All the words used to describe the female anatomy have an air of vulgarity yet all the words used to describe the male genitals are positively endearing?

When our daughter was little, the discussion about what terminology we were going to use to refer to her girlie bits was nearly as lengthy as the discussions we had to pick her actual name! The word Vagina was far too anatomical and medical for my liking. The thought of my cute little toddler announcing that she had “washed her vagina” as she splashed in the bath just didn’t work for me. Years before I became a mum I had worked in a residential care home for children with learning disabilities. Here the general consenus amongst us carers was to refer to “that zone” as their “Daisy.” This had worked quite well; telling a child to wash their face, armpits, legs and daisy didn’t seem at all vulgar. And so this terminology had stuck with me throughout my early adult life. 

Then, a close friend told me how devastated she was that her husband refused to accept her first choice of name for her newborn baby. Apparently she had always dreamed of having a little girl called Daisy and so when their baby girl arrived, she thought her long awaited dreams were answered. Then her husband announced that under no circumstance was he having his child named after the contents of MY pants and my friends dreams were quashed. I felt so guilty that I immediately deleted the definition of the word Daisy from my personal dictionary. Fortunately 2 years later, when her second daughter was born, her husbands memory had faded and she finally got her Daisy.

It has to be said though, that all the other commonly used words for that zone simply turn my stomach. Fanny, Gina [short for Vagina] front bottom, and even girlie bits are all either harsh, derogatory or blatantly inaccurate.

So why oh why is it that, when it comes to boys, the options are endless and most of these euphemisms have an endearing undertone. There is nothing vulgar about the word willy, although with the popularity of the name William over recent years this may not be the most favoured option. But then, the anatomically correct word, Penis does not need to even hit the radar of options when there is already such an extensive range of words already in common use. You have Tackle, Dingle Dangle, Chap, Little man, little friend, gun, todge and winkle to name just a few. You would never be embarrassed to use any of this in public; depending of course on what your son is doing with his “winkle” for you to have to mention it in public!

It is hard to believe that it is such an array of cute endearing words that we have adopted for the very part of the male anatomy which is the driving force behind most things he is likely to get into trouble with in life. The potential weapon of mass destruction, this testosterone pump of trouble is referred to by his mummy as though it is his little life companion, his security blanket, his sole mate.

So, with two girls, a decision needed to be made and so a new word n our family dictionary was devised. It may not be ideal, but it works for us and at least no potential parents are left quaking in their boots at the prospect of naming their offspring after my vagina. Having opted for the word “toush” instead of bum or bottom, we simply extended this in a particularly effeminate way to deal with the frontal region. And so, my daughters and I are now the proud owners of “Toush-di-lala’s”

Admittedly, it does still have a slightly over floral sound to it, but at least I can live safe in the knowledge that the only people I am likely to offend with this terminology is yellow teletubbies and thankfully they appear to be a species of the past now anyway!  

Things are put on the stairs to be carried up, yet only the lady of the house is able to physically carry them up???

Sometimes it's astounding just how much junk filters its way downstairs during the course of the day. This may occur through the hands of absolutely any member of the household, yet only the "alpha female" appears to have the ability to return these items to their rightful home on the upper story. In my house it used to start around breakfast time, when a tiny, gaudy, bejewelled high heeled Bratz shoe would appear at the breakfast table.... just the one shoe... and no Bratz doll attached to it. Your first instinct is to re-house this irritating little item straight into the bin. After all, they play havoc with the dogs digestive system! But then the thought of the emotional outburst which would break out later, when "Chloe the Slapper Bratz" only had one "slapper shoe", sends you to the stairs instead. And so, the first item of the day hits that fateful zone. From there on the pile will rapidly grow as hairbrush, breakfast stained school sweater, Harry Potter Cape [which is prised off each day before school] and the statutory plastic tiara all join the Bratz shoe on that bottom stair. Before you even embark on the morning school run the bottom stair is already fully laden with offspring's tat. Despite the fact that these items are the children's most treasured possessions, they still manage to climb over them and even stand on them, as they race to the bathroom to wet their toothbrushes and flick toothpaste over the sink and their uniform.

