I grew up being told my vagina was a "susie".

Unfortunately, those baby words are for the comfort of the parent so that they feel more comfortable hearing it if the child has a problem in that area. I guess some parents are uncomfortable hearing their daughter say "my vagina's burning" like my mom had to hear until I learned how to wipe properly.

I personally wouldn't have a problem with it, and would teach my daughter the proper words.

My parents used to call "it" on both my brother and myself our "privates". I remember that ever since I was little. I honestly don't see "privates" as a bad thing bc we were constantly reinforced that they were private parts. However, I think that my parents were equally motivated for us to keep them private and not participate in self exploration. But they never called them some infantalized name.

When we got older our privates were referred to as vaginas and penises. (Although now I'm getting annoyed at vagina meaning everything including the clitoris, the vulva, and the cervix).

my parents always referred to my vulva as just that, my vulva. and i agree with gexx, i get annoyed when people refer to the vulva as a vagina.

Yes, I don't see how it's much better to use "vagina" for anything female you don't want to talk about. Ever hear anybody refer to testicles as the penis?

It's all "down there," anyway, so one word should do. (snark)

I grew up calling it my "gina" but that is because as a toddler the 2 syllables of VA-GINA were too difficult. My mum was always careful for us to know what the real words for things were. I was never taught was a clitoris was, but I did know what a vulva was and what a cervix was. They are not dirty words and it is important for children to learn the correct terminology.

My mother was very good on body parts - it was a vagina, my brother had a penis, my sister and I would eventually have a bosom (the more common term back then). And when I asked direct questions I got direct answers that sometimes embarrassed me. The first time I heard the wrod condom I had no idea what it was, so I asked - and got a very straight answer!

But she used to stumble a bit over functions - to the end of her day she still referred to urination as "making potty". My aunt, OTOH, used proper terms for functions as well as parts. One day my sister and cousin, both about 5, came in from the back yard and my sister announced, "Mommy, I need to make potty and Cousin Maria needs to urinate". They did not realize they were taking about the same thing.

My mom gave me a book for my daughter (who is 2.5 yrs) The Bare Naked Book. The book goes over body parts, and includes nipples (harry nipples, button nipples, milky nipples-can you find your nipples?) as well as a page for each gender with penis and vagina. I always correct it when I read and say vulva and show my daughter where her vulva is and the girl's vulva in the book.

My daughter really likes the book, but when my in-laws were up and grandma went to read the book, she skipped that page! All I could do was shake my head. At least my daughter will be aware of ALL her body parts, and the correct terms!

I guess it's at least good that genitalia is being discussed with most children. My genitals, and genitals in general, were pretty much never discussed with me by either side of my family. Everything I know about my genitalia comes from health class or my own exploration and reading. however, when I was eight an my male cousin was a baby, and I asked what his penis was when my grandmother was changing him, she did tell me it was his penis, which I find uncharacteristic of my family considering nowadays they tell my male cousins that their genitals are called "dingles." Yuck.

My mother was so threatened that I might have any knowledge of my "nether regions" that she never even used the word "gynecologist" with me growing up--it was always "the girly doctor." Which makes no sense. Knowing the real name for your genitalia, or any matters surrounding it, is more likely to make children less curious than using childish names. Education is the best way to prevent misunderstanding, as far as I'm concerned.

My mom usually used the terms "private area" or "pubic area".
Outside of "the talk", I did not discuss that kind of thing with my mother at all if I could help it, and I still don't like to talk about it with her. Despite her insistence that we can talk about anything, it has always felt uncomfortable. Even when it's just us in our own house, she whispers when she asks about my period or if she asks me to bring her a pad. It had always felt like anything having to do with "down there" is secretive.

At least your sister is hearing discussion about it-- I never, ever, ever heard discussion about it until I was about 15 and my mom told me all sex was a sin. And that was that. How do I know about sex? In my lutheran grade school, we watched a CARTOON movie about body parts in 5th grade, and my parents never mentioned that, either. Everything else I learned from the internet. (thank God for planned parenthood!)

I think I've told this story before, but in my parenting class we had a section on protecting our kids from the outside world, which included molesters. Because our kids were two, there wasn't a ton we could teach them, but we are supposed to be using the true names for things - normalizing them so that our kids will never be scared to talk about them. If someone touches my kid's penis, he's supposed to know that he can come to me immediately and tell me that someone touched his penis.

One of the men in the class was horrified. Absolutely appalled. I told him that it was embarrassing when my son goes around telling people whether they have a penis or a vagina (he's big on classification, so he likes to keep track). But it wouldn't be any less embarrassing if he told the three-year-old next door that she had a vajayjay or teetee (ew). But this guy really seemed to think that it would hurt his kid or turn him into a delinquent to say the word penis.

