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The Right Words
Talk to Your Daughter About the Human Body
By Kelly Burgess
It's a tough subject to tackle, but we want to be the ones to tell our daughters about the facts of life. It certainly would have helped if as young mothers with young children, "body talk" was the household norm. "Learning the proper names of your various body parts – not just toes and nose, but breasts and vagina as well – should start when they're babies," says Jan Mallak, a doula and educator who gives mom/daughter seminars for The Midwife Center for Women's Health. "This helps parents to have the right words to keep on talking to them as they get older."
If you're like many parents, and "body talk" wasn't – and still isn't – the household norm, it's not too late. Carol Weston, author of Girl Talk: All the Stuff Your Sister Never Told You (Quill, fourth edition, 2004), says merely to forgive yourself for not being perfect, take a deep breath and don't be afraid to tell your daughter that this is difficult for you to talk about.
Since the first edition of her book was published in 1985, Weston says children are being exposed to more mature subjects at ever younger ages. Because there are so many other forces at work trying to sway our children's moral development, Weston and Mallak both agree it's more important than ever for modern parents to be able to have discussions about body changes and sexuality with their children.
Of course, all that's easy for them to say; they're professionals. How do the rest of us find the words to tell our daughters what's going to happen? For those looking for just the right words, here's a primer on everything you may have forgotten from that eighth grade health class.
