What do you call your lady bits?

An interesting question, I know and one I have had to consider a lot recently, thanks to two of my lovely sons.  Until just under two years ago, life was simple.  I had three boys and with all of them, it was straight forward.  We fondly called the male “bits down there” a “winky” and all was fairly clear (apart from my husband introducing Herbie the Hamster who needed to come out of his hole for a wash).  Then I had a beautiful little girl and things suddenly changed.

It soon became evident to my sons that everything was a bit different “down there” with little girls and they suddenly became more than a little bit obsessed with the topic, to the point when I got out of the shower in the morning, I would usually find one of them having a good look up at me from all sorts of strange angles.

So I sat them down: mother to sons, and explained that girls and ladies had different bits, they didn’t have a”winky” like boys and men, they just had a little hole.  To my then four-year-old, this was utterly hilarious and in his eyes made boys far superior to girls.  My then five-year-old gave the matter great thought and asked: ” But surely you have to call it something?”  He was right, but for once I was a little dumbfounded.  What to call them?  “Ladybits” wasn’t right, my husband suggested “fanny”, but I explained to him calmly that we couldn’t really let two young boys loose with THAT word! Vagina just seemed too grown up.

At the time, both boys were really into the Madagascar films.  In Madagascar 2, there is a scene with the hippos and Motomoto is singing a song with the lyrics “I like ’em big, I like ’em chunky”, well my two cheeky chappies loved this song and soon adapted it with a number of variations.  It was through this that the use of the word “slit” was born and they began to sing the song “I like her slit, I like her boobies”.

Now I was pretty mortified, I have no idea why they started using the word “slit”, maybe it was those early morning observations.  I also can’t really explain why I hated them using that word so much, but it just sounded offensive in that context.  True to form, the more I asked them not to use the word and sing that particular song, the more determined they were to do so.  (That button works, let’s keep pressing it!)They were obsessed with their version of the song and sang it wherever we went.

Imagine, my embarrassment, when we went to look at their prospective new school and they are sat in the Headmistresses office singing their favourite song.  She politely pretended not to hear but being particularly determined that day, my five-year-old asked her; “What do you call your lady bits?”  Being a true professional, she smiled and diverted quickly to another subject. Enough is enough! I needed to tackle this delicate subject in a different way, so I sat them down and asked them what they thought we should call them, as “slit” really wasn’t a nice word to use. When no ideas came forth, my four-year-old came up with the great idea of asking some friends of ours who had little girls. So, that’s what we did. One family called it “chutchee” and the other “fou fou”. Of course, they couldn’t agree so the term “chutchee fou fou” was born.

We all agreed that this was a good idea apart from my teenage son, who had what he considered to be much better words (which I politely declined with a slap across the head), and the song and the word “slit” eventually disappeared from our daily routine.

The only problem we have now is that when the word “slit” appears in a reading book, both boys give me that naughty boy look and whisper it quietly as though it’s a swear word.  Scarred for life!