My mother couldn't bear the thought of any sort of vulgarity. We never peed or pooped, we went to the restroom. I certainly never learned any names for my bodyparts from her. I think if I had grown up in the abstinence-only era she would have stepped up the plate with extreme discomfort. But since I got comprehensive sex ed in school, she was happy to leave it to them.

Ugh, my cousin refers to her daughter's vulva as her "tutu"
HER TUTU!
I will never do that to my daughter. When I was in third grade, a boy was talking about his "doodle" I told the teacher he was talking about his penis. Want to guess who got in trouble? Apparently, "penis" was a BAD WORD!
Dumbing down kids helps nobody!

Hmm. My mother was a nurse, so my sister, brother, and I all knew the "real words" to use for our genitals. However, we still made up our own words for them (and they weren't really that imaginative).

My brother called his penis the same thing I called my vulva: the peepee (our anuses were our poopoos). I'm a little impressed that we both used the same gender-neutral name for our distinctive genitals.

Actually, my parents never called the vulva anything. It was just "The Girls' Thing", which hardly makes sense, really. I was always curious about its name.

I think subconsciously a lot of people feel that if kids are using the correct, "grown-up" words for their genitals, it suggests a certain sexual awareness that little kids shouldn't have. That's nonsense, of course, but it's probably what's at the root of people's discomfort with a three year old saying "vagina." It would be interesting to see how this is gendered. Are little boys taught that their "peepees" are really penises at a younger age than girls are taught to call their "peepees" vaginas or vulvas? I don't know, but it would be interesting to find out to what degree young girls are encouraged to infantalize their body parts compared to boys, and for how long.

My parents were on board with the accurate names for the anatomy. But after I mispronounced "vulva" as a toddler and proclaimed at dinner that my "volvo itched", it kind of mutated from there. Volvo was the word for quite some time after that. And it became one of those "adorable" (but actually horrifying) kid stories my parents like to tell my boyfriends when they came home to meet the family.

Honestly, though, the euphemisms are just so. Much. Worse. than the real thing. My partner's family referred to bowel movements as "bowelies", as in "I have to make a bowelie," and the word just gives me the creeps.

My parents always called it my "snookie". This was hugely confusing to me, mostly because no one else had ever heard the term, making communication on the subject difficult. I found this practice to be ubsurd when I got older. Luckily, my younger sister was spared the issue because I took it upoon myself to make sure she was well educated on the subject. But I do think gender has alot to do with it. To clarify, I am the oldest of three, with my sister and brother being twins. When they were 14, I took them seperately and gave them "the talk" - complete with condom diminstrations, masterbation advice, and appropriate terminology. I remember being shocked that I got in trouble for teaching this TO MY SISTER. It was fine to teach it to my brother. When I pointed this out, my parents simply said "it's just different." Ugh.

We use the actual appropriate terms - vulva, clitoris, cervix, vagina. I've used labia some, but my daughter doesn't use it often. I dislike that most people who preach about teaching non-slang words use vagina wrong, so in the end, I'm not sure it's better.

FWIW, I see this trend with boys as well. (I also have a son.) Few boys know penis, scrotum, testicles, etc. Instead they use slang, so I definitely don't see the naming issue as gendered. It seems to happen pretty equally with boys and girls.

My parents are doctors. Aside from knowing correct terms for genitals, I also knew a number of other technical words for body parts and proceses (anus, bowel movement, etc. The school nurse gave me a funny look when I complained that the lymph nodes in my neck were swollen and said "you don't even know what they are!")
The sad thing was that when I would use the correct term for things, I got made fun of, and I even got in trouble a couple of times for saying "bad words."

My girls know they have a bottom and a vulva. They are twenty months old. They've had a hard time with the V sound, but they can get their point across pretty well.

What I find funny is that people think it is weird that we taught them what a vulva is. Even their speech therapist had a hard time believing that they knew the word. I always say "Well, we taught them nose and knees and bellybutton--what's the difference?" and they make little fish faces and don't know what to say.

I worked with two women a couple of years ago who I think were 21 and 19. They were always going on about "vajayjay" this and that. It was absolutely bizarre. I'll grant that I rarely ever heard anyone use proper terminology, but even if you use slang/"dirty words", it's still a direct reference, not a childish workaround.

I taught my daughters the correct names. But when my 17 year old was only in 1st grade, we moved. I was visiting in the yard with a new neighbor when my daughter ran up and said, "Mom, my vagina hurts." My neighbor looked like she could have a cow. Her mouth pursed up, and her eyes widened. "You call it that?" she asked. "Yeah, that is what it is." I said. "What do you call it?"
My neighbor looked at me like I was crazy, "Well, we all it our front butt. We've got a front butt and a back butt."

