Have I been unreasonable to teach my DC the correct terminology for their body parts?

[Coffeeandteaplease]

I have NCed. This post briefly mentions a history of trauma

I have a DS who is 3 (very nearly 4) and a DD who is nearly 1.

Today while bathing my DD my DS was with us and asked me if she just had a bum. He said he has a penis/willy and looked at her and said she has a bum?' were his words. He was just curious and noticing that his sister looks different to him - I don't see a problem with that. My DH in the other room shouted through and told me I should tell him my DD has a 'flower'?! I said 'what!! I am not telling DS that! It's not true!' Anyway, I told him she has a vagina as she is a girl. DS said 'okay' and that was that. My DH however said I was wrong to tell him that as he's 'so young'.

AIBU here? I'm not sure I am.

For a bit of background, I was raped as a teenager and I suppose because of that I want my DC to understand their body parts and their correct names. God forbid anything were to happen, imagine my DD saying flower instead of vagina, someone might not even understand what she meant! I know DS is young, but he's nearly 4 and he asked a valid question. My DH seems to think I'm being over cautious because of my trauma and now I'm having a little bit of doubt in my mind. He has said 'what if DS says it in nursery' and now I'm worried/doubting myself.

Please be kind. I'm feeling quite anxious about this because of my past.

I think that just shows that a lot of men have embarrassment around women's body parts. I remember in my childhood one friend/ her family referred to the vulva/vagina as a 'rosebud'. Most unhelpful and weird. There is so much confusion around the language of women's bodies. In school they did not teach me the full size/ location of the clitoris or it's function, nor did they ever use the word 'vulva'. Yet strangely penises were always either penises or at worst, (in slang) willies/dicks. You did the right thing. Ignore DH.

You really should rethink this.

What difference does having boys make?

Read the advice from the nspcc. This is a bad idea.

I taught my DCs the correct words. I'm not a fan of using nicknames for girls parts. Flower sounds worse to me, when you think about it. If DH keeps insisting I'd say "What like a flower waiting to be plucked?"
Stick with factual names.

The difference is that it's not my job to teach my MIL about her body.

I’ve worked with a child protection social worker (practice manger level) who didn’t know the difference between vagina and vulva. Really worrying. And she got promoted.

Absolutely children and others need to start using the correct words.

Yes. Absolutely.

If my mum in law had ever asked me what her genitals were called or if I'd ever had to talk to her about good secrets and bad secrets and so on I can say with 100% certainty that I would have used the correct words.

Children should always know the correct terminology for their genitals.
Vagina, penis, vulva etc.
It's to protect your children should God forbid, they ever become victim to a sex crime.
Everyone may think, "not my child", but it sadly happens to 1000s each year.
A social worker pal of mine told me its widely believed 2 children in a class of 30 children will have been sexually assaulted by a family member or friend each week.
To protect all children, normalise calling their autonomy by the correct terminology.

I've taught my son to say penis. Apart from the fact it's the coreect term and best for safeguarding issues, I was honestly cringing too much to use any of the other silly words / euphemisms. Flower is just way too cringe. Your DH is being unreasonable.

I'm sure your son will learn many, many silly words and euphemisms!

Thank you for replying. This thread isn't the place for this discussion, but I didn't want to just leave it. I'm so sorry this happened to that young child and hope they got the support they needed via other agencies.

We said Willy/balls and I can’t even remember what we said for vulva. I hate the word vulva - sounds so medicalised - but I see the importance of using correct terms or very well-used slang terms (everyone knows Willy/balls).

Unfortunately it was a male family member who was accused. Long term implications, a family essentially "split" as some didnt believe it, and some like myself did. So the others dont want anything to do with us. There's a grandparent no longer sees his 5 grandchildren because of it as he called his 3 year old a "liar" (other foul things as well)

I stayed away from male family member and ended up not going to family events with my DS and nieces as he was still invited.

Just awful. Things like this ruin families.

In my opinion a lot of modern "official" advice is wrong. I'll stick to euphemisms....

I feel there is some over-literal thinking here. While I can absolutely understand that a child being able to name his body parts gives him/her a sense of ownership over them and an ability to articulate the nature of any inappropriate touching, the idea that using a Latinate name is 'better' able to do this than a colloquialism is absurd. It doesn't matter if a little girl calls her bits a vulva (Latin for 'womb' so not exactly a magically unproblematic term), a vagina (technically the passage inside, but in fact the widely used term for vulva, Latin for 'sheath' as in a sword's sheath so also not unproblmatic), a fanny, or a zizzette. The point is that she feels comfortable and not shamed in talking about her own body.

The idea that using a Latinate word protects against child abuse better than an Anglo-Saxon colloquialism is magical thinking.

Also there was a thread last week in which everyone piled onto a family member who was offended by the use of boobs for breasts. People rightly pointed out that this was absurd. But apparently we should be offended if our kids use similar colloquialisms?? Clearly not. Boobs, bum, willy, tummy are the ordinary language of childhood, and ironically acting like there is something wrong with using these common terms for body parts instead of the 'proper' medical terms, is potentially shaming and hence damaging for kids.

Good post @hydriotaphia

I think 'vulva' while not incorrect is very much a Mumsnet thing. I've never heard it so much before joining and I don't think I've ever heard anyone in real life use the word yet we all know what we mean.

There is data to show that for girls it’s between 1 in 6 girls and 1 in 20 boys that are sexually abused.

This comes from self reporting from adults though so it’s likely an under estimate.

I don’t think it’s what they use everyday that’s important, so much as they know the correct terms. There isn’t anything wrong with referring to ‘plates of meat’, or ‘lug ‘oles’ - but you would still expect a child to know the correct words for ‘feet’ and ‘ears’.

The ‘it prevents abuse’ stuff is over stated and simplified quite often, clearly no abuser thinks “she knows what it’s called, id better not touch her!”, but it is vital for children to have a language for their body so that they can understand boundaries, and report anything that has happened to them.

A child can report someone touching his willy and everyone knows what that means, but it can be harder for girls because colloquialisms are very regionally and even family bound.

Oh thank goodness you said that. I'm an older mum and have never heard anyone use vulva and I worked in the NHS for 10 years (granted I was in cardiovascular medicine).

An anatomy text book I have had quite an explicit picture that she (of course) found. We talked about all the various 'lady bits' and she asked if daddy had a vulva and I said 'no sweetie he has a volvo', sHe now she insists on calling a penis a 'volvo'!

Surely if a boy refers to his ding-dong, everyone knows he means his doo-dah?

Well, or his trouser snake. Or lightsabre.

OP you are absolutely correct. Your DH is an arse - “flower” good lord 🙄🙄.
reminds me of my friend who’s taught her DDs to call their vulvas “minis”. I mean. WTF?!

As much as I agree that children need to be taught to use the correct terms, I absolutely cannot imagine that a child sexual abuse case was thrown out JUST because the child said cookie rather than vulva/vagina. Because if everyone thought that she meant a cookie as in a biscuit then...it wouldn't have gone any further in the first place? It would be pretty easy to establish that family terminology for vagina/vulva is cookie. They may not have had enough evidence to convict, but it won't have hinged solely on the child's usage of words.

Also, the thought of a child saying "my fanny" is abhorrent to me tbh, the equivalent of a little boy saying "my dick" or "my cock".
When I was little I knew my brother had a willy, so decided mine was a woolly! 😁

Nobody has said that a court case would be thrown out or that an abuser would be found not guilty because a child used a family name for their genitals.

What we are saying is that an adult to whom a child is trying to disclose abuse may not realise that this is what the child is doing if the child uses terms which are used within their family but are not more widely recognised as being names for genitals.