Memo parents: Let's call a spade, a spade. And a penis, a penis.

By BERN MORLEY

Hoo-hoo. Pee-pee. Pecker. Peach. Va-jay-jay. Wee-wee. Front Bottom. Doodle. Fanny. Who-ha. Willy. Yoni. Tee-Tee.

All the above are legitimate names that young children have been encouraged to refer to their respective vaginas or penis’ as. By their parents.

I get it, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been known to tell my boys to “STOP touching your doodle!” on numerous occasions (Newsflash, boys NEVER stop touching them) but a PEACH? A YONI? WTF is that?

Why do we try and “cutesy” up these words? Is this to protect them or us? Should we simply be referring to these parts of the body exactly as they are? As a vagina and a penis.

I had to research a fair bit when writing this and let me tell you first up, it’s mighty uncomfortable plugging some of those words into a Google search engine. Here are few disturbing responses I found on the World Wide Web:

“My daughter will eventually know it is a vagina but right now it is a snatch” HUH?!

“I grew up calling my vagina my “Tee-Tee” which I found out later meant “Twinkle Twat.” I thought it was adorable!” – DOUBLE HUH!?

“My 4 year old has been calling his private part a ‘mule’. That’s what daddy taught him…apparently that name/title is what they have always called it in his family.” – Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the trifecta of WTF.

And if anything, is it causing a problem when a situation arises? Take my friend for example. Her son started school this year and he had an unfortunate fall. One that included him falling scissor like onto one of those rounded timber poles. Straight onto his penis. He was crying but settled quickly enough by the time his mother got the call. My friend tells me the school rang to see if it was okay if they had a look at his penis, to make sure that there was no damage.

She, being a nurse, suggested that they simply ask her son if he was happy with this as she had no issue. He was adamant he was now fine and he went on to class.

That night, my friend asked her son about it all. He told her they kept asking about his something that started with a P and that he didn’t know what they were asking him.

See, he’d always known it as a ‘willy’ and simply didn’t understand what they were asking him when they mentioned his penis. Dangerously lost in translation.

So what is the right thing to do here?

I for one believe in calling a spade a spade. Or a penis a penis. Then there’s no big deal is there?

It still won’t stop you from being embarrassed in social situations such as the one I found myself in where my son declared loudly at the Royal Brisbane show that “Mum, you don’t hurt my penis anymore!!”

This of course meant that now when he sat on my hip, his testicles were no longer squashed. But tell that to the judge walking lady.

Let’s face it, an armpit is an armpit. A forehead is a forehead. An ear is an ear. A toe, a toe. Why get so cutesy or downright weird when discussing these parts with our children? Surely this is OUR issue, not theirs. They know no different until we make it so and they should certainly NEVER be made to feel embarrassed about it. In any way.

What do you think? Do you have different names for your children’s parts down below? If so, why?

Bern is a Gen X, child of the 80′s. Kept busy being a working mother of 3 children, one with Aspergers, renovating the original money pit and drinking too many coffees in the space of 24 hours. One day she’ll remember to leave the meat out for tea but until then she writes beautiful and amusing posts on her blog which you can find here.