It happened again. I was picking up my daughter at kindergarten today, we are in the middle of a huge crowd of parents and kids, and I noticed that her little jeans were unsnapped. I said, (setting myself up for the fall) "Oh, honey, your pants are undone. Let me snap them." And she responded in her high, sweet and so-piercing-it-will-be-heard-by-everyone-in-the-room voice, "Okay, Mommy. But please don't snap my vagina."
Why. Oh. WHYYYYYYYYYY... ...Did I teach them the real words for their anatomy?!!
It seemed like such a good idea at the time. They were 2 and 3 years old respectively, they were pointing and asking "What dat?" and I was in one of my "I'm too hip to teach my children euphemisms" stages, looking down my aristocratic nose at mothers who did. How could I have known how it would come back to haunt me?
Anyone who read my old blog on my former site www.momslikeme.com will recall my horror when my son was finally potty-trained and once freed of the protective layer known in some circles as "the diaper", developed an intense affection for his...oh, I can't even say it, I'm so traumatized... anyway, all I heard, day and night, for months was "That's my penis!" "Look at my penis!" "Look what's coming out of my penis! Pee! Pee is coming out of my penis!"
I didn't know this was going to happen; I didn't have brothers; I didn't know how fond little boys become of their small companions. These are the things they don't tell you in the parenting magazines. So here it is a few years later, and I am longing for euphemisms. Longing. Even if everyone knows what the kids are referring to, it's just so much softer on the ears to hear "Coochie" and "Peepee" (or something in those verbal neighborhoods).
I know there are those who will say it's so much better to teach them the real words, and in theory I agree with them, but in practice? All I can surmise is that their children don't talk as freely about their privates as my children. Or maybe their childrens' voices are just not so... clear. And strong. And able to be heard by 85 Kindergarten students. And their families. And the entire faculty. And anyone who is passing by the open door of the school.
You should talk with them like with grown-ups. Either way how would they become ones?
Posted by: freelance writing | August 22, 2011 at 04:18 AM