Then there are the additional household and hubby items that need to make that high altitude ascent. The shoes, tie and watch all dumped by the coffee table [along with a half drunk bottle of Becks] all abandoned after that big night out. The new bathroom loo bleach, shampoo and loo rolls. The sweatshirt found stuffed down the side of the armchair [its amazing what you can hide down there!] And, of course, the beeping cordless phone which is calling out for its recharge point up in the bedroom.
By the time you next make that trip to the top floor the pile has expanded to cover the entire width of at least 3 steps. This creates a mammoth obstacle course for anyone attempting to make the ascent yet still ..... they do!!!
Some men have been known to make the double handrail heave manoeuvre to assist them in their attempt to make a four step stride and when this results in a groin strain then the indignant complaints commence.
"What''s all this junk doing on the stairs anyway??? Are you trying to kill someone???"  [That one is always tempting to answer] and then the clincher, "Why don't you just carry the stuff up when you find it?"
This pearl of wisdom is usually the cause of that poor camels back injury.... A quick mental calculation reveals that if you had carried each item up individually you would have made 28 trips up the stairs by lunchtime. Admittedly this would have worked wonders on the thigh flab, and saved on gym time and money. However, this patronising advice is simply bang out of order; especially coming from the man who practically resorted to using carabiner clips and climbing ropes in a bid to make his one isolated ascent without carry one single item.
Despite the fact that there had been no murderous intent originally, This imparting of wisdom from Prince Perfect is enough to drive even the likes of Mary Poppins to a crime of passion.
It may seem a tad churlish to point out their own domestic failings as they indignantly rub their bruised pride and groin, but .... hey ho! Suddenly your mouth is on overdrive as you recount a whole host of irritations that you suffer from as a result of simply being their spouse. Speedy calculations of how many times you have found their coffee mug above the dishwasher, because they are seemingly unable to open the appliance and pop it inside. Empty loo rolls unchanged, shoes abandoned, dirty clothes on top of the laundry basket rather than in it ..... and so the female machine gun rant goes on...
Okay, so none of the above is related in any way to you booby-trapping the stairs, but when it comes to the phenomenon of the inability to carry items up the stairs, unless your body contains oestrogen, then suddenly all unrelated arguments have an air of validity!

Children struggle to retain the need to use two such simple words as Please and Thankyou, yet will master the grammatical use of any expletive after one single mutterance

Basic manners are non negotiable in my world. There is no doubt that they make a large difference to peoples opinion of a child. You can have the schools "devil child" around to play, but if they offer up a genuine, heartfelt thank you, without a parental elbow involved, then suddenly they are forgiven for trashing the house, climbing on the furniture and stealing a Lego mini figure.
With this in mind, I decided to start the brainwashing very early with my children. So, with the exception of "mummmm" and "dadadada," the first words I drilled into my children were please and thank you. I even taught sign language manners to my middle child who was struggling to get her tongue around the "P's" and "Th's." Okay, I do now acknowledge that I might have been bordering on the obsessive to go this far, but in my defence it was at a time when the use of sign language to reduce toddler tantrums was seriously in vogue.... albeit very briefly.
So, did my diligent approach to politeness pay off? Did it heck! Despite the fact that manners were practically demanded from my breastfeeding babes in arms, I was still there, with all the other frustrated mums saying "yes,what?" and "what do you say?" whenever my children had those painfully frequent memory lapses.

I couldn't count the number of times that I stood over my children, bearing an uncanny resemblance to Basil Fawlty ranting at Manuel, screaming "How difficult is it? If you are offered something you say please, if you  take something you  say thank you!!!!"
It is not even as though it's a complex communication skill with situational variables; the rules are always the same.
I thought that I might have cracked it the time that I saw my 5 year old take a party bag from a post party frazzled parent. She didn't so much as a wiggle her top lip in thanks let alone utter a verbal expression of gratitude. This time I truly lost the plot. Having done the puppeteer parent bit of standing behind her and making her say Thank you, I then took her outside, snatch said goody bag from her sticky mitts and promptly threw it straight in the nearest rubbish bin [checking that the frazzled party parent didn't see, of course] Naturally the result was catastrophic, the grief over the loss of that bag of 'future landfill'  went on for hours. But, as harsh and heartless as I felt,  I consoled myself with the knowledge that she would never forget her manners again. After all, if this traumatic experience didn't trigger the spontaneous manners neurons to start functioning in her little brain, then nothing would .... Sadly, just 3 days later the memory box malfunctions started again.

