My 2-year-old daughter has lately taken to pointing to her vagina and shouting at the top of her lungs, “Penis! Penis! Penis!”

You don’t need to be Freud to figure out that she is suffering from penis envy.

Her two older brothers, 6 and 4, think this is the funniest thing in the world. The only thing funnier is when she quizzically cocks her head when I tell her that she’s a girl and that girls have vaginas. “‘Gina?” she asks me in disbelief, then goes back to running around screaming about her penis.

With two older brothers, Kira is bound to discover some of the facts of life earlier than some children. I should add that I’ve been bathing her with her brothers from the moment she could sit up.

Two years later, they all still take a bath together. It is the most peaceful hour of my day, from 6 p.m. until 7 p.m., when the three of them pile into the bath and play. They spray different colored bath foam on the walls, draw with thick bath crayons, make silly puppet shows with animal washcloths, and create imaginary battles using pirate ships and whatever other plastic toys happen to end up in the bath.

The standard rule of thumb for putting your children in the bath together is that as soon as they begin to notice each other’s private parts, it’s time to give them separate baths. Likewise, it’s important to supply your children with correct information about their anatomy, and to remain neutral and calm, as there is no reason for children to feel embarrassed about their curiosity.

On Disney’s parenting Web site, child-development and behavior specialist Jan Faull advises a parent about bathing her children together. “Children are curious about nostrils, belly buttons, ear lobes, and genitalia. Your daughter sees that all her brother’s body parts are the same as hers except his genitalia. She’s responