Teenager - They want plain talk

Without thinking, Betty's mother had slipped back to the baby term "tee-tee" that Betty had used in bygone days. Talk of this part of the body had since then faded out of the picture. Betty had never acquired any other term. And so, when Betty's mother referred to it now, she did what came most naturally.

After listening to a speaker recently another girl in her late teens went up eagerly to the platform. "What a relief it was," she confided, "to hear you talk so simply about the things that others are so stilted about. It was good to have you use our language."

Had Betty been accustomed to the word "vulva," it would have been a different matter. As it was, the most comfortable expression for both Betty and her mother was the baby word. And so Mother's use of it in the beginning facilitated their talk. Later she was able to work in as synonyms the more scientific names.

Not infrequently language difficulties get in between parent and child and slow down communication.

Long before adolescence most children have talked with other children and have acquired their own vocabulary. By the time they are in their teens, these youngsters ordinarily have used colloquial terms among themselves. This is the language in which their imaginings and wonderings are set. As one boy put it, "We want to ask about things in the way we think about them to ourselves."

But if by chance some of these words slip out, parents are prone to grow indignant.

"P-lease, Bud, stop that gutter talk . . ."

"Heavens! Lucille! Where on earth did you hear such horrible words?"

The adolescent feels taken aback. Here is an extra stumbling block thrown in his path when he is trying so hard to find his way among conflicting ideas, supposed truths, superstitions, facts, and feelings.

He craves the familiarity of whatever language is most familiar. He likes also to feel that we are using language that is comfortable to us and that comes out of the homeyness of intimate usage, not out of a textbook lecture prepared just for this occasion and as distant as the moon and the stars.

For years in books about child psychology and sex education, parents have been told to use a scientific vocabulary. But with added observation and more vivid and direct contact with children's actions and fantasies, the eyes and ears of those who work most searchingly with them have become more perceiving.

All of us know that the mechanics of translating a foreign tongue can interfere with an understanding of what is said. Curiosity then goes unanswered. This is often what happens when we reply to our children's questions in words that are foreign and often strained. We answer technically but we leave their curiosity hanging in mid-air.

We adults very commonly use some of the same common terms as our children. And yet we avoid these terms assiduously when we talk with them.

Perhaps we should ask ourselves: Are we afraid of revealing dark secrets and shames? We needn't be. After all, gutter meanings do not lie in the words of themselves but only in whatever gutter thoughts we connect with them.

Our own use of these words has probably not been gutter usage. We have probably spoken them in moments of hearty and wholesome love talk and love play.

Without realizing it, however, by avoidance or indiscriminate condemnation, we may put needless barriers in the way of our children's free questioning and of our making things clear. We may once more give a youngster the impression that his terms are not nice and that he is not nice.

We can gain confidence better by saying, "There are lots of words for these." Then we can go on and name several of them and by so doing show that the lowly words he has most probably heard do bear mention as well as the more scientific synonyms. "I've called it by such and such term--what have you called it?" Or "These are my words for it--what are yours?" Or "Here are some of the words I've heard used. How about you?"

If we can show him that we are interested in what he has been calling things and are willing to listen, he may bring out his wonderings more readily since he can express them in his own vernacular. This may be distinctly personal. Or it may be the group language used in his particular set or locale.

We may fear, however, that if he uses these words with us he will grow too free with them elsewhere and fling them about.

But judging where and when to use certain terms is not new business in his life. Nor is it new business in our dealings with him. 'Way back when he was little we shushed him in company when he spoke about toileting. More recently, when we started applying the newer ways of discipline, we talked with him about confining his criticisms of us and his gripes against us to the privacy of our company alone. "Lots of people misjudge you when you talk in public, for instance, about being angry. They think children should always be respectful, never mad at their parents. And they think mad-talk exceedingly bad. When we're alone it's all right; but not in company."

The same sort of thing applies now. Said Randy's father, "Lots of people misjudge you when you talk like this. Many grownups believe these words are dirty. As you know, many children do too. They do have dirty meanings. But some of them have love meanings also. It all depends on how you use them. . . . I'd be careful though, because you don't want to be branded foulmouthed by people, young or old, who consider them foul."

Randy looked thoughtful and answered, "You know, Dad, you said an awful lot then. It's strange but I can usually tell whether it's the dirty use or the clean use that a person intends."

"And sometimes you want to ride along with the dirty use as well as the clean one?"

"That's true. It seems sort of smart."

At least it fits in with the revolt need that many an adolescent feels intensely. When he uses these terms smuttily, this frequently serves as outlet for hostility. Forbidding won't accomplish much. But understanding may. The terms are then no longer expressly forbidden. His use of them is no longer a gesture of throwing his parents' veto to the winds.