BY KATIE ‘MONTY’ DIMOND
I have never had to deal with the male anatomy on a daily basis. However five months ago that all changed when I bore my first baby boy. Obviously he was born with boy ‘bits’ and until he can attend to them himself, they are my responsibility. This leads straight to the question my boyfriend and I are currently pondering. What should we refer to his ‘bits’ as?
There are two sides of the fence with this topic, one being to refer to the body parts in their clinical term, eg Penis and Vagina. The other side being to give them a cutsie name eg: ‘Binky Wanga-Wang’ and ‘Woo Woo’. To be honest, I’m perched right on top of the pickets when it comes to naming the thing that resides in my child’s nappy. I don’t want to sound like a Biology Teacher when potty training him, but nor do I want him to think he has a Disney character living in his undies.
If anyone were to hack into my computer, my recent Google history could quite possibly have me sent straight to the slammer. My searches include ‘baby penis names’, ‘cute names for genitals’ and ‘what should you call a babies penis?’ Why didn’t Tizzy Hall tackle this important topic?
After extensive research on parenting forums, and a very interesting conversation with my mother friends, I have compiled a list of some of the more commonly used names to refer to a baby boy’s genitalia.
Winky Tinky- Isn’t this a Telly Tubby??
‘Wee Wee’- If my son happens to make friends with a lovely French girl at school this could get awkward.
‘Wing Wang’- I’m familiar with calling a Penis a ‘Wang’, but have never heard ‘Wing’ added to the front of it. This sounds like it could be a Superheroes’ name complete with a bold ‘WW’ written across his chest.
‘Weenie Peenie’- I’m not sure if any male, even a five month old, wants the word ‘Weenie’ anywhere near his penis. This would be sure to create a complex later in life.
Doodie – This sounds like something you step in on an American holiday.
Mr Noodle – I’m not sure who Mr Noodle is but I don’t want him any wear near my son at bath time.
Little Johnson – Yuk!
Pecker- A ‘Pecker’ is a technical term for a bird’s bill. How did something so innocent and non-phallic make its way into a child’s pants?
Dicky Bird – This makes me think of Richard Wilkins.
Ding-a-ling – My sister and I used this term to refer to my brother’s ‘bits’ when he was a baby. He is now 21 and may never speak to me again. If his band mates or footy coach happen to read this, I am very sorry.
After saying each out loud several times, (which I whole heartedly invite you to do…in private!) I just don’t think I can bring myself to say any of them seriously. I don’t want to crack up in my child face every time I change his nappy or give him a bath, the little thing will grow up needing therapy from it.
So after much contemplation I have come to my decision. Drum Roll Please….. The winner is…Penis! Simple, straight to the point, and although it makes me giggle a little, I’m sure the novelty will soon wear off.
Katie “Monty” Dimond is a broadcaster and media personality. She has appeared on Channel Ten, Channel Nine, and Nova FM. She is currently busy being a full time Mum and loving it! You can (and should) follow her on Twitter here. You should also like her Facebook page which you can find here.
What do you call a penis? Do you have different names for adult ones and children’s one?
Comments
201 Comments so far
I’m a grown woman, but the words ‘penis’ and ‘vagina’ make me squirm when I say them out loud…just a little itty bit if I’m really truly honest. Not that you would know it. No silly names for us here, but still inside the brisk non-nonsense adult is a squeamish lttle kid still somewhere getting embarassed. What’s with that? My daughters are of an age where we have the occasional birds and bees talk – I’m mature, calm, down to earth etc but inside I’m secretly going “Eeeks!’
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Ahaha I LOVE this post! My husbands is called Roodle – coz he’s a rude doodle or a rude dude. Either way we kill ourselves laughing and now talk about him in the third person. As in ‘Hows Roodle going today, Roodle feeling randy?’ etc. Plain old willy when my bro’s were young.
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Ha! I’m a huge fan of a good portmanteau so I believe I’ll be appropriating ‘Rudle’ (for some reason I prefer that spelling!) for my own future use!
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… or Roudell, R’Dell, RooDell
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My first RICK comment
haha
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Put it in a jar and fill it with water, in 100 years it’ll turn to gold!
(I still have a massive opal in an oversized peanut butter jar filled with water sitting at home because someone told me it would turn to gold after 100 years. Well, 19 years down! I’ll report back in 81).
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Oh Monty. I love your posts. Soo funny
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We call it a ‘willy’ but my two sons know it’s a penis. Other names from my mother’s group for boy bits are: doodle, johnson, mami (arabic i think??). What about the other dangly bits? We say testicles, but my husband says balls or wheels, which does not sound right from a 2 year old!
I’d struggle more with what to call girl bits I think!
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The other dangly bits get “testes” or, more commonly, “jatz crackers”.
We had to abandon “testicles” when my 4yo was repeatedly getting them mixed up with “nostrils”… made for some interesting conversations.
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We also abandoned testicles when my sons confused it with tenticles… “mum, I just got hit in the tenticles” was too funny.
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When my sons were younger the penis was refered to as both penis and doodle. Now they’re a bit older it seems anything goes although weiner is currently a popular choice when joking around. Thank you There’s something about Mary!
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I’m going to vote for ‘Doodle.’ Hearing little kids say ‘penis’ is a bit sad in an ‘our family doesn’t believe in Santa’ kind of way.
It’s part of the innocence of childhood to have doodles and woo woos, isn’t it?
It’s time as a doodle will be short lived, it has its whole life ahead of it to be a penis. Don’t make it grow up too fast!
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That’s funny, I think of the opposite. They have a whole lifetime ahead of them to call a penis a wang, nob, boner, dick, cock, whatever. Let them learn the proper name first, then they can use whatever name they like later.
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How is calling something by it’s correct name going to ruin a child’s innocence or make them grow up too fast? It’s just a word, and a child doesn’t know that the word penis is seen as more grown up than the word doodle.
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If by innocence you mean ignorance then yes. Innocence is too often used by adults as an excuse to deny children knowledge that would empower them.
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Love this post because it is something that I honestly pondered for quite some time. Penis always just sounded so grown up. And yes I know that our kids need to learn the right terminology but at 3 months old they are not talking much…… Now he’s 11, it’s definitely a penis.
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We have a son and a daughter. While we have taught them correct names (everything from penis, foreskin, vagina, vulva, labia…) in normal conversation we say “dood” and “jiny” (question: can you have phonetic spelling on a made up word??).
For 2 reasons, 1) it doesn’t offend any conservative relatives and 2) its much less formal, which suits our way of life. But they also use the correct names if something is going on like thrush infections at the dr’s.
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