Warning: The following contains explicit naming that other people use but I myself am above.
So, you may have noticed that all of us here at Part Time Authors are guys; we thought it would be nice to finally give the world a perspective on life as a white, married man. I'm glad you like it, and we thought you would. But there are holes in our vast blanket of wisdom and so there are times when we expect we can come to you, ask you questions, and receive a myriad of options from you so that we can chose the one that best suits our needs. This is one of those times.
Here's the thing: my wife and I are in the first months of raising a two-year-old. She was great as an infant--a little slow in walking, but all in all just a joy to be around. My wife and I talked extensively about how to raise our daughter so she would grow to become an incredibly talented, well-read, thoughtful, kind, and resourceful contributor to the world that she would inevitably preside over one day. However, in all the discussions of parenting styles and disciplinary options and reward systems we neglected to cover one basic question:
What are we gonna call those?
By "those," I, of course, mean our "privates."
Perhaps we thought the day would never come that we would have to speak of them out loud in English, however, last week while sitting in the tub our daughter was playing with a large blue plastic spoon that she got for her birthday with a baking kit and she asked my wife if she could, and I absolutely quote, "Put it in her poops?" It was a horrifying question as it stood, but a little further prodding from Mom revealed that "Poops" was the word she had named one...or both...of her lady bits. Gracious! Can you imagine if we let this pass?! She would be thirty-something walking around New York City in her Manolo Blahniks with her three stylish friends and she'd pipe up, "Sorry about lunch, ladies, I got to head to the Gyno and get a Pap for my Poops." I mean honestly! How she made such a childish and, frankly, disgusting mistake is beyond me.
This did, eventually, lead us to the discussion we should have had years before a child ever came into the picture and it turns out, we have no idea what to call them?!!
There are a few schools of thought on the subject:
The Clinical: Just call them what a doctor would. This seems grown-up and reasonable, except that I really don't like my darling baby saying "Bird Poop" when that is exactly what she is looking at. It's way too grown-up and she is always telling me things she sees and the last thing I want is her to point out that dog's penis in a parking lot, or comment on that cat's vagina as we are on a walk. I just don't like it. There are lots of times in life when you have to call things what they are, and I would like to push those times as far back as possible. Also, Lisa Clark, don't you chime in about how your kids always called them by the clinical name, because I happen to know your girls called it a "Bagina" is not clinical...it's cute.
The Cute: There are lots of options for "cute" names for the pink parts. 'The Pee Pee', 'The Wee Wee', "The Tah Tah's" "Peeny" "Weeny" "Winky" "Wi-Wi" "Tu-Tu" so on and so on and so on...the problem I see is the easability of rhyming on the school yard. It's true, not a lot rhymes with Penis. Also, even if you are doing research on nicknames for a penis, don't google, "Nicknames for a Penis."
The Vulgar: My cousin was changing her 3-year-old son's diaper and he looked up at all of us and said, "Mom, don't take my diaper off, they will all see my pecker." I have found a lot of people are using slang to describe these bits of the body. I guess we are all worried the subject will come up in line at Costco and a boy calling it his "Chode" is just as embarrassing as the word penis. Serious, some families are calling it a "Chode."
The Dr. Seuss: Perhaps we could call it a "Bampooziler" or a "Snitter" or your "Heffalumps." After all, there is that song, "My lumps, my lumps, my lumps, my lovey Heffalumps."
The Off-the-Wall: I told my wife that we should just pick some words that have no association with anything and call them that. "What's that Honey? Your Ambassador hurts?" or "Okay sweety, the doctor just needs to check out your Fandango and your kumquat and then you get a sucker." The trouble there is when she's sixteen and her sixteen year old date wants to order movie tickets!
When I was little we called it a "Wetter." It was the device for wetting the bed or your pants so we just called it a "Wetter." My youngest brother was once standing at the toilet, he was small and so he rested his "Wetter" on the edge of the toilet, and some how the lid slammed shut. I still can hear his 4 year old cries, "Mom! The toilet hurt my WEDDER!"
We must have just called a bum a bum. We called poop "Yucks," and I know we didn't call it a "Yucker," but were frequently asked if we had to go "Wets or Yucks?"
So, there you have it. What are we to do? It turns out, after a little highly filtered search, that this is actually sort of a big deal and people really do have a lot to say about it. I hope you do. Otherwise my daughter will forever get her poops mixed up with her vagina...and I don't relish her reminding me every time we go on a walk to get the plastic bags to pick up the dog's vaginas.
