I don’t believe so myself, since it may well engender an unwanted earnestness and even a fear of or repulsion for sex in children.
C.S. Lewis addressed this matter in his own inimitable style in an article in The Spectator of 1955 called ‘Prudery and philology’. Since there are many prudes on this board (it being American dominated!) and also many interested in language and culture, and indeed in children, it’s worth quoting him at length. Lewis is talking about the (literary) problem of describing the parts of the human body:
‘When [after drawing a nude and then attempting the written description] you come to those parts of the body which are not usually mentioned, you will have to make a choice of vocabulary. And you will find that you have only four alternatives: a nursery word [“winkie/down there”], an archaism [“phallus/mons”], a word from the gutter [“cock/snatch”], or a scientific word [“penis/vagina/vulva”]. You will not find any neutral word, comparable to “hand” or “nose”…There was never a falser maxim than ut pictura poesis*. We are sometimes told that everything in the world can come into literature. This is perhaps true in some sense. But it is a dangerous truth unless we balance it with the statement that nothing can go into literature except words, or (if you prefer) that nothing can go in except by becoming words. And words, like every other medium, have their own proper powers and limitations.’ (my examples in square brackets)
‘as is painting, so is poetry’ (Horace, Ars Poetica)
:eek: Oh, man! I was all, “CS Lewis be buggin!” You shoulda given us that warning up front.
I think I learned scientific terms when I was a kid, and that’s what I’ll teach my kids. Elimination is a little harder: “urinate” and “defecate” and “flatulence” seem like much bigger words to me than “penis” and “vagina.” For those, I figure simple words like “poop” and “pee” and “fart” are fine. (I actually talk about pooping a fair amount to kids I’ve never met before: part of my job involves talking about caring for animals, and you gotta talk about the pooping if you’re talking about caring for animals).
When teaching your own children, always be honest, and forthright about words, especially words that will get a reaction from a plurality of adults. Children will learn all the synonyms for body parts, and body functions. Some will learn the social consequences of “misuse” of such vocabulary by public embarrassment, but a fortunate few will learn all the names and the social implications of the use of each one from a loving parent. That lesson is somewhat embarrassing to deliver to your kids, but you are the volunteer in this relationship, so suck it up and do your duty.
Let your children know that their character will be judged by their use of such words. Let them know that it is unkind to expose people to verbal outbursts that they themselves find “vulgar” or “nasty.” It is not necessary to imply that the body parts, or functions are in and of themselves vulgar (which in fact they are) or nasty (which in most cases they are not). It is probably important to let them know that using anything other than “children’s” words for these objects or actions is not polite, and while they are children, you would prefer that they be polite to adults.
By the way, you don’t do all of this in one day. You do it by being genuine, and open with your children. Profane means “not sacred” it is insincere to pretend that every profane thing is somehow unacceptable subject material for children’s curiosity. You deal with the vocabulary when the concept is encountered.
Above all, laugh with your children when someone farts, but also teach them that they are suppose to hold in the laughter at least for a few seconds, especially when someone not in your family is present.
If I were to have kids I would prefer to teach them to use the words ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ when refering to those body parts. I would also teach them that if they need to speak to an adult about those body parts, that it is considered rude to use the words loudly, to use them to try and make others laugh or to use them excessively. I would also encourage them to talk to their parents or a teacher if they do need to say something (like if they are in pain or having trouble in the toilet or something), that it is not something they should talk about with strange adults.
At home, they should be allowed to ask any questions they might have about any part of anyone’s body and not be afraid to use the normal words.
If (Og forbid) one of them were to be being sexually abused, they need to have no fear of telling someone that ‘so-and-so did x,y and z’. Instilling in them that they ought to be too ashamed of their private body parts (which I think is something helped along by using silly names instead of normal terms) to say something makes that harder.
I think using cutesy versions of the words is silly. I think it gives the impression that those parts of people’s bodies are too vulgar to be mentioned by name. I compared this with a friend’s 13yr old recently (note: I don’t know why the child picked me for this conversation, but she did…) to using ‘You-Know-Who’ instead of ‘Voldemort’. She understood. Her mother will not tolerate them using words like ‘vagina’ - she insists on calling it ‘little bottom’ (!!!). With the result that this child was just TOO embarrassed to tell her mother that she has started having her period. She was genuinely scared! I think a large part of that was her mother’s insisting on using a ‘cover-up’ term all their lives as though saying ‘we’re going to talk about this without really talking about it because it’s an uncomfortable subject’.
The kid had absolutely no idea what to do. It’s been several months since and I believe she still has not told her mother. Which would be fine, except that she obviously wanted to tell someone, she obviously needed some advice - but felt that her mother thought it was ‘gross’.
Your text put me in mind of Desiderata, a “poem” (using the word loosely), which was all the rage in the 70s on posters, which starts “Go placidly among the throng of life…”, or something to that effect. They even made a song, which was notable chiefly for the fact that it was even worse than the poem.
Marley, the challenge for rationalists (in whose number you count yourself, I know) is to understand that rationality is not a property of human beings or a fact about human beings. It is a task for us to achieve; a difficult task, whose difficulty may best be comprehended when we come to the place where we accept that it is difficult to achieve rationality even partially.