My mother told my little brother to call his penis a "wee-wee." One day, after an anatomy lesson in school, he corrected her, saying that his teacher (at his conservative Islamic school, no less) said that it was called a penis and should be called that. I nearly spit out the soda I was drinking when my mother related that to me. She glared at me and told me that she insisted to him that it ought to be called a "wee-wee" because she found the word penis to be "shameless."

"teetee" just sounds wrong to me because i hear it a lot (ive got a 5 and a 2.5yo) to refer to peeing/going to the bathroom. "let's go teetee"/do you need to go teetee."

Just teach them to say "cunt" and call it a day.

(ahem, I'm being humorous.)

They need to be careful telling children 'nicknames' for their parts. In a sex education class at roughly the age of 13 my auntie raised her hand, thinking she knew the correct answer to what the picture of a penis was, and was laughed at when she answered "a doodleum". Goodness knows what my Grandama was thinking?! I was raised with 'minnie' meaning vagina and 'willy'. Funny line of conversation : I like it.

As a parent of young kids, I wrote some time ago on body terminology as the stepping stone to healthy sexuality parenting. I titled it Wipe Your Shame-Cave Honey.

My 2-year-old shocked her father when he said he was going to wipe her hoo-hah during a diaper change and she replied, "It's not a hoo-hah Daddy, its my vulva* and labia!" I was so proud. She's recently asked about her clitoris and I answered. She also knows that it is ok to also call her genitals a "privacy;" two names for the same thing.

The funny thing is, it seems the most shocking difference for her is not the difference between a vulva and a penis, but that her vulva is hairless while mine is hairy. LOL

*She calls her mons the vulva. I think she got confused, but it's accurate enough for now.

My Mom is a nurse practitioner and did a good job explaining genitalia.

Even when I was a young child and knew that touching myself felt good, my mother did not make me feel ashamed, but taught me about "privacy" which I referred to as "priva-seed."

As a pre-teen, she bought me the book "My Body, My Self: For Girls," and I even remember going over the section that talked about the reproductive organs. There was a column to write down the "slang" terms for anatomy, and my Mom explained to me that some people referred to vagina, vulva, clitoris, etc. as other things, but that she thought it was important for me to know their medical terms.

In Junior high school, when all of my girlfriends were going through puberty, all of their sexual explorative questions went to me to "ask my Mom." I remember going on a run with my Mom one time and asking her about masturbation, and she told me that it was a healthy thing to do and would allow me to figure out how everything worked for me sexually.

I am so thankful for this because I know that when I have a daughter I will feel more equipped for how to handle these discussions.

My Mom is a nurse practitioner and did a good job explaining genitalia, sexuality, and development, from a social and biological standpoint.

Even when I was a young child and knew that touching myself felt good, my mother did not make me feel ashamed, but taught me about "privacy" which I referred to as "priva-seed." She taught me about social situations and the correct context to talk about these things.

As a pre-teen, she bought me the book "My Body, My Self: For Girls," and I even remember going over the section that talked about the reproductive organs. There was a column to write down the "slang" terms for anatomy, and my Mom explained to me that some people referred to vagina, vulva, clitoris, etc. as other things, but that she thought it was important for me to know their medical terms.

In Junior high school, when all of my girlfriends were going through puberty, all of their sexual explorative questions went to me to "ask my Mom." I remember going on a run with my Mom one time and asking her about masturbation, and she told me that it was a healthy thing to do and would allow me to figure out how everything worked for me sexually.

I am so thankful for this because I know that when I have a daughter I will feel more equipped for how to handle these discussions.

I used to work at a Women's Center that provided court advocates for a variety of situations. We worked with mother of a three year old little girl who was told (after she took her daughter in to the police to testify against her piece of shit molester father) that she had "clearly coached" her kid on what to say to the cops.

You see, this kid had been taught the proper words for all of her body parts... and her baby brother's body parts. So, when she told the police that her daddy had put his penis into her vagina-- the cops didn't believe her. "No 3 year old talks like that," they said.

Our culture is FUCKED UP.

My parents were pretty good about all this stuff, calling my parts the german equivalents of vagina and vulva. But I remember my grandma talking about my "little bottom" or alternatively my "front bottom" (or sometimes "Pöpsken"), which I think is seriously *wrong*...

I have taught my 8-year-old and 4-year-old daughters to say "penis" and "vulva" at home and "privates" in public. I also explained that male and female genitals have many parts with separate names, have told them those names, and have explained several times that lots of people say "vagina" when they really mean "vulva" or another part.

