Of Vaginas and Hoo-Has

Out-of-town friends visited us recently, friends who have a toddler with the same birthday as our own Pumpkin.  Needless to say, we spent much time discussing the silly, charming, frustrating and baffling things these short creatures do and say.  Talk turned to anatomy, and areas down south, and how much is appropriate to talk about, and when we can expect the questions about why mommy has different parts than daddy.  I commented that Pumpkin had been saying the word "vagina" that evening.

"How did she learn that word?" my husband asked, a trace of alarm in his voice.

"I taught it to her," I replied matter-of-factly.

"Why?"

"Because we were in the bathtub, and washing all her various parts, and I pointed out all the names as we washed."

"Why did you say 'vagina?'" he pressed.

"Um, because she has one, and that's what it's called.  I mean, yes, I know, we did not technically wash her vagina, but it seemed too much to go into 'labia' and all the rest," I reasoned.  I paused.  "Why, what do you call it?"

"I just say hoo-ha."

Oh, good God. 

Growing up in my somewhat Puritanical household, I vowed to always be open and honest with my kids.  I promised to myself that my own children would not have to learn where babies came from by way of the older kid down the street, as I myself learned from Jennifer Anderson, who demonstrated the miracle of life for my best friend and me via a graphic display involving my Barbie and Ken dolls.  At age seven, I found the whole scenario to be shocking, and even after Jennifer assured me it was all true, her mom was a nurse and wouldn't lie, I still had questions.  Namely, how could my parents have possibly DONE such a thing, and TWICE?!, seeing as how I had a younger brother.

I followed this lesson up with some stealthy research in the children's section of the public library.  On our regular Saturday morning visits, while my parents assumed I was innocently learning about Fascinating Customs of Foreign Lands, I was squirreled away in a different aisle, thumbing through titles such as "How Did I Get Inside Mommy's Tummy?"  Even as a second grader, I got the sense that if I had been discovered, I would have been branded as a junior pornographer, so my work was surreptitious.  After about six weeks, I was pretty clued in to the ways of the vagina and the penis, the sperm and
the egg, but kept my mouth shut, lest I get into trouble for talking about Dirty Things.

In fourth grade, one day after school my mother told me she had left some "interesting reading" for me in my room.  She told me to take a look and ask her if I had any questions - the one and only time I can recall my mother attempting to open up the lines of communication.  On my bed were two pamphlets, the kind you'd order from the back of the Kotex box.  One was called "Menstruation: A Guide for Young Women," and the other was "Growing Up and Liking It."  I flipped through them casually, ensuring there wasn't anything critical I had missed from my earlier research, and tossed them aside.  Later my mother asked if I'd had any questions.  "No, I know all that stuff already," I assured her.  "Okay," she replied, mortified.  We didn't talk about it again.

There are a few other episode seared into my brain (like, getting my period in eighth grade, and sheepishly telling my mom about it - her only instructions were to help myself to the pads under her bathroom sink and to take a daily shower so I felt "clean and fresh."  Oh, and the time she found a box of Tampax in my bedroom, and in a dead-on Mommie Dearest voice, as though she had discovered a carton of cigarettes and a fifth of gin in my room, asked me what the hell these things were and what I was doing with them.  I was fifteen, and hadn't yet realized that tampons were the devil's way of stealing my virginity, but this showdown ensured that I developed a healthy fear of internal female protection for many years.), but mostly, that was the sum total of my Where Babies Come From and Other Human Anatomy Questions Demystified education from my parents.

So, what I'm saying is, it can't be a hoo-ha.  It just can't. 

I can't let my kids feel the same insecurities and sense of shame about human sexuality that I was (inadvertently, I think) taught by my own parents.  Yes, it will be awkward, but what about parenting isn't awkward?  I'm not quite ready to start the lessons yet - Pumpkin's only two and a half - but the very first time she somes to me with questions about her vajayjay, I'm going to have to intercede and set the record straight.   

An original DC Metro Moms post.  Diana devises cutesy-poo names for other sensitive anatomical areas at Caffeinated.