Penis is the proper name. It shouldn’t be called anything other than that.
Slight hijack here… When our daughter was 4 years old, my sister told her that she had a baby in her stomach. My daughter, being taught all the correct words and the correct way the human body works (Too bad she couldn’t pronounce them properly!), told her, “Noooo. Baby is not in your stomach! He’s in your uters!”
That made my sister really angry for some reason. Stupid people. She told me that I was ‘letting my daughter in on too much information.’
Nope. I don’t think we were. We were right on this one, I believe!
That’s one of my pet peeves…telling children that a baby is in your ‘stomach’. Everyone knows that if a baby is in your stomach, your body would digest it. Its proper place is in your uterus! For Gawds sake, don’t lie to the kids like that!
Hmm, I’ve never heard someone say that they had a baby in their stomach. The phrase I’ve heard is in their belly, which is not the same thing. Your belly is an undefined area of your midsection, and the baby certainly is in there somewhere.
Completely off topic but I have to share an adorable story about my little stepcousin, who’s about 4. We were at the cottage and I was hooking a rug, and she was watching me as I explained what I was doing. I made some mistake and said, “oh, stupid thing,” and she ran off to her mommy, completely scandalized, and went “HE SAID STUPID! THAT’S A BAD WORD!!!”
Once we finished LOLing, we explained the difference between calling your own things stupid because you’re upset, and calling other people or their things stupid.
It really doesn’t matter, as he is almost certain to hear all the words between now and kindergarten from the neighbor kid. (Who you have always made a point of not referring to as “little Shit” because you know your three year old will pick up on it.)
Just come to this thread. It’s of surprising solidarity, so I’m going to be more or less on my own here.
I don’t think ‘penis’ is a great word for a two year-old. Not for any prudish or moral reason, but because it just sounds a bit silly when they say it. If you want to teach your kid to say ‘penis’ go right ahead, but for me it’s a bit too medical-sounding or something… I dunno. It’s like a very small child saying ‘precipitation’ instead of rain. It sounds a little forced.
Yes, I realise the options are limited, as it’s either that or filth like ‘cock’ or childish words like “pee-pee”. But hey, he’s a child. I’d be going for the less babyish end of the spectrum of childish words. My son says ‘doodle’, which isn’t too bad. Come to think of it, I don’t remember what he said before school age - it’s only now at age seven that he’s fascinated with swearing - a purely schoolyard-driven thing. “Doodle” and “dick” are the neutral and taboo words respectively in his schoolyard, and there’s not a lot I can do to change that. He doesn’t actually swear himself, but he’ll dissolve into gales of laughter at slightly suggestive words. We walked past a pizzeria the other day, and there was a sign on the window advertising “Mr Pisa Gelato”. My young bloke thought it was pronounced “Mr Pisser”, and he couldn’t even tell me about it, he was laughing so hard. Just pointing, hyperventilating, and going red in the face. And I can remember going through a similar phase myself (I was only 32).
So teach your kid whatever you like, but don’t expect it to stick once they hit school. I think a general household standard of decency is naturally a good thing to uphold, but beyond that there should be a bit of leniency in kids’ fascination with swearwords (it’s part of the fun of being a kid), and a little less obsessing over what is or isn’t ‘appropriate’. If there’s an overused word, it’s that one.
We chose to teach our soon-to-be-3 year old son that he has a penis and a bum, but that he does pee-pee and poo-poo. No great planning involved, although I agree with TheLoadedDog that medical vocabulary like penis can sound a bit strange when spoken by a young child, as opposed to the commonly used cute euphemisms.
Oh, and using euphemisms does not avoid embarassing moments: my dad took my then 3 year old brother to a baseball game many years ago. In the middle of the game, my brother repeatedly shouted out “Don’t touch my private parts!” to the supreme embarassment of my dad, who was of course doing no such thing.
Do you have kids, TheLoadedDog? Because mine pick up the words that surround them. So penis may sound forced but we look at each other and laugh as our kids have used words like frightening, collage, exhausted. It isn’t - at least in our house - all about “Mommy, look at the horsey.” (Well, sometimes it is, our five year old likes to “be little” so she uses words at five she wouldn’t have been caught dead using at two.
Absolutely. Again, read my… nevermind. I’m not disgusted at the word, and I’m sure if it were the household word at my place, I’d be used to it in no time. I’m just saying that it might get odd looks from others. Not disapproving ones, but a bit bemused. I’m not really worked up about it either way though.
Actually, “dick” isn’t really that bad either, come to think of it. It’s a good balance of cutesy (a name, just like Willy) and yet not babyish. Maybe we should start a “Push for Dick” movement.
My kids used ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’, which gives me the opportunity to tell one of my favorite stories about them.
I have twins, a boy and a girl, and to save me time and effort they took a bath together until that one day when they were two and a half and my son started yelling in alarm. “Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!”
I turn from the cabinet, afraid something terrible has happened. “What is it? What?!”
“Oh no!” says Justin, “Look! Ebony’s penis is broken!”
This was followed by a quick comparative anatomy lesson and seperate baths from then on out.
IANAMom, but my experience tells me that if you’re embarrassed by genitalia and all their functions, you’re kids will pick up on that and eventually use whatever terminology you’ve chosen inappropriately at some point. It’s so fascinating to watch them when they discover they have a Super Power to fluster mom and dad!! Power mad little tyrants, I tells ya!
