front bum.

seriously.

I think my mother called it down there, but I have a new one

'your Betweens' thats what I call it for the kids I watch (their mother taught me) and it works lovely...becuase a three year old really doesn't say 'between' a lot.

So 'lemme wash your betweens' works for us

My female part was simply "go-go". As you can imagine, Go-go boots and Go-go dancers had an entirely different meaning for me.

I don't really remember calling it anything. I think I knew the word "vagina" but never used it. Someone commented that they called it their "front bum" and I remember occasionally refering to it as my "front butt" and my mom or other family members saying, "that's NOT a butt."

Hm. My good friend and I recently had the "How did our parents decide to call it THAT?" discussion. Must have been some kind of phone poll, since it was pre-Web.

But her folks referred to it as her "tutu." I think my folks were more on the "call it what it actually is" line, but "private parts" was definitely thrown around.

For my money, if you're gonna call it something other than what it is, just shorten the real world. Something like "Budge." Because how often do people use the word 'budge?'

Good luck.

Well I always called mine a Hoo-hoo and my four year old calls it her cootchie. Of course she knows vagina is the proper term but I guess cootchie is cuter to her.

my vagina was referred to as my 'bottom'. pointing usually helped determine whether i was talking about my 'bottom' (in front) or my bottom (in back).

i had a friend who called hers a 'woo woo'.

It was probably privates or down there. On a related note, I think my mother to this day thinks that twat means butt, so as a result, I did at some point mistakenly refer to my ass as my twat. Oh the embarassment. Poogie is cute, though.

great names from all over the place, courtesy of (what else?) The Vagina Monologues:
pussycat
powderbox
coochi snorcher
cooter
nappy dugout (hee!)
poochi
tottita
schmende

When talking casually, I have always just called it a "Thingy". Kind of lame, but it's cuter than Vagina.

We taught our kids the anatomical names, or tried to, but as with China, you can never quite be sure that what you said is what they heard.

Case in point: When my daughter had just turned 3, I took her with me to the drugstore to pick up some stuff, and we were -- of course -- stopping so I could grab tampons for my wife when my daughter announces, apropos of nothing and with at least 10 people within earshot, "Daddy! Boys have a peanut and girls have a banana!"

My cousin refers to it as her "tookus." I've also heard it called a "cooter" and "coochie." But I like the above suggested "twiffy" the best!

You might could go the way of Julia Sugarbaker, and refer to it as her "Fancy."
However, I think the ever-honest, clinical "Vagina" has a lot going for it too.

Cha-cha, hoo-ha, poontang, fuzzy, peachy, and snatch. Vagina is SO much easier! (If you had a BOY, I'd be more helpful, he calls his a 'hooter bar'.)

In my family, we were big on calling girl parts "muffins", and boys parts were "lee-lees" Go figure, but now that I have a 3-month old daughter, we call it her "coochal region" of all things. I have a hard time not laughing when I hear her big burly Daddy saying, "Let's clean the coochie".

I think my mom told me what it was actually called, but I misheard it as "Regina", which is the capital city of Saskatchewan, where I live. So it caused some confusion.

Mostly I called it my "private part", though.

Just the other day I was at my best friends house painting her bathroom. She has 3 kids. 15, 11 and 8. The two oldest are girls. The oldest had her best friend over ...and she was watching me paint the bathroom. Her name is Jennifer ...Jen for short. As I was rolling away ...I heard the 11 year old girl joking with Jen ...and called her Jenitallia. I didn't know whether to laugh or choke. I looked at Jen ...and she looked unscathed. I asked her if she knew what the word meant. I asked the 11 year old. Neither knew ...but had heard the word and just used it to embellish Jens name. I educated them on the correct meaning of the word. I dont think they will be using it as a nickname anymore. LOL
I like the 'betweens' as it wont ever be confused for a place setting.

"nu-nu"

A friend of mine calls her daughter's parts her "girlies".

My cousin and her husband call their daughter's a "boom-boom"

Personally, I'm fond of "cooch", but probably wouldn't want my child saying it. :)

I can't really remember what I called it when I was young but with my daughter we are referring to it as her "cat". Seemed a bit more tasteful than pussy.

I called it my vagina. My husband wants up to teach our kids the dirty words for it. He thinks it would be hilarious for our kids to tell their teacher that they hurt their "super dirty name for it."

I call it my hoo hoo. My cousin called it her tinkle bottom for some reason.

Well I have always referred to the male anatomy as "thingy" and female anatomy as "stuff." But I think the "betweens" idea is great too.

I believe I knew the real words too, but it was always referred to as "privates" which works - its not an everyday word out of the mouths of babes - so no confusion.

