MIL bought baby boy doll with willy for my DD

[AlwaysHopefull89]

I am pregnant and expecting a baby boy. MIL (very kindly) bought a baby doll with a very obvious willy… in preparation?

I don’t think my DD who is 3 needs to understand the anatomy of her little brother yet until I say so? She hasn’t been asking about private parts yet let alone little boys?!

When I saw her she then finally said ‘I hope it was ok to give it to her’… is it just me or is this odd?

DH said it was a good idea to ‘prepare her’ but I think the opposite? Am I being a bit OTT? 🤦🏻‍♀️

If she goes to nursery she will have already seen a doll like this anyway. It's no big deal.

that baby’s penis has fallen off
😂

Because you learn "fanny" in the schoolyard and get told off for using that term, whilst as far as your parents are concerned that part of your body is completely nameless.

I thought that "privates" referred also to my bottom and nipple areas. Being autistic, I interpreted "between my legs" as literally the gap between my two legs. My gran would talk about "unmentionables", but again I thought that also meant my bottom as well. And a term like "unmentionables" doesn't exactly foster confidence in the child who needs to mention that body part to disclose illness, injury, or abuse. You've been told that you mustn't talk about it, so you don't unless you are in agony or convinced that you are very ill.

If a parent or teacher had said to me, just once, "the part of your body that you wee from is called your vulva and it's OK to use that word to talk about it", I would have had a vocabulary with which to state clearly and confidently "two boys from year six touched my vulva and laughed about it".

And throw it on the fire, obviously.

Personally I don’t think it makes that much difference if they know the anatomical word for it or not when it comes to whether they want to decide to disclose such things, they’ll tell you someone did that if they want to using whatever language they know for it and if they don’t want to then they won’t.

Surely you just need to know, private’s are privates, arms are arms etc

What are privates?

If a child says 'my arm hurts' you will clarify, which bit? Your elbow, your wrist?
If they say their privates hurt, how can they clarify if they don't have the language to do so, and if they feel they are shameful to mention?

My actual lived experience of being frightened to disclose because I was worried that I'd get in trouble for saying "fanny" proves otherwise.

Two boys touched which privates? The ones on my chest, the ones behind my pelvis, or the ones that don't have a name?

Have a similar age gap at well 3 and a half years! They love each other but DS can tease her!

Child safeguarding experts and police who investigate child sex crimes completely disagree with you, based on evidence and experience. But I guess if you "personally don't think" it matters then what do they all know 🤷

You haven't had any kind of discussion at all about private parts?

Why do you call a girl's vulva "privates", but call her arm an arm? Why not call her arm something else too?

Obviously if it gets to the stage of investigations then they need to be able to establish clear facts so will need to use diagrams and language to enable them to do that with children .. at that stage

Limbs?

Obviously you’d ask where, perhaps showing them a body map so they could point to where

Yes but that was about having no acceptable word you could use, surely if privates was a word used by adults you would of been comfortable to use that word

You wound clarify where necessary, just as you would regarding which part of the arm

An adult genitalia is different to a child. Your DD will likely take a vested interest in wanting to care for her brother and is likely to notice brothers doesnt look like hers.

And when she clicks, Ill guess that doll will come into roll play as a boy doll rather than just a doll.

Well we use silly nicknames for all different parts of the body. I think there’s a lot more to a child feeling comfortable to disclose than knowing the exact scientific name of a body part.
Don’t most people just google concerning symptoms these days, then they get a full on explanation with labelled diagrams then anyway. I’m not sure being free and easy talking about different bits of the genitals is the reason some women reluctant to go for smears, more about worrying it will be uncomfortable or the inconvenience of appointments etc.
Quite happy for my children to learn all this in their biology lessons at an appropriate age

Can you not see some correlation between women not wanting to go for smears, and learning ad children that that part of the body is so private and shameful that we don't even have a word for it?

😆😆

You ignore also that the term "privates" is inherently one predisposed to shame and secrecy. "Privates" means a body part that you aren't allowed to talk about unless you are ill, and then only in hushed tones. The girl perceives that a boy, or two boys, touching her there isn't significant enough to breach the taboo in order to report it.

All the safeguarding advice published by reputable agencies disagrees with you, but you just keep on spouting ignorance.

It's "would have". When you take GCSE English, take PSHE at the same time, alright?

I purposefully bought my daughter a doll that was anatomically correct (male) from the Early Learning Centre. She was going to be an only child and I’m a lone parent. I felt that it was important that she grew up knowing the difference.

It made for one of her best preschool comments ever when she remarked that our dog ‘had a very small penis’.

As she approached puberty I again purchased the female and male books associated with adolescence so that she’d have a rounded view of what she and her male friends would experience.

She has grown up to be confident to discuss sex and relationship issues with me.

it’s a doll with male anatomy not a hard core porn DVD….