Even four-year-olds are capable of understanding public words and private words. Just the fact that so many people use so many different terms shows them that something is up-- something is considered different about their genitals than, say, their elbow. So we talk about why we think the proper terms are best but since so many people are so silly about it all, it's polite to say "privates." I like that the term "privates" also reenforces that right now that area is just for them.

My parents did the same thing. My mom thought it was really important for my brother and I not to be embarrassed about our genitals. Her parents never talked about it AT ALL and she wanted us to have healthier views. I think she and my dad did a really good job.

It was 'Our Bodies Ourselves' that taught me what I had between my legs. Mom never used the word. She would carefully avoid it. She knew her precocious daughter knew what it was called though.

I wasn't taught that my vagina was dirty or bad though.

It seems to me that the only possible objection one might have to teaching young children specific vocabularies for sexual anatomy is that it would "sexualize" them too early. But even if that is your agenda, this entire thing doesn't make any sense, because this is MEDICAL terminology, not "sexy" terminology.

As a culture, when we try to be sexy, we end up using ridiculous euphemisms just like the ones we teach our children. Honestly! It's not like people are dialing up phone sex hotlines to discuss the details of the labia minora, or the clitoral hood, or "penile-vaginal intercourse." No! They, like children, discuss their body parts using vague euphemisms that make their sexuality more palatable to them.

So doesn't the weird euphemistic quality just reinforce exactly what these people are trying to avoid?

I thought a teetee was a dick.

When I was young my grandma called it a "muffin".
But I enlightened her and told her that it was called a vagina.
Thankfully my mom always used the actual term.

I think this is confusing discussion for kids because there are specific medical names for the specific parts (vagina, vulva, labia...) but no word that covers the whole area. This sets up a need for a word that doesn't really exist. As sometimes a parent or child may want to discuss the whole area without knowing or specifying which part. In my family it was "private parts", which seems like a OK description to me.

I didn't know I had a vulva until 9th grade.

Thankfully, my father, who raised me by himself, was not afraid to be frank with me and teach me the proper words as opposed to diminutive euphemisms.

However, that didn't stop me from being four years old and mistakenly referring to my vagina as a "pachina". :)

I must have had the only weirdo hippie parent, boys have a penis and girls have yoni. Silly people.

I am torn between my resentment for "vagina" as the blanket word for everything between a woman's legs and my dislike of the word "vulva." It sounds like "vulgar" to me.

PS - I thought "teetee" was for breasts. As in, "titties." Ooops.

I was taught the right words...or some of them. I don't remember learning about my clitoris. However, I definitely learned about my vagina, because there's a family story about how I then went and asked my grandmother, "Grandma, do you have a giny-wid?" So now my family calls it a giny-wid. And yes, I did manage to take "vagina" and turn it into "giny-wid"

When I was a child, my mother used to refer to urine as 'widdle' and so I was told that my vulva was my 'widdler.' I've never heard anyone else call it that, and never did find out where it originated. A penis was a 'willy.'

If I have children, they'll grow up knowing the correct medical terms - although I also rather like yoni as a more encompassing term than vulva or vagina.

My mother's preferred word was "between". As in, "Did you wash your between?"

And I think that perhaps you should all know that after reading this thread I am infected with the earworm of "My Thing Is My Own".

As much as I support giving children correct information, my only problem with teaching "vulva" and "vagina", or even "penis" is that they sound so grown-up, and it seems weird. Kind-of like saying "no, it's not your tummy, it's your ABDOMEN".

In my experience, I found it hard to teach "vulva" to my daughter, even though I had the best of intentions about it. Even when I corrected her, she insisted on calling the entire area her "butt". At the time, I didn't know the word "yoni". That may have worked better.

For boys under 5, I see no problem with the words "pee-pee" or "wee-wee", assuming that no one is acting like "penis" is a bad word. In fact, "pee-pee" makes some sense because it sort-of sounds like "penis".

I don't remember my parents ever referring to my private parts except to tell me that if a stranger ever touched me there (or anywhere else I didn't want to be touched, for that matter), I was to raise hell about it. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it, but most euphemisms for vulva and vagina really tend to annoy me—especially "vajayjay" (ugh) and the two that also double as highly sexist insults.

My mom informed me that her mother referred to her vagina as her "Tokie" (pronounced Tow-Key) when she was growing up. She actually hates that word so much it is forbidden in our house. (My sister and I used dance around chanting it and laughing). Our mom never referred to our vaginas as anything but the anatomical term and I feel like I turned out just fine. (Other than the fact that I enjoy dancing around my living room chanting nicknames for the female crotch)