However, I have heard recently from some friends who have kids refer to it as "moon" or "twinkie" both really cute but definitely ranking in the confusion category - and hooha is one I've heard a lot and it makes me laugh.

We called everything "privates," which is very boring. But when I was very little I called poop "gucky" and my family thought it was so cute they all called it that. But then they forgot to tell me that I made the word up until I referred to gucky in front of a bunch of my first grade classmates. Nice.

i knew to call it a vagina, but i preferred tutu and girlie. although i have terrible relatives who called the vagina a butt, i think that's horrifying.

I was taught it was a "vagina", but thought it was "Bagina". Other popular ones include "privates" and "pussy"... Kat made a good point, VULVA is more correct than VAGINA!

The earliest memory of actuall calling it by name was "tee tot". Don't really remember who gave it that name, but it stuck.
Good luck!

I like hooie.
"don't forget you wash your hooie."

My parents taught my little sister to call it her 'cooter'. And a penis is a 'cooter bug'. I guess it works cause how often do you hear the word 'cooter' or 'cooter bug' in everyday conversation? Not too often, I should hope. ;)

In my house it was the Wa-zoo. I think "bottom system" really rules, though.

My friends from Atlanta taught their daugher that it was her little "puffed wheat". Don't know if she eats the cereal or not, but it sure is image appropriate.

I can't remember what my parents taught me to call my privates, if they taught me anything. My daughter calls it her "front bottom" or her "front bum" which surprisingly somebody else said up top. I just call it "bits".

I was a 'front bum' girl as well. My Mum would check to make sure I had wiped my front bum and back bum after ... you know... 'piddles' and 'bm's'. I agree that vagina is a long word to spit out all the time!

Not to be a downer, but for safety's sake she should usually refer to it as something recognizable, like private parts, if not vagina, so that she can report any unwanted attention in that area. A forensic nurse I heard speak told a story of a girl who told her teachers that a man had been touching her "cupcake" and they didn't realize what she meant (until much later) and didn't help her.

In our house, the vagina was a beebee, the penis a peetu. To this day, I can not help but laugh when someone says, "I have to pee too."

I knew it was a vagina, but I think I may have heard wrong - i think I thought it was Bagina for a bit. I clearly remember standing in the lobby of church one day after the service and I called out "We're going to Regina and I have one too!!!!!" For the most part, though, we called it our private parts - beacuse I had 2 brothers whose parts I got a kick out of, well, kicking. It worked out well, i think. But I have to agree that I hate saying the word vagina. It labourous. But I'm not a big fan of any of the other versions of it, save cooch maybe. It's kinda cute.

i vote for undercarriage - particularly as it will sound so cute if the child has a lisp or something. actually i knew it's proper name but don't recall using it conversation or at bathtime. my brothers referred to theirs as "duckies" which i thought was a scientific term until at least age 10. but i urge you not to go with the above-suggested "cat." that is bound to lead to some serious issues.

My grandmother calls it a (God, I have no idea how to spell this so that it looks like it sounds.) ... It rhymes with PUT 'ER (as in, put 'er down over there) except you put a T in place of the P. She referred to feet as "tootsies" and as kid, they were just too close for me to remember which was which, and I'd walk around referring to my business as a tootsie... My mother referred to it as our business, as in, "you have to wear underwear because no one wants to see your business."

I learned 'cooter' when I was in high school. Before that it had no name. After I graduated high school, I worked with a guy named Cooter. That was fun. 'Betweens' is good.

Oh I didn't have a vagina when I was little -- or at least not one that my mother acknowledged existed; so I didn't call it anything.

When I asked her once how doctors knew baby boys were baby boys and baby girls were baby girls, she said without hesitation, "It's the long eyelashes. Girls have them, boys don't." Ack!

Once my son is born, we will probably just use plain, ol' generic "pee pee."

I also know of tons of kids who refer to it as a "China."

My Dad raised my sister and I; we always called it a "toochie." Once, my sister fell off her bike and racked "the area" on the bar. We had to take her to the emergency room and I distinctly remember my father referring to it as a "vagina." I thought he was lying to the admissions nurse...I got indignant and said something along the lines of "her bajina's not bleeding dad, her TOOCHIE is..."

yes. toochie.

Ooooo I like fancy but I ahve a fmily that when they like something often say it "strikes their fancy" and I think that might be inappropriate.

I almost forgot, a boy had a "winker".

Growing up, we always used "private parts" or just "privates." I will agree with those who said you might run into association issues if you decide to use an everyday word.

