realised a condom didn't wrap about the labia. . Admittedly, sex ed should start much earlier than that.

1. There isn't a universal word like "willy". Everyone knows what a willy is (whether you use that word or not). It's a perfectly acceptable word to use. Women don't have a word like that.

1. As I said earlier, we've used the word vagina with DD but tend to use "bits" most of the time. If other people heard a young DD saying "vagina", their reaction would not necessarily be positive, even if it's just by surprise. I wouldn't be shocked if my parents would have told her off for using it.

Young girls do not need to be concerned about the reaction they will get when they need to discuss their genitals. We are normalizing the word vagina in our but small steps.

If a girl told me a boy had touched her cookie, my first thought would about chocolate bourbons, not assault. I'm afraid I would not take it seriously if that is all she said.