Dan's Papers - May 22, 2009

On a "King of the Hill" episode years ago, Peggy Hill stood in front of the mirror, forcing a smile, talking out loud to her image.

"Happiness. HAP-piness. HAP-PI-ness. Hap-PI-ness. Hap-PI-NESS. PI-NESS."

And so she prepared herself for leading a sex education class, and being able to say the word penis to a group of sixth graders without blushing, flinching or squirming. People of Peggy's (and my) age, didn't grow up using anatomically correct words for, well, private parts. Even though she and I are products of the '60s, those types of words were not part of our childhood vernacular. As youngsters, we used the more euphemistic and childlike terms; as we got older and became swept up in the sexual revoluction, the less delicate ones entered the vocabulary.

So here we were, my partner and I, reading all these books on child rearing. Most of them urged parents to teach children the correct terms for, uh, private parts.

Why god why? Well, they gave many reasons. First, children should be able to talk about any and every part of their bodies without differentiating that one part should or shouldn't be discussed. Medically speaking, it's very important, especially for little ones, to have the language to discuss and describe any problems, pains or issues related to any part of the body without feeling some things are better left unsaid. From a social point of view, it's critical that children feel comfortable to discuss their genitals as openly with parents as they would talk about their ears. In the case of every parent's nightmare, the sexual predator, we especially want our children to be forth coming and candid. The point of teaching the correct names is to create a framework for clear language that could help prevent child abuse. But if we raise children to think that their genitalia should not be discussed, and if so, only with 'private' words, it creates a message that says, "Those parts are different. We don't discuss them."

So we forged bravely ahead. As he asked, "What's this called Mommy?" I answered with an unnaturally cheery voice that came out very high-pitched, "That's your penis, honey." Testicles and scrotum soon followed. We were able to shy away from vagina for a while. Having learned that you should only answer the exact question the child asks in the most simple way, when our son would ask if girls had penises, I'd just say no. When that question then went into, "What DO they have?" I'd say, "Something else. Hey! Why don't we play a video game?"

I don't know why it felt more difficult to discuss female parts. But I'm not alone. A paper prepared by researchers at Beth Israel looked at children's knowledge of human genital anatomy. Of the 223 adults who responded to a questionnaire, "39.8% of males and 29% of females learned correct anatomical names for male genitalia as children. In contrast, only 6.1% of females and 17.7% of males learned correct names for female genitalia. Most respondents learned either euphemisms or no names for female genitalia as children."

So we got used to saying penis and vagina. Our son did too - but there was no learning curve for him.

Then he went to school. We became a little concerned about his vocabulary - thought we'd surely get calls. We didn't.

One day, we brought our new puppy with us to pick him up. The kids gathered around her, and she happily rolled over on her back. One little girl yelled, "I see her penis!" Such a disturbing statement for so many reasons. But at least we realized everyone was reading the same books.

Since the days of penee and ba-jye-nee, our son has actually changed his language, based on preferred terms of his buddies at school. His favorite at the moment is wiener. He thinks it's funny. And why would we interfere with his pursuit of happiness?