Private and Not-So-Private Parts

A few months ago my three-year-old son, E, and his new sister, N, were bathing together and my son asked: Where is N’s penis?  My husband, S, who was in charge of bath that night (YAY!) yells: AAALLLLEEEEXXX.

I have been designated handler-of-all-questions-uncomfortable.  (S is slowly getting over E not being an infant anymore.  He’s SOOO big is a daily comment.) I come in and S and E repeat the question. I respond: You have a penis and N has a vagina.  She does not have a penis.  I go on to explain that Daddy is like E and Mama is like N.  I don’t elaborate further and E repeats my explanation a few times without any new questions.  He points out his newfound knowledge to N and that’s it.

I leave the room with an air of smugness last seen when my son greeted my mom’s friend at our door with Hello. It’s nice to meet you.

I had been thinking about this issue since E discovered his penis.  Armed with my feminist theory, philosophy and biology classes, I already knew how I was going to handle the gender, sex, and my body talks:

1. I wasn’t going to shy away or ignore any question.  I wanted him to love and respect his body and I would mirror that by respecting his question.
2. I wanted to use scientific terms.  “Hoo-ha” and “weenie” aren’t human body parts nor are they anything I want associated with my body or my children’s.  (I just learned that my sister uses “vah-jay-jay” which had I known that before the talk, I may have been willing to incorporate.  It sounds like the cool neighbor in an old-school 70’s sitcom.  Who’s at the door?  It’s VAH-JAY-JAY!)
3. I also wanted to emphasize what N HAS, not what she doesn’t have.  I’ve read way to much Freud to describe women as a “lack” of anything.
4. Most importantly, I wanted to move at E’s pace.  E doesn’t seem to care who are boys and who are girls so I have yet to comment on “appropriate” pronouns and gender definitions.  Anyway, as any VERY liberal-arts student will tell you, gender definitions are best left fluid.

And the talk in the bathroom went just like I wanted it.

Until last week.  E totally blindsided me.

I’m leaning over a bit while wearing appropriate breast-feeding attire.  E points and asks: What’s that?  Now I look down and say hopefully: Those are my breasts.  He says: NO.  What’s that?  And points his finger clearly between my breasts.  I start panicking.  Is there a scientific word for cleavage?  Is there a feminist word for cleavage?  Why is my three-year-old noticing cleavage?

Well, (I pause trying to buy time.  But I can’t ignore his question — That’s Rule #1!) It’s where my breasts meet…  Like they are friends getting together for coffee.  Maybe I can call it Starbucks.

What IS it?  he insists.  I look left.  I look right.  I use Jedi mind-tricks to force my cats to appear and actually let him pet them.  And he just looks from me to my chest.  So I tell him.  I give him the word that every heterosexual male has come to love.  It’s called cleavage E.  And my feminist, scientific, and mommy selves DIE.

The next day he asks again.

I can’t wait for him to point it out on his teachers.

PS.  My husband was leaning over without a shirt on and E pointed to a SKIN roll (NOT a fat roll) and says: Beavage!  Which I guess is breast plus cleavage.  Or right around the time Child Protective Services calls.

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This post originally appeared on The Mommies Network

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Tagged as: Awkward, My Son, Parenting, Scott, The TALK