Cutting Out The “Cookie”
“Boys have penises and girls have vaginas!” Who can forget the adorable little boy on Kindergarten Cop who informed Arnold Schwarzennegar of the anatomically correct terms for private parts? Granted, his father was a gynecologist, but many people choose to teach their own children to use the medical terms instead of making up nicknames. I was raised to call our female parts “popes.” Don’t ask why…I haven’t the slightest idea. However, when I married into a Catholic family and had a baby girl, it would have been like spitting in Pope John Paul’s face to refer to my daughter’s privates as “popes.” We did change the name, but not to the medical term. I could not imagine my children announcing that their vagina or penis was itchy, in public. It is just too taboo for me.
I’ve heard privates called so many silly things, that I’m wondering if it should have been decided upon, by our forefathers, to give it one sensible, universal name. Not a confusing one like “cookie” or “wiener.” I never know if a child is hungry or having genital issues when they call their privates by food related names. When my kids learned that the word wiener is also associated with a hot dog, it was all they wanted to talk about for the next week. I couldn’t even drive by the local Wienersnitzel without the whole van bursting into wiener jokes and hysterical laughter.
As much as I cannot bring myself to use the words penis and vagina when talking to my children, I have to think that it is necessary to come up with a few serious terms. Ones that can be used in a public setting without making bystanders feel as uncomfortable as I do when hearing tykes use the correct terminology. Any ideas? I’d really like to get your opinions on this matter. Do you use nicknames for private parts in your family, or stick to the good old medical terms? Does it bother you to hear other kids calling them by their proper names?
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5 opinions for Cutting Out The “Cookie”
Maria
Jan 28, 2008 at 3:35 pm
I am using proper names, but my son is only 13 months. Quite honestly, even though they are “private” parts, I think that we need to be able to speak about them in medical terms. It makes it less embarassing later when you need to see a doctor for various things, such as annual paps, yeast infections and who knows what else. I am not going to go to a doctor and say my “who who itches.” Also, I think that until body parts are normalized, things such as breastfeeding and nursing in public are going to continue to be issues for some people.
Kadi
Jan 28, 2008 at 4:30 pm
I will admit to blushing when I first had to talk about my private parts with my Gyn.
joyce
Jan 28, 2008 at 8:38 pm
popes is sort of a short form of the french word for vagina ( dont ask me to spell it ask your mom ha ha) when Cody was little (this was his doing not mine) his butt was his circle privates and his penis was his line privates. pretty geometric to me ha ha love a. joyce
Kadi
Jan 29, 2008 at 9:46 am
Hey, Aunt Joyce! Welcome to G.P. :) Thanks for clearing that one up for me! Cody must have a knack for math!!
Mary
Feb 2, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I am a nanny, and although I grew up with a nickname for my private parts, I now find the practice of doing so frusterating. One family I work for was potty-training their son, and one day the mother overheard me say the word “penis” while I was talking to the child during a “training session”. She interuppted me and said “we don’t call it a penis, it’s a pee-pee.” Well, I’m sorry, but to me, “pee-pee” means urine! And I am later to find, that to them, urine is “wee-wee”! I tried to avoid all this confusion in the first place by calling his privates by the proper medical term, but apparently that’s where I went wrong. I suppose the term is just to vulgar for her to hear coming out of her son’s mouth, but that’s her issue, not mine. Personally when I was growing up, we had all girls in the family, so I couldn’t have even guessed what a common nickname fore penis’ were! On another note, my family called girl parts “tooties” (tudys?). I once asked my mother where she had come up with the word, and she said she got it from her mom. I think it’s kinda cute. I thought nothing of it until one day in high school my boyfriend and I went out to breakfast at a family owned resteraunt, and as we pulled in to the parking lot, I see the name of the joint above the door. You guessed it, “Tudy’s”. I actually snorted I found it so funny. I explained to my boyfriend why I was laughing, and he did not get it at all. He had never heard that word to describe the female genitalia before, having grown up with all bothers…
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