Advice from Superdad

I had better start from the beginning…

Our two year old daughter has always had baths and lately she wants to have showers which stands to reason because that is what we all have around here.

She now loves the shower so much that she refuses to have a bath. Luckily Mum has been around to do the showering but lately we have had to change plans.

I can’t really say “sorry honey you can’t have a shower because of daddy’s penis” can I?

She has seen me in the shower at times but I usually leave my undies on when she is around and while she knows boys and girls, she has never seen a ‘boys’ as far as I know.

She has seen mum naked and knows that she has the same. We call it her “corker” which is a direct translation from a European language for the female anatomy. She does not know about dad’s and we haven’t had to explain it yet.

If I leave my underpants on and sit down while she stands up I can probably get away with it without any awkward questions.

As we are toilet training and thus have an open door policy in the bathroom I usually sit down to pee so as to show her what to do. So far that has enabled us to avoid any explanations as to what’s between my legs and why it is different to her and mum’s.

I have recently been caught on a couple of occasions trying to sneak a quick stand up pee when her curious little head would peep around the corner saying ” What are you doing daddy?”
“Daddy’s doing a wee wee”.

I can see her little brain ticking over going ” Wow how can he do that standing up?” and she creeps closer to try and get a better look at this amazing technique.

Well if you have ever tried to stop a pee you will know that it can be quite a difficult thing to do, especially under pressure. So I have to manouvere myself to block her view while I attempt to abort the mission. I’ve been lucky so far.

When and how do you explain physical gender differences to kids? If I try to explain the whole boy and girl anatomy thing to her at this age she is bound to demand a full inspection and what do you do then?

You can’t pull down your pants and say “Well this is a man’s penis and blah,blah…” so immediately you must say “No, you can’t look ” and then make up something unconvincing about the why and begin to create a taboo around genitalia. What else can you do?

I can’t remember ever seeing my mum naked and my wife doesn’t remember ever seeing her dad naked either. We had both seen our same gender parent naked though. We then learnt about the opposite sex through everyone else except our parents. Is this the normal thing?

So anyway, here we are in the shower and I am sitting down in my undies and she is standing up and everything is going fine. We have even managed to wash her hair which is a small miracle in itself.

As I stand up to turn of the water and grab her towel she turns around to face me. She is two years old and three feet tall and I’m 42 and almost six foot. You do the math.

She looks directly at my crotch and before I can react she points her finger and jabs it into the slight protrusion in my wet undies a few times and says “What’s that thing Daddy?

OMG! I freeze for a second, coming to terms with what has just happened.

“That’s daddy’s pee pee” I say, recovering slightly. She looks at me, looks at my undies and back up at me with a grin. “That’s not daddy’s pee pee” she says, “That’s a corker!”

It sure is honey, it sure is..!

This article has been published on the Mamamia parenting website. Some of the 200 or so comments make for some interesting and informative reading. If you would like to view them then please click here.