And for god's sake, Please don't use something like flower, blossom, or the like... unless you're hoping Leta grows up to become a romance novelist. In which case, I'd recommend getting her started on the phrase 'heaving bosom' now.

Everyone in my family had a "pee-pee" (boys and girls alike). I myself am pro-"vulva". It's anatomically correct, and it will probably sound cute as hell coming from a two-year-old. "Bo-bah!"

Your "Whoha"! But now there is that darn kids show, PB and J, and they live on Lake Whoha. . and even have a little song about it. So..that may be out.

When my daughter was a toddler my wife and I referred to mine as "thunder" and hers was "who-who".

But my favorite euphemism for a vagina was courtesy of my grandfather. He only mentioned it once and then he referred to it as "the hairy end of a gut".

Hell of a guy.

I'm with the ones that call it Yoni (though I pronounce it so it rhymes with Johnny). I heard it came from Hindi...??? I don't know. I just like it because it sounds more affectionate than "vagina", which sounds a little clinical. However, I've taught my daughter (3 1/2) to call it her "Pigu" (pronounced peegoo), which is the Chinese general word for bottom. Not very specific, but when I refer to her bum, I call it her "bottom" (in English), so hopefully she's aware of the difference. Finally, when I was a kid and my cat was washing her privates we would call it her "Po Po", which always made me crack up.

Girls had a 'koochy' and boys had a 'tinker' when I was a kid. BUT when referring to it for my 6 yr old daughter, she has a private part and her 4 yr old brother has a 'thingy'

My parents had my sister and I calling that "area" our pee pee. After all, that where pee comes from, right?

Girl: cooch or puffy
Boy: peanut at first but now we're using the word penis

growing up, we did the whole vagina/bagina thing, too. my favorite terms now that i'm all grown up are schmooie (or schmoo) and pamplemousse (so descriptive) :)

I always referred to mine as my "teetee." My best friends mother is a very sweet southern woman who says things like "bless your heart," but she taught my friend and all her sisters to call it a "twat." For some reason that just creeps me out...and to hear her say it so matter of fact, just weird. My nephew called his a "dinger," and I always thought that was precious.

My mom was a nurse and insisted on always using the "proper" terms. She said that people sound stupid when they use cute names to describe their vagina and penis. So just to spite her we use Po-Po at our house. I think it is cute and it sounds a lot better coming from the mouth of a three year old.

Our daughter calls hers "peeper" which I think aludes to peeing. As a funny aside, she (my daughter, 3 1/2) was pooping on the potty the other day and became very concerned and asked "Does it hurt daddy when he poops" and I asked why she thought that and she said "because out comes out of a tiny hole in his penis". Cute kid. But since she said "penis" I had to paint her genitals with iodine and lock her out of the apartment for an hour so she could repent.

Why not a hoo-hoo? It is relatively safe from associations with other "actually" items... only thing I can think of that it comes close to is a Ho-Ho.

When I was a wee one my bits were called my Pee-pee or just private parts.

NOW I tend to call them my happy bits, my kitten, and my beloved vulva.

I think I have to add my vote in for "Twiffy" when it comes to a cute nonsense euphamism for her, but only if sha also understands that her bits are also a vulva with a vagina in...

Kids are smarter than anyone ever expects. I think she'll get it if the dialogue is kept open.

And good onya for thinking so hard on this!

please god, do not call it a cooter. specials works for me. although bottom system sounds good, too

....a "thingy". and then, that evolved into FLOWER. apparently my gramma thought "thingy" sounded too non-gender-specific. egads....

I grew up as the oldest of three girls. So all of us had the same thing "down there." And since there wre no boys - other than my dad, even our pets were girls - there was no need to tell us about boy parts. So I assumed we were all equal.

Is that pc? Or just weird?

Weird. I know. But that's my mom.

Since we're usually in public together, my girlfriends and I generally say 'wootchie woo' or cooter.

-Privates/private parts
-Peter. As in, "Mom! Chris got his peter caught in the pliers!" (Not joking).
-Bottom
-Crotch

i've taught my 4 kids (9, 7, 4, 2) VULVA as your vagina is really deep inside - at any rate, when i was a kid, we never discussed such disgusting things. :(

have you considered yoni? research the meaning of the word...interesting.

if i had balls (figuratively ) I'd consider cunt (ala word reclamation...)

My adorably enlightened parents called it a "yoni". I knew the right terms but because of it tantric undertones I liked "yoni". It's respectful but cute.

