# My seven year old explains the facts of life to me **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [March 20, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398 "2011-03-20T21:58:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/1 "2011-03-20T21:58:19Z")
Im trying to chat with my son about … changes… and differences… he might notice in the kids around him. He tells me he knows the differences between girls and boys. Girls have bums, boys have butts. Girls wear gitch, boys wear gotch. Girls think its fun to stay clean and boys don’t. Also: girls sit down to pee because they aren’t good at aiming! Moms invented kissing to tease people. Dads are hairy because they don’t wash. Thus my son is going to quit washing his face so he can get a beard fast so girls don’t try to kiss him. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/2 "2011-03-20T22:04:48Z")
I had to check your location field when I saw “gitch” and “gotch” - you’re totally Canadian! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![fubbleskag](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@fubbleskag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fubbleskag)\ **Post date:** [March 20, 2011, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/3 "2011-03-20T23:54:20Z")
I grew up in western Canada, and we called them “ginch” or “gonch” with an ‘n’. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/4 "2011-03-21T01:22:10Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I had to check your location field when I saw “gitch” and “gotch” - you’re totally Canadian! 😃 But of course, mais oui. Thunder Bay, the westest east! With daylight savings in the summer we are light till around 11pm. And it’s not a north thing, its a west thing, we are pretty far west to still be on Eastern Time. (Then again, my office is considered a sub-centre of Winnipeg, in Prarie region. I keep saying “oh that’s wheat fields, not boreal forest I see out my window”) ---
**Author:** ![EmAnJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@EmAnJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmAnJ)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/5 "2011-03-21T01:22:53Z")
Yeah, W Canada here too, and I’ve never heard it without the n. Cute though! Kids are so great at making up interesting observations. ---
**Author:** ![Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heffalump_and_roo/32/7691_2.png) [@Heffalump\_and\_Roo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heffalump_and_Roo)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/6 "2011-03-21T01:27:09Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I had to check your location field when I saw “gitch” and “gotch” - you’re totally Canadian! 😃 Explain to the rest of us, please. My google search results don’t sound like something a kid would say. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/7 "2011-03-21T01:52:43Z")
Fill us dumb old “Uh-Merikans” on what gitch and gotch is. 🙂 Some kind of material? ---
**Author:** ![Spoons](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spoons/32/3141_2.png) [@Spoons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoons)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/8 "2011-03-21T02:20:02Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Thus my son is going to quit washing his face so he can get a beard fast so girls don’t try to kiss him. Ummm … I hate to discourage him, but as a bearded man, I can attest to the fact that a few young ladies of my acquaintance have expressed interest in kissing somebody with a beard. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/9 "2011-03-21T02:25:21Z")
I’m assuming he’s joking and that by this age he at least understands rudimentary anatomy? ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/10 "2011-03-21T02:36:23Z")
Gitch/gotch/ginch/gonch/gaunch/gitchies/gotchies/gonchies. It’s underwear. From the Ukrainian gátky/gáci. Along with spelling and pronunciation, there seems to be some variation about exactly which articles and genders of underclothes are covered, but [boys’ briefs](http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_BLOt1owJnAw/R1WLz9RC9nI/AAAAAAAAAME/ONfS1lcRr3Y/s400/Ginch%2BGonch%2BMens%2BUnderwear.jpg) always are. In narrower applications, it’s analogous to the black/Southern “drawers.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/11 "2011-03-21T02:46:30Z")
Also Polish. But I have to admit that I never would have guessed it from gitch/gotch. I’ve never heard it abbreviated from “gotchies”, and I’ve never heard it with a short “i”. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/12 "2011-03-21T03:21:17Z")
My love for a current Canadian tv series ([Lost Girl](http://lostgirlseries.com/)) was cemented when one of the main characters commented on someone’s “collection of fancy gitch.” 😃 ETA: My husband has reminded me of another one to add to the list (his own creation, we believe) - “undergonch.” ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/13 "2011-03-21T04:43:07Z")
Pointless aside, but does anyone know the etymology of the word dink? In the dark ages when I was a kid I asked my mother how a tomcat was different from a regular cat and she wouldn’t answer. Soon a tomcat jumped up in the window and I yelled “Mom! Now I know. Tomcats have a dink!” Yeah, our cats were fixed so I never noticed anything. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/14 "2011-03-21T05:26:45Z")
Longundergotchies are for winter. I remember my dad telling us in the morning that we would need long gotchies because it was cold outside. And I would groan and freak out that my dad said “gotch” so he would say ok, for you long unmentionables. I usually forget that gotch/gitch gonch/ginch is a Canadianism. My son should have figured out that some girls still like to kiss men with beards. My boyfriend’s facial hair will frequently run from clean shaven, to several days growth, then occasionaly turn into a goatee for a while, before he gets frightened by the white in his beard and shaves his face again. My son really has only a rudimentary knowledge of female anatomy, that was why I was going to talk to him about things, but he has NO INTEREST and he knows all he has to know. I remember being the same age and walking away from my mother in the library when she showed me a book called (and I remember the title to this day) “Girls are girls and boys are boys, so what’s the difference.” (ah the 1970s!) My cousin wrote in a book her mom gave her about the facts of life. (I now have this book due to a series of moves by each of us in the 1990s) “Deer Momy. NOTHANKYOU for this book. I do not want to read it. No thankyou. Not rite now i do not want to read this book. Thankyou Mommy for this book. No thank you for reading it rite now, maybee latter. When I am old or a tenageer.” Oh and for the Brits on the board, “bum” means buttocks, not anything else. ---
**Author:** ![DianaG](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7ab992/32.png) [@DianaG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DianaG)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/15 "2011-03-21T10:19:09Z")
Heh. When my daughter was six or seven, my sister (also six or seven) asked what the difference between girls and boys was, and my science-loving daughter launched into an explanation of X and Y chromosomes and hormones. When my sister’s eyes started glazing over I said to my daughter “I think she’s looking for something simpler.” and my daughter said “Oh, boys have that hangy thing.”😃 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 11:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/16 "2011-03-21T11:11:40Z")
> [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](#): > > Oh and for the Brits on the board, “bum” means buttocks, not anything else. Without any other context that is what it means for us too. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/17 "2011-03-21T13:39:17Z")
Well, first you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and then you have the facts of life. ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/18 "2011-03-21T15:01:42Z")
Now I know why you are EvilTOJ. I will have that earworm in my head all day. While I ask people about their most intimate life details. Great. (Have you ever had gay sex with a tatoo’d monkey who ate British Beef in a malaria zone, while living in Africa, having hepatitis since age 11 even once since 1977…while on acne medication?.. with Mrs Garrett smiling all the time) ---
**Author:** ![sandra\_nz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eada6e/32.png) [@sandra\_nz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sandra_nz)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/19 "2011-03-21T15:04:37Z")
_If the world never seems To be living up to your dreams…_ Aaaaaaaaaaaargh! ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [March 21, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398/20 "2011-03-21T15:42:30Z")
boys have a penis girls have a vagina what else is there to know [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/my-seven-year-old-explains-the-facts-of-life-to-me/575398.md?page=2)