Vagina

Anyone who has kids knows of all the various developmental stages they go through: physical, emotional, intellectual, etc.

When Sean and Em were very young (perhaps 7 and 4) and still in the shared bath stage, Emily noticed that Sean had something that she didn't. This inevitably led to the inquiry, which in turn led to our very open discussion about boys and girls: Sean is a boy and boys have penis'; that is a penis.

"What do I have?"

You are a girl, and girls have vaginas.

This revelation sparked a pattern of repetition to solidify her new-found knowledge. Vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina, vagina... and on and on. Only she didn't quite have the pronunciation ability to sound it out right, so it kind of came out as "bachina" or "bajina" or something similar. And this became a kind of ongoing mantra for a week or so. Breakfast table; dinner table; daycare; car rides; grocery store: bachina, bachina, bajina...

Our embarrassment of her intellectual development prompted us to take action to stem the extent of her repetition, so we explained that that word can sometimes make people feel uncomfortable and is not a word we say so often or in public. This helped, but she was so young that she really couldn't understand the finer nuances of when it was OK and when it was not OK to say it. It was still blurted out in front of Grandma.

We didn't want to make it a taboo, as our society clearly has this taboo in its past and we find this taboo distasteful. But she was far too young to understand that while we are fine with the word—she can say it in front of us all she wants—other people may not be like us. Certainly the subtlety of perception and sensitivity required to know who would find offense was beyond her at this age.

Finally, we just said: don't say that word anymore. Stop saying that word.

After several iterations of "don't say that word anymore", she became very sensitive to it, such that one afternoon when she and Sean were at the breakfast counter having a snack and Sean pointed to his world map place-mat and said "this is China," Emily immediately called out in protest: Dad!!! Sean said china!



OK. Speech, language, anatomy, and geography lesson coming up...