Strollerderby

We actually do use "girl parts" or privates for our younger daughter, but the ten year old knows the real names of all her body parts.

I am so disturbed my our nation's puritanical hang-ups. Seriously, do you have cutesy pet names for elbows and knees? Of course not. And what message are we sending our children when we cannot refer to the part-that-must-not-be-named with the correct term(s)? It's a great first step toward royally screwing our kids up. Let's opt instead for a healthy, honest approach and call 'em like we see 'em. Come on, say it with me, "VAGINA".

But cnoelk, as Shannon points out above, it's actually pretty rare that we are talking about my daughter's vagina when we are discussing her girl parts.  We can be discussing some or all of: her vulva, her vagina, her urethra (as my 2.5 year old has recurrent UTIs, that one is pertinent to us) or her bottom.  Or we could boil it all down for her and call it all her girl parts, which is not at all puritanical (on our part, anyway) but is completely descriptive, until she is old enough to understand the differences.

I agree, cutesy names are silly, but it is for my convenience to refer to the entire area by one name for now. I'm pretty sure I won't screw her up for life.

My 5-year-old daughter understands all the correct names, and when speaking in general, we use a basic "privates," as in, "Wash your hands after touching your privates." I don't discourage her from privately exploring her body, but I remind her that touching where we go to the bathroom carries germs.

I have a friend whose daughter was sexually violated at 3 or 4 years old. Because she referred to her entire "down theres" as her bottom, the violater could not be fully prosecuted as noone knows where exactly she was touched. After learning of this story and watching my friend's heartache over such a horrible event I vowed to distinguish for my own young children. My friend strongly encourages mothers of young children to teach the correct names as unfortunately, they may need to know them.

My girls say they have a Gina, no matter how much we correct them, and boys have a Penis.

Wow, Twyla, what a heartbreaking story!  That is definitely a good reason to teach girls all the anatomical names.  Maybe we will re-think our approach (which was always going to include teaching her the names, just a little older) and start a thorough anatomy lesson right away.

My twins are 2, and they know the correct names for their body parts. My daughter does refer to her entire genital area as her vagina, but I'm working on the vulva thing. My son says penis and testicles for his. I always said "down there" when I was growing up, and I don't want my daughter to feel more comfortable talking about her body than I did.

The problem is calling it a vagina is about as accurate as calling a head a mouth. Vagina is the term for the birth canal not the whole region. Unfortunately the english language doesn't really have a word for the whole region - so most people just use vagina.

I am so tired of people calling a vulva or a uterus a vagina. I saw one idiot commenting on the Octomom, "It's a vagina not a clown car".  I was so emarassed for him because it was obvious this grown man did not know that babies grow in a uterus not the vagina.  Since my daughters cannot see their vagina or uterus we call it the correct name, vulva or crotch when talking about urination.  I think the whole vagina thing is because that is the part that men care about.  

I meant to say "I DO want my daughter to feel more comfortable..." Oops.

I'm with Alice. We're going with vulva for our daughter. Is it weird that I'm a man and I'm annoyed when people say vagina when they mean something else?

"Girl parts" and "boy parts" adequately cover the subject for our bi-gendered family.

when my cousins were younger, they knew the correct names for their parts. my aunt was a nurse, and made sure she taught them the correct names. the only problem was that they used them at inappropriate times. i was (am) 8 years older, and it still embarassed me, there are just things you dont talk about in public. little kids dont understand that, thats why they dont learn certain things until they are older, and able to decide what is and isnt appropriate.

my daughter is only 16 months, and she couldnt pronounce vagina or vulva even if i wanted her to. She calls her "lady parts" po-po. and her butt is tushie.

And twyla, i am sorry for your friend and her daughter. but obviously her daughter knew the term bottom to mean her lady parts and/or tushie. and if someone touched her inapropriatly in any of those areas, no matter if it was her behind, or her vagina/vulva, they should have been prosecuted. and besides dont they give them like a doll or something, so the child can show where the person touched them? (not entirely sure how that works) It just seems like it is pretty ridiculous that they expect a toddler to know every part of her body before they will prosecute someone for touching them. if they had raped her, would she need to know what sex was before the person could be tried?

For 18 months old, i am just excited that when i say po-po, she knows what i mean... when she gets old enough i will explain the rest to her. I didnt know the parts until i was like 10 or 11ish, (i mean i obviously knew it was called vagina). but i turned out perfectly fine and figured out how everything worked eventually.

Yes, the man was prosecuted. The young girl had every kind of physical exam possible through a chilren's advocacy center. He could have had stronger sentencing if there was better detailing. Also, certain exams could have been avoided with clarity. Some exams are rather invasive to determine what happened. It also was very hard on my friend as she never really knew for certain what had happened to her daughter. She knew it was bad and provided the best care possible to her daughter. My friend was amazing through the whole tragedy.

I think the only reason some words are not appropriate for public is because for some reason we have deemed them naughty. Penis and Vagina are not bad words anymore than Elbow and Knee are. It is definately a new thing though. My mom still blushes a little when my son says something about pottying in the toilet with his Penis. She never would have allowed or taught us those words. She was taught they were "Piggy" and "Peter" and we were taught "China" and "Weiner". Which makes farm animals, little boys, a county and hot dogs all something to giggle about.