There’s no beating around the bush, there’s no fancy terms or lingo used in my family. We just call his a Penis and hers Vagina. It’s that simple. Don’t worry, there have been some very interesting conversations about the context of this in our household recently. “Sweetie, there’s a difference between calling it a penis when we are talking and yelling penis in the middle of the grocery store to get your brother to laugh.” She turned her head at me like a dog does when you won’t just give them a treat already. “Okay, momma.” She has already learned the talented eye roll.
My three-year-old is getting very curious about more things in life. She is asking question after question and every answer is following with the dreaded “why?” I want her to continue to question things and to continue to fill her wealth of knowledge. But there is one thing I never want her to be, confused. I never want her to grow up and a few years later learn the proper word for something or feel uncomfortable about using it.
Let me tell you a little, silly story about myself. When I was a little girl, my grandma used to only have orange juice with pulp in her house. I hated it. So, being the spoiled granddaughter I was, she would take a small strainer and strain the juice for me so I would drink it. At some point, I referred to the ‘pulp’ as ‘ditsies’ (yes, I am aware that this is a made-up word). My grandma thought this was extremely cute so every time I came over she would pull out her ditsy-filled orange juice and grab her ditsy strainer and strain the juice for me so I could drink my ditsy-free orange juice and be happy as a clam.
Fast forward to me in my early 20’s, grocery shopping with my fiancé (now husband), and I grab a carton of orange juice and looking confused say, “what’s pulp?” He looked at me like I had three heads. You see until that very day, this private school, college-educated woman still thought orange juice was either purchased with or without ditsies. After a good laugh and a forever remembered story that we can’t seem to shake, I have now learned that the correct term for ditsies is pulp, and I still don’t like it.
While it was cute that I had a made-up word for something and it’s a great story to tell, I was fortunate enough that the embarrassing use of the wrong word happened the way it did. It could have easily happened in a boardroom full of executives at my law firm and well, let’s face it, that would have really sucked. (Okay, okay, I’m being dramatic, but you get the point.) Don’t get me wrong, my daughter still gets time to be a kid, and use her imagination, and make up stories. But, when she comes to me and asks me what something is called, I’m going to tell her. Thankfully, I have ALOT of time (hopefully) before the big ‘Birds and Bees’ conversation has to happen. But when it does, I plan on being truthful. Let’s face it, if I don’t tell her, she will just as soon ask Alexa or Google, and I’d rather be the one explaining it anyway!