Well a boy has a hoo hoo dilly and a girl has a cha cha-

nice and fun to say....haha

Well, it's true that "vulva" is more correct. Most little girls aren't aware that there's an internal element to their "system". And it's really not applicable, either. My favorites so far are "girl parts" and "boy parts". Or "bottom". Vauge, yet functional. Now, as adults, my husband and I refer to it as my "pew-kak-ya". That word really came out of no where. Pukakya. Hee, hee.

Mine was "peep".

My dad--while not afraid to be technical if the occasion demanded--generally referred to the whole area as "fanny." He had a little pre-bath chant: "Razzle dazzle/ little Annie/Wash your face/And your fanny."

My brother got jealous, so my dad made up another chant: "Razzle dazzle/Little Enis. . ."

My name's not Annie, though.

Per Mad TV's 'Stewart' skit..its called the 'danger area'.

Mine was "cootchie" or "cha-cha". My cousin was taught "tushie" which caused me much confusion as I was under the impression that the "tushie" was your butt.

We're expecting our first child in the end of August. I don't know if we'll be getting a "hotdog" or a "cheeseburger" yet. I've gotten some great ideas for how to talk about both from all your notes here. :)

My mother and I are from the Philippines and I grew up learning all the Tagalog terms for vagina, penis, breasts, etc. Interestingly the vagina has several terms including my favorite "pookie." The first time I read Garfield as a child, I gasped and couldn't believe someone would actually write about it in the comics. Even funnier? The grown women who have it as a nickname. Good Lord!!!! Amazing thing, language is!

I was usually bathed by my nannie, and she called it a "flower." A little Georgia O'Keefe, but it worked.

ok, i didn't read the all the responses here so it *may* have been mentioned.

call it a "pocketbook".

that way you can tell Leta that NO ONE is to touch her pocketbook.

hope this helps! :-)
lynda

I have a friend that refers to his PowerBook G4 as 'Pooter.'

Perhaps I'll stop taking his calls.

Pooh.

Ruined Winnie the Pooh for me.

I always used privates or private area. It works for boys and girls and it's not that far off from how the word would be used normally--It's not a public area, it's a private area.

Just have to chime in to say this is the funniest thing I have read all day! Thanks for the laughs, all.

As a kid, it was "vagina" or in moments of modesty, "down there." As an ultra-sophisticated grownup though, I prefer "cooch" and "cooter," and would probably use these terms around a kid if I had one.

I always called it "poochie"

And I was mortified when the Simpsons did an episode where Homer Simpson was the voice of a dog named Poochie.. Of course, I didn't tell anyone...

My friend called hers her "VG" so when the time came to start calling it a Vagina, it wasn't that much of a stretch! :)

While I knew the real names, my Mom called it my "pickaloonies". She'd ask me after a bath, "did you wash your pickaloonies"? I have no idea where the hell that came from.

I don't remember what I called boy parts when I was little, but my brothers always used to call it a "pud". classy, eh?

Heard "plumbing" quite a bit and "private parts". Also spent a long time in my dads auto shop hearing men describing "male" fittings and "female" fittings...very educational!

My mother loved to repeat her grandmother's mantra, "Wash up as far a possible, wash down as far as possible, then wash possible".

While I may be too young to have kids, I am not one to be discreet and have often refered to my "nether region" pretty much anywhere I can. It works for me.

I called mine a "pee pee"

I call it a hoo-hoo, and my daughter (who will be 2 in a month) calls it a tee-tee. *shrugs*

With my stepdaughter, I wanted something that was very indentifiable in a worst-case scenario (molestation, God forbid) so I said "girly parts." I also felt that was an early lesson that girls had parts that were different from boys. But then I found out that, surprisingly, her mom uses "vagina." She wouldn't have struck me as the type.

I had to stop her daddy from calling it a "huh-uh." I didn't want her attaching a negative connotation to it.

My parents called it 'private parts,' but I found it very uninspiring.

I was adamant that we not call our daughter's genital assembly 'vagina' because, generally, it's inaccurate--when there's a need to refer, that's generally not the focus of the action. We've used 'vulva' and 'labia' most of the time, but I hafta say--it's backfired. For instance, she (now 6) always hated having her diaper changed when a baby/toddler, and there were a couple of occasions when she melodramatically shrieked, 'you're hurting my labia!' while I was giving her the quick once-over with a wipe--and that would definitely be one of those moments when you want to sink through the ground never to reappear.

But it works okay now. She recently made a transition from bath to shower, so I have to call through the curtain 'I'm putting the stepstool in the bath for you--don't forget to rinse out your vulva.'
'Cause if she does forget, we sometimes end up, at storytime in her bed, exchanging a look and then I have to go and dismiss her to the bathroom with a wet washcloth.