God sent me to the SDMB to remind good folk like you that it’s easier to love mankind in the abstract, easy to love the blacks, but very difficult to be decent towards the man without power or influence you work with or the mother who annoys and embarrasses you.
I’m not saying I hate your guts, rog. I’m just noting that even when I agree with your criticisms, you have a way of singling out America that seems a little absurd. As far as loving humanity even as it annoys me to death - well, it’s fun to keep those plates spinning. I’m not sure I want to sovle that dilemma, it might make people seem less entertaining.
Tell them that there are rude words which you don’t want them to use, and grown-up science words which they can use if they want to, or that they can come up with their own word (which you get to veto if you don’t like it).
Little girls, BTW have very little use for the word vagina, what they’re usually talking about is their urethra or vulva, so even by using the “correct” term you’re probably confusing the situation more than is necessary. Being told that the name for their entire genital are is “vagina”, which is isn’t, can only contribute to misunderstandings-like the common one that women urinate from their vaginas.
As a foreigner, it does not sem absurd to me. Americans tend to forget that, because of their country’s size and global hegemony, they are a special case. And while the US has given world culture such treasures as topless bars and lap dancing, there is a large and influential part of the US population that is prudish by Western standards (even if not by other standards, such as those of the Middle East).
Roger is raising a topic about which many are prudish: it is not odd to mention in passing that an identifiable group on this board may be more prudish. I don’t think it means Roger hates everything about the US.
Tris, in a few short sentences you explained my entire philosophy of parenting. As the father of a nearly 3 yr old, I have found that they will decide what words they want to use, no matter what you call people’s privates. I don’t restrain my daughter from that because I find that a lesson discovered is better retained than a lesson taught. When I fart, my daughter laughs hysterically and proclaims “Daddy farted!”, but she does so in a whisper, like its our funny little secret. Sometimes she will spontaneously start laughing and if you ask her why she’s laughing she’ll whisper “I farted!”
Last week I had one of those parenting moments. You know - a situation that you know is coming and you are in fear of for it’s potential embarassment. I was changing my clothes and my daughter came bursting into the room when I was buck nekkid. She pointed at my member and said “Daddy, what’s that!?” I explained that it was my peepee, and that it was the kind of peepee that boys have. Girls have a different kind of peepee. “Wow”, she said. “It looks like a hand.” And she went on with her life, lesson discovered, lesson learned. I learned something from the encounter too: often the embarassment we try to avoid by giving our children half-truths or shielding them from information that is potentially unpolite or vulgar is our own. You have to know that something is supposed to be embarassing to feel embarassment. When we withhold information from our children, we do it out of fear for our own awkward feelings.
It really is an amazing process to watch, as a parent, but children have an enormous capability to learn subtleties that adults almost never give them credit for. I find that if you let it happen, you will be amazed.
I think I might have told this before, but what the hell.
When my mother was 10 years old, she was in the hospital recovering from having an appendix removed. At the same time, her mother was giving birth, so there was no family member present with my mom. She was sitting on the bedpah, trying to defecate, when an older (male) doctor came into the room.
“Did you move your bowels?” he asked.
“Huh?” she replied.
“Did you have a bowel movement yet?” he tried again. “Did you poop?”
None of these was what it was called at home. *So he picked her up off the bedpan to look! *Scared the hell out of her.
We learned the scientific names for things, and so have my children. We refer to it as “poop” during 80% of the diaper changes, but at least once a day, I ask the baby if she’s had a bowel movement. When I change her, I tell her “I’m wiping your vulva…now I’m wiping your butt…now I’m kissing your belly!” It’s just one more name for one more part of her body. Sometimes I call it a “vagina”, because technicalities aside, many of her friends will call it that. Sometimes I call her belly her stomach, or her shoulders her scapulas. Things can have more than one name. No big deal.
No, but I do detect a certain smugness in his comments, a trace of ‘those poor benighted Americans’, which infects a large part of the British nation (and I speak as an Englishman myself). It annoys me because it’s totally unwarranted, in that we have just as much ignorance, prudery, etc in the UK as in the States, albeit it may be expressed in different ways and different areas.
OK. I have been watching this thread for the last day or so and I still am waiting for Roger to identify the question.
Teaching toddlers scientific words is an answer to what question?
Roger claims that is is not the answer, but he does not explain what question would be “answered” by the practice.
It almost makes me think that this is some sort of high level rant in disguise, prompted by someone throwing him a questioning look when his daughter publicly announced that she had to “go turn on the faucet” as she looked for a restroom.
Got a cite for that? I had never before even heard it speculated that learning accepted anatomical terms like “penis” and “vagina”, even at an early age, will somehow produce sexual dysfunction or psychological problems about sex in later life.
(“Unwanted earnestness”? I don’t think I even understand what the hell “unwanted earnestness” is. Is anybody seriously suggesting that children will somehow grow up into humorless, nerdy, uptight CPAs* simply because they learn the word “penis” instead of “weewee”?)
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course!
I see no distinction between “scientific” terms like “penis” and “normal” terms like “hand.” You call a penis a penis, a breast a breast, a butt(ocks) a butt(ocks). What’s the big deal?
Got a cite for that? I had never before even heard it speculated that learning accepted anatomical terms like “penis” and “vagina”, even at an early age, will somehow produce sexual dysfunction or psychological problems about sex in later life.