# what should you teach a 2 year old to call her private parts? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 20, 2008, 5:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711 "2008-10-20T05:54:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![squeegee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/squeegee/32/14537_2.png) [@squeegee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/squeegee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/61 "2008-10-21T06:37:19Z")
When my boy was young, I remember the local Moms’ consensus was that boy-parts be called “wee-wees”, so naturally girl-parts would be called “woo-woos”. Seriously. ---
**Author:** ![Marienee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@Marienee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marienee)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/62 "2008-10-21T12:30:13Z")
Being an enlightened parent I taught my sons the correct names for their (respective) penis and scrotum, and as they are bilingual I taught this in two languages. Upon entering school they promptly began using "wanger"in English and “pimel” (I think that’s how you spell it, it’s pronounced PEE-mul) in Dutch. I think they are both slang words, though my instinct for what is and is not considered slang in Dutch is hampered by my having learned it quite late and without benefit of formal instruction. Whatever, they seem to be pleased with this arrangement. ANd the point is not to have a particular word but to be able to communicate. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/63 "2008-10-21T13:18:41Z")
My boyfriend, a grown and educated man in his 20’s, did not know that the whole shebang is not called the vagina. Clearly we are doing a poor job of hooty-hoo education. (I mean, if you call all your genitals your vagina what do you say when you actually need to talk about your vagina? And does vagina look weird to anybody else when you type it too many times?) He also thought, as a shocking number of women do, that I pee out of it. (The actual vagina, not the “whole area vagina” concept.) ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/64 "2008-10-21T16:51:02Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > Not everything is the same as everything else. Why should it be? My elbows and nose enjoy frequent public exposure - why wouldn’t I do the same thing with my genitalia? I don’t even know what this means. We’re talking about naming body parts. Genitalia is normally covered up as modesty, but that doesn’t mean we should give it a cutesy name on top of it. That adds an extra layer of stigma. ---
**Author:** ![spoike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/da6949/32.png) [@spoike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spoike)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/65 "2008-10-21T21:44:54Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > You’re right, and my apologies for being snarky. There’s no excuse for that. I should have rephrased myself more clearly without the sarcasm. No problem. Thank you for the apology. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/66 "2008-10-21T21:48:05Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > I don’t even know what this means. We’re talking about naming body parts. Genitalia is normally covered up as modesty, but that doesn’t mean we should give it a cutesy name on top of it. That adds an extra layer of stigma. I agree with you on the cutesy bit actually, I hate the cutesy names. It’s the proper names bit where I differ - I still think there is a need (also out of modesty) for a non-cutesy term that isn’t a formal anatomical description - for which I think ‘private parts’ happens to serve well. Not that I think anyone should be insulated from the knowledge of the correct terms, only that those terms aren’t appropriate for insertion into every context of conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Hyperelastic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Hyperelastic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hyperelastic)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2008, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/67 "2008-10-21T23:18:38Z")
> [@ivylass](#): > > You don’t have a cute euphemism for her elbow or nose, do you? Why, I sure do. The elbow is the “funny bone” if you hit it a certain way, and the nose can be the snoot, schnozz, beak, sniffer, or snot spigot. (Well, I made that last one up.) It’s part of the richness of the English language. On these grounds I have encouraged my 6-year-old boy to refer to his genitals as his “junk”. ---
**Author:** ![Omegaman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e480ec/32.png) [@Omegaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omegaman)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/68 "2008-10-22T00:00:43Z")
My wife teaches our niece and nephew to call them “nibbly bits”. Not my first choice, but I normally don’t argue with my wife. ---
**Author:** ![mamakat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e56c9b/32.png) [@mamakat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mamakat)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2008, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711/69 "2008-10-22T03:58:38Z")
My kids know all the technical terms, and they learned them at the same time as the slang. I don’t know how we started this, but the slang name for my daughters bits are the tantric term yoni, and my son calls his goodies his weewer. But the technical terms and the playful terms are interchangeable. I’m really open about sex and all the “sex stuff” with my kiddos, so nothing is embarrassing to them. Although I think it’s adorable that my son started calling his nipples his man boobs. (Don’t know where he picked that one up, he’s only 5!) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-should-you-teach-a-2-year-old-to-call-her-private-parts/468711.md?page=3)