My three-year-old calls hers a winkie. She seemed to want something alliterative to go with wiener. I heard her and my six-year-old son carefully enumerating body parts: and a penis is a wiener, and a winkie is a ba-gina, etc. (We use penis and vagina.)

Pee-pee. I still call it that on occasion (privately, of course).

Now, when I need to talk about it more publicly (like when I'm talking about how the saddle on my bike makes me numb), I refer to it as my Girl Bits.

My mom called it a peeper, so thats what Ive called it with my kid. Kind of odd, I know.

I had a friend who referred to hers as a pocketbook. I've always liked kitty and fancy.

Someone up there suggested "tookus," but that's actually the Yiddish word for your (rear) butt. It's "tuches," which is where "tushy," the diminutive form comes from.

"Coochie" is kind of cute, doesn't sound like anything else and is also even sometimes used by grown-ups.

For me it was a Volvo (Mom tried to be correct) or bits.

For me the subject seemed to be thoroughly avoided. I'm not sure who made it uncomfortable, me or my parents but it was and frankly, still is. But I think a good alternative for you and your husband is brought to us by Martin Short in "Clifford": No-no private special spot. Just glides right off the tongue, doesn't it?

junk. As in "I've got to go to the vag doc and have my junk checked."

I'm pretty sure I knew all the clinical terms for it, since my parents were always open about things like that, but I do remember my mom calling it a twat or crotch quite often. Mom isn't exactly fond of cutesy words. In the movie "Boys on the Side", one character talks about her mother having taught her to call her vagina a "sissy" or "hoo hoo". I found that hi-larious and sometimes use those terms myself now.

Privates. And when I got the explanation of how babies are made (at age seven, when my sister was born) I got the technical terms, though I may have known them before then.

In our house there were 3 kids, all girls and my mom and grandma used to call it the same thing, "pipilo", pronounced "pup-ill-oh". We are Italian, and I don't know why we called it that, but I will tell you whenever I am out I NEVER hear that word.

um...my mom called it a 'pussy'. i shit you not. i was born in 1980, so maybe the word pussy wasn't as loaded as it is now. but i doubt it.

i think she was just being saucy.

For boys...their mr. man. Girls she she. My friend calls her daughters kutamacoch.

I called it my "choo-choo".

My mom used to call them "chicken parts" and my grandma would call it a candy dish or a sugar bowl.

I now understand years of her yelling at my grandfather to get his hands out of her candy dish.

*shiver*

But, as vague as we were about human parts, growing up on a farm we were very technical about horses's penises and vaginas, bulls' scrotums and rabbits' foreskin. Odd.

My parents used "pussy," which never struck me as weird until I read this discussion. All the cutesy terms kind of disturb me. I would go with vagina or vag.

I knew the anatomical names for boys' and girls' parts (mom was a nurse and good about that). Think I called it my "peepee". My friend taught her daughter to call it her "puss puss" which made me laugh because that is the name of my cat!
good luck!

I vote is for "hoo-hoo". I think my parents always used the term "private parts". My parents were pretty open so we knew about vaginas and penises, but hoo-hoo has a good ring to it!

My parents called the vagina the "private parts" or "privates", which I think is simple enough. Nowadays I'm rather partial to "crotch". And for boys, "junk" or "penis", just because penis is such a fun word.

When I was a kid we (me and my siblings and parents)always referred to that "area" as our "bottom".
Years later I realized that many people use the word bottom to mean their butt. I still call "it" my bottom. lol When I was a teenager, I babysat a girl who called it a twinkie. I remember thinking that was hilarious.
Btw, I want to tell you that I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog. Have been reading it for months now. In the last month or so though, for some reason your pictures do not show up on my computer anymore. The pictures show up fine on your hubby's blog site though.
Cindi

Well, to be honest, as far as I can remember I used to call it "shoo-shoo". I swear. Cute,huh? I bet you can already hear it :"Honey, don't touch you shoo-shoo". Sounds nice.
But the girl my mother is babysitting calls it "pakaka" since she was 10 months old, a word she just happened to invent. That's weird. Sounds like some african tribe or something .But at least she is not gonna relate it to anything normal and just freak out when she hears it. It will work out just fine.

My mother always taught me to call mine my "pootchie-doo." She claimed that this was an ancient Cherokee word that had been passed down through countless generations of mountain women in my family. As far as I know, it stretches back at least as far as my great-grandmother!

when I was little we called my vagina my woo woo... Where my parents got that I'll never know. My husband and I usually refer to each others parts as your boys or your girl but I think with our kids it will just be your pee pee.

I liked calling it your "area" though