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Old 06-09-2006, 06:00 PM   #14
aschrimp's Avatar
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Location: Sacramento, CA
Posts: 675
Re: What to call private parts?

When we were growing up, it was privates in general, or "pee-pee hole" specifically. We knew that girls had "pee-pee, baby and poopy holes", and boys had "peepers and poopy holes" - probably a lot more descriptive to a child than "vagina" really.

While I agree with teaching children correct names, for a very young child a descriptor as to what the part does is probably just as appropriate. Children can learn two names for the same body part. Where it gets silly, as a school nurse for whom english was not a first language described once, is when you have an 8 year old boy who calls his penis his "hot dog" or his "weinerschnitzel" or his "ding-a-ling" and can't/won't come up with anything better than that to describe where he got kicked - lol!

BTW - I also have an issue with using the term vagina, although not with the word specifically, but because it is used to refer to the whole down-there-area. Especially since *most* of the time, little girls aren't talking about their vagina or anything close - it would either be their urethra (hurting when they pee) or labia (if they got hurt playing). The correct medical term for the entire area, btw, is vulva.

BTW- we call ds's privates his "baby bits" when we don't use the medical names. But he's too young to care yet.

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