Yes, I absolutely agree that children should be taught the correct verbage (and have discussed with many friends how there is just no good, all encompassing word for a girl’s genitalia). But more important to my mind is the ability to be matter-of-fact about it. There’s nothing like matter-of-factness to diffuse a kid’s desire to watch you squirm…
I once took my two-year-old niece to a public restroom. She was amazed at what she saw there and asked me, “What is that?”
So, when we got back to her parents, I matter-of-factly let them know that I had taught their daughter the phrase “pubic hair”.
There is a very good reason to teach your child the correct terminology, which was alluded to but sort of skipped over earlier: medical care.
When my mother was a child, she was in the hospital with an emergency appendectomy at the same time her mother was in another hospital giving birth. So, no parents around to translate. A couple of days after the opperation, the doctor comes into her room, where she’s sitting on a bedpan. “Oh, good!” he said. “Have you moved your bowels yet?” She had no idea what he was asking. “Have you had a B.M.?” he tried. Still clueless. So he PICKED A TEN YEAR OLD GIRL UP OFF THE BEDPAN TO LOOK AT WHAT WAS UNDERNEATH! Granted, dumb move. Probably wouldn’t happen today. BUT, she was so traumatized by it that she taught us the medical terms for eveything, as well as more colloquial terms.
So I grew up hella sure knowing what a bowel movement is, calling it a “B.M.” at home, and “poo” or “poop” when I was around my friends. It really doesn’t have to be all one or the other.
:eek: A close friend of mine refers to hers and all others that way. Although I always thought she was saying " Peeche", but…I think now that she was saying “peach”.
Our son calls his penis ‘peeshie’ and I’m not sure why. I mean, I know why. It’s because that’s what I called it…I’m just not sure why I started calling it that.
At age 5, he knows its proper name is penis, but it’s generally referred to as peeshie, and I think it’s pretty normal for people (of all ages) to use euphemisms for certain parts and functions. I can’t think of the last time I referred to my ‘vulva’ or Farmman’s ‘penis’. Around here no one flatulates or sits on their gluteus maximus. Everyone farts and sits on their butts. We tend to use different terminology outside the doctor’s office and I see no reason why our child should be any different. This is a kid who nursed into his third year, but never once asked to partake of the milk produced from my lactating mammaries…he asked for booby.
The problem I see in the OP is the parents’ wish to shield their kids’ from the proper terms. This, in my opinion, reveals some issues on their part, but then, I’m genuinely perplexed by people who issue lists of appropriate ways to converse with their offspring.
On a related (and perhaps TMI) note, my son still confuses the words “diarrhea” and “period”. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m still not sure if the lady in the next stall was gasping or laughing.
Maybe I should have taught him to say ‘menstrual cycle’?
For some reason, I remember that I called my penis, “flunker,” when I was little. I’m sure that wasn’t what my parents called it as I remember them teaching “vulva” and the like to my sisters. I’m pretty sure that was just a self-christening that stuck. The Not Appropriate for Children crowd annoy me. People not too different from them are responsible for most of the censorship movements.
Penis, vagina, butt (since posterior is a bit much for a 2 year old to say) and the like are entirely appropriate, in my opinion and that of most of my family members. Even my conservative aunt taught her daughters vulva, vagina, and breasts for their girly parts.
My two year old can correctly point when asked, “Where’s your vulva?” I use that term because really she is only concerned with her external bits now, and using “vagina” for all the female genitalia is one of my pet peeves. I also tell her, when she is naked and investigates further, that that’s her clitoris. I think a couple times I’ve said something like “We’re almost done, I just have to clean some poop out of your vagina,” while changing a diaper.
Basically we’re just matter of fact and use the words we use, except for profanity. Yeah, the adults in our house usually say “poop” or “shit,” not “bowel movement” or “feces.” That does sound strained to me. I guess the other consideration is that everyone will know what a kid means if they say “poop,” whereas peepee, peach, nunu, popo, and whatnot are way too ambiguous. I think it’s important to have knowledge about such things, for medical reasons, abuse prevention/reporting, as well as avoiding instilling shame.
I remember when I was a kid, my aunts were hanging out with a male friend who fell and yelled, “Ow, my balls!” And I very seriously said, “You mean ‘testes.’” So obviously my parents taught me correct and common terms. (And yeah, I got a big laugh.)
It does bug me when people teach their kids twee names because they are themselves afraid of saying the correct terms. Sure, with my husband I usually just refer to my ‘pussy,’ but when I call the doctor’s office, it is very useful to be able to say, “I have a problem with my right labium minorum,” or whatever.
“Penis” reigns supreme at our home. My four-year-old son runs around singing (in a frightenly realistic lounge-singer way), “I have a huge, enormous penis!” just because of the reaction it elicits–supressed laughter from me, and a yanked chain from mom.
Also, in order for me to yank mom’s chain, I told both my kids that “butt” was not an appropriate word to use when they were uttering it. Instead, I told them that they should use the word “buttocks.” They haven’t been able to get the pronunciation just right, and I get the look of death from my wife every time we’re in public and one of them announces, “Ow! I just hurt my butt-OX”!
I’m not disgusted at the word, and I’m sure if it were the household word at my place, I’d be used to it in no time. I’m just saying that it might get odd looks from others. Not disapproving ones, but a bit bemused. I’m not really worked up about it either way though.