Our kids bathe together. With my daughter at four-years-old and my son not quite two, the cute harmlessness of their tub adventures is directly proportionate to the amount of embarrassment they will feel when I show them the pictures when they’re teens.
Sometimes communal bath time casually transforms into anatomical exploration time. And in this time Jillian received the lion’s share of her education in the differences between boys and girls. Lately Dalton has taken to fiddling with his penis in the tub. Nudity in the tub is one of the only occasions he finds his wiener isn't incarcerated by a diaper, and so naturally dives for it every chance he gets. Jillian, observing all this groping, at first took a refreshingly egalitarian approach to male and female genitals, call all of them collectively “butts.” Over time she learned that neither were they butts, nor were they the same. She learned the word vagina and that’s when penises became “vaginas.” One time, on the road home from Thanksgiving with relatives, I took Jillian into a truck stop men’s room so she could pee. After she was done I took my turn. Watching me she said loudly, throughout a rest room filled with weary, surly truck drivers, “You got a big vagina daddy! My daddy’s got a big vagina!” Now we have the whole penis vagina thing straightened out, which is how Jillian came to inform me during her tub time recently, “Dalton is touching his penis.”
“Yes he is.”
“Is that okay?”
“Sure it is.”
“Can I touch my vagina?”
“If you like, but only you can.”
Then she paused to ponder this.
“I want a penis.”
I stopped shaving mid stroke.
“What?”
“If I saw a wishing star, I’d wish for a penis.”
“Why do you want a penis?”
“They’re cool.” I looked at Dalton, thoughtfully yanking away on his. He did look like he was having fun. As an owner of a penis, I have always been fairly pro-penis. But I didn’t want Jillian to develop an inferiority complex over her vagina.
“They are no cooler than a vagina.”
“Yes they are. You can pee when you’re standing up.” Again she had me. Peeing while standing is indeed rad. Quickly I tried to think of a major selling point that would convince her vaginas are great. Everything that came to mind, like having babies and the phenomenon of multiple orgasms, seemed far too lofty to explain to my 4-year-old. And then something just slipped out of my mouth:
“If you had a penis, you’d have to be a boy.”
“Ewwww,” she laughed, her face wrinkling up, “yuck!”
With one deft argument I had swept away any dreams of penile ownership from my daughter’s mind.
What do you guys and gals think? Have you had gender issues at home? Any genital envy amongst your kids?
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About Cole Gamble
Cole Gamble’s writings on the crimes of Willy Wonka, man-eating beds and tales from his cringe-worthy life appear here on Babble, the humor site Cracked, The Daily Beast, The Huffington Post and Salon. He is working on a book entitled, Conquer Everything! A Self Help Book to Destroy All Other Self Help Books and Grant You Mastery in Everything.
