The popular play "The Vagina Monologues" ran into some trouble recently (I think this was in Florida somewhere, but I can't find the link), when a woman driving her niece by the theater was "offended" when the young girl (don't know how old she was) read the marquee and asked what a vagina was. She complained to the theatre, and they changed the marquee to read The "Hoohaa" Monologues (including the quotation marks). How stupid is this? It's not like "vagina" is some vulgar or dirty or even slang word. I know that if my son read a marquee that said The Vagina Monologues, he would probably just ignore it. If, however, he read The "Hoohaa" Monologues, he'd laugh at it and make a big fuss, and ask what a "Hoohaa" is. He already knows what a vagina is (well, I'm not sure he knows what one is, but he knows that girls have one and boys don't, and he doesn't consider the word dirty or taboo or anything), but I know that he'd never let go of the word "hoohaa", and we'd be hearing it all the time. In any case, any child old enough to read the word vagina is old enough to be told what it is and that it's not a dirty word.
This reminds me of one of my favourite "my kid is so cute" stories, from when Ryan was just two years old. Gail and I were going out, and we got a babysitter for Ryan (Nicky wasn't even born yet, so Ryan was definitely two). He was sitting at the table finishing his dinner, and Lindsay the babysitter came in and sat down next to him. She said hi, and he put down his fork, looked at her silently for a couple of seconds, and then said matter-of-factly, "You don't have a penis." Lindsay, to her credit, didn't even flinch, but confirmed his suspicion. He nodded and went back to his dinner, apparently satisfied with her response.
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