What word do your children use for female genitals?

[frannyf]

Apologies if this has been asked before, but this is becoming an urgent issue in our household. Ds is 2.5 and has just started asking "Where is your willy, Mummy?" I told him women and girls don't have willies...and then froze.

I don't want him to think that girls just have an empty area where a willy should be, I want him to realise we have our own special bits, but I cannot settle on a word I feel comfortable with.

"Vagina" is so medical. "Flower" and all those sort of words seem too cutesie. I feel "fanny" is the right equivalent to "willy", and did try it, but I just cringed saying it to ds and felt even worse when he repeated it. I obviously did not sound convincing anyway as he has reverted to calling it a bottom. Help! Sorry if I have rejected your family's choice of name by the way, I don't think any of them are wrong or anything, just don't feel right saying them myself. Am I hopelessly uptight?

mojomummy, at school me and my friends found a book called "Fanny's big day out" and we were in hysterics. Thinking about it, all my friends either said fanny or willy. That is until we went to 'big school' and then you don't want to know the names used!

We call boy's bits "pee pee" and I really don't know why!!!!

lonelymum. i sort of understand where you're coming from, but think that even thinking of the vagina as a 'secret hole' demonstrates that perhaps you're not totally comfortable with it, and tbh that is no surprise, as you say, willies stick out, willies are ok, willies: nothing secret or somehow corrupting about them, and that is what we're conditioned to believe, and I believe that is damaging to ourselves, and our children.

dino, what on earth is wrong with vagina, that you'd be blushing!

and in terms of children not being curious: do they see you and dh naked?

ds has been bathed by one of us with him in the bath every night since he was a few weeks old. and just as he may point to my belly button (which i'm assuming is an ok body part to name) he may also point at my pubes or at my nipple. i say, mummy's vagina, or mummy's nipple and if he wants to tug (ouch) say, no, it's mummy's.

and that's it. is my nearly 2 year old less innocent for that? i think more innocent if anything tbh....the not naming is perhaps calling attention???

Minky make ironing boards - they sell them all over the place!

minky is a type of whale
also makes me think of Inspector Clouseau

bad French accent< " do you have a licence for that minky..."

Ok, so minky is out then. Would you believe I am sitting here practising saying fanny with conviction? Dp is laughing his arse off!

I have said Mummy's nipples and Mummy's boobs (sorry, dreadful word, but there you go) to my toddler too when he has been pointing at parts of the body and asking for their names, but none of my four children has ever pointed to my vagina and asked for its name! And don't say that is because I am repressed about my vagina! I am sorry, but I am absolutely stunned that any parent shows their child their vagina. You would have to spread your legs very wide, part your pubic hair (if you have not shaved it off), part your labia and only then would your vagina be visible. OK hands up, how many people have done that for their children? Some parts of the body are private and should remain that way, only shared by sexual partners (and medical professionals where necessary). It is not repression, it is normal modesty. When dd lies back with no knickers on, revealing her vulva, or one of our ds's fiddles openly with his penis, we tell them not to do this in front of other people. Are we giving them hang ups about masturbation? I don't think so. We are just teaching them how to behave in our society. Public masturbation is not on, private masturbation is fine. Public exhibitions of genitalia is still a criminal offence and I think showing your children your geitalia is distinctly odd.

Gee, is what my dd calls it. Pronounced with a hard G like in God.

Lonelymum, perhaps this is the same confusion over vagina / vulva that some of us had earlier, causing problems again. I don't think any of us are showing our children the inside of our vaginas. But they do see that we don't have willies and we need a word to describe either what is in view, or to describe the female part that corresponds to the penis.

If you are meaning that it's strange for our children to see us naked then I can't agree with you.

No my children see me naked on a daily basis. Don't grown women know the correct anatomical names of their body parts? Sophable said she named her vagina for her toddler.

And all I have ever said on this thread is that I have never had a need to think what word to use for the vagina as my childrren have never asked about it, notbeing aware of its existence.

actually lonelymum don't think anyone has said that at all.
dd asked my what her *vulva) was, probably just before her second birthday, and about her own. she has seen them both, of course, as we bath together, she is naturally curious.

Nobody has said what exactly?

welol my kids aren't sexually repressed (unfortunately) and so I feel i got away with out having to be scientifiaclly correct or even thinking about it, phew!!!

My kids are sexually repressed either. They are just kids.

obviously mine are young people or very nearly, i hasten to add

Oh how old zippi?

youngest is 17, then 20 and 21

Lonelymum, perhaps we would have more idea of the correct anatomical names if our mothers had taught us from a young age?

Seriously, I had never thought about the fact that what you can see is not actually the vagina. Tend to think of everything 'down there' as one vague area, quite possibly due to lack of acceptable words for it.

that they showed their children their vagina. Sophable said she answered her child's questions, that's all.

frannyf - exactly...

Well must confess my mother is a doctor who specialised in women's health so I have a very good knowledge of the female genitalia, but honestly, didn't you all read books or listen in sex ed lessons? (I am too old for that sort of sex ed, but I read loads of books to find out about it all).

I used to teach A level Biology to retake students (mainly would be medics) - amazing how many 19 year old boys don't know that a woman has 3 bottoms "front bottom, middle bottom and back bottom" as I used to tell them (tongue in cheek because I'd never call it that outside the classroom). Always a couple looking very confused.

DS2 asked where my willy was the other day - I just call thme "laydee's bits".

Sorry, Sophable wrote this

ds has been bathed by one of us with him in the bath every night since he was a few weeks old. and just as he may point to my belly button (which i'm assuming is an ok body part to name) he may also point at my pubes or at my nipple. i say, mummy's vagina, or mummy's nipple

which I took to mean her son was pointing at parts of her body and she was naming them.

I bet loads of people don't know exactly what the vulva is. If I had more nerve I would start a new thread - "Hands up, who knows what a vulva is?" But I fear I am already at risk of being known as "that poster who started the fannies thread".

I think she just means general area LM.