So, why oh why is it that, on the one isolated occasion that a four letter word escaped from my mouth in her presence it was inwardly digested, stored and regurgitated in perfect grammatical context at the least opportune moment.

I tried desperately to ensure that I embraced the Mary Poppins approach to parenting and never swore. However, it proved to be almost impossible to fulfil this mission when it came to the shock of sudden pain. It's a bit like when the doctor does that reflex test of tapping your knees with that rubber hammer thingy... you have absolutely no control over your lower limp springing forward. I find I have a similar swear reflex response when my oven gloves fail me and I get that sudden shock of sizzling flesh as I remove the dinner from the oven. I have tried to stop this swear reflex mid flow by adapting the vocabulary Shshshshshsh...... ugar is always my mission but occasionally the swear reflex is just too strong for me to beat it and the "it" ending falls out instead.  Radar ears immediately prick up and the equivalent to the Spanish inquisition begins. "What did you say mummy?" "What does it mean?" "Why did you say it?" I thought that I dealt with the situation perfectly. I aimed to answer her questions without making the unacceptability of the word sound that bit more appealing. Two weeks passed and I felt certain the word was forgotten. Then, my hubbys very posh Auntie visited. My daughter ran excitedly in through the sitting room door but unfortunately wasn't entirely focused on where she was going and collided with the door frame.  She hit that bone so inappropriately named the funny bone and shouted, with perfect clarity "S**T!" Before I had time to even consider how I was going to tackle this in the presence of "the royal aunt" she spluttered, through tears of pain, "and I'm allowed to say that word when it hurts - you do!"
There is no logic when it comes to instilling basic manners into your child, but after that incident I was tempted to adapt the English language and substitute the words please and thank you for a couple of expletives as I was confident that my children would at least remember them then.

Thank you for reading - If you enjoyed this please spread the word and start to follow me [on right near top of page] There will be a new Why Oh Why is it that... every Friday.   

We feel the need to rant

But the bottom line is .... we simply do. I am not sure if I am turning into an over opinionated middle aged woman or whether I have always felt the need to share my thoughts. Either way I have decided to start a weekly blog of  life's little quizicals ... Those unfathomable phenomenon that infiltrate our daily lives. Some will relate to motherhood, like the unanswerable question of "why oh why is it that our toddlers fail to remember to say please and thank you despite our hourly reminders? Yet - should you inadvertently be overheard by those tiny little toddler ears, muttering an expletive, it will be introduced into their ever expanding vocabulary with fantastic grammatical accuracy.
There will be others that relate to being a partner or wife. For example, why oh why is it that families stack things on the stairs to be carried up yet nobody, other than the alpha female, appears to be capable of the physical act of actually ascending the stairs, arms laden?
Finally there wlll be life's rich tapestries generic questions addressed. For example, why oh why is it that dog owners feel that they are doing their bit for society by bagging up their doggy doodoo yet seem to think it is totally acceptable to leave these little black bags of faeces adorning hedgerows and bushes like Christmas baubles?
My aim is to entertain ...not to frustrate ... to inspire a little light hearted comradeship.... not incite unnecessary  irritation over life's injustices.
My background is that I am a mother of 3 Children aged 14,12 and 10. i am the step mother of 2 children, aged 19 and 17. I was a nurse for adults with learning disabilities and behavioural issues. I became a lady window cleaner when I became a single mum, [ladies with ladders] so that I could be available for my children. I now own a vintage Ice cream van [www.elsies-ices.co.uk] and when I had my children I co-wrote 2 light hearted books about becoming a mum and parenting. These are called "The Fat Ladies Club - The indispensable real world guide to pregnancy" and "The Fat Ladies Club - Facing the First Five Years"
So .... I have a pretty varied life to pull on ....
Please watch this space ...spread the blogging word ..... and feel free to contact me with your "why oh why it it that..."  headings and i will aim to add it to my list for future blogging articles.
The First "Why Oh Why Is It That..." shall be available within the next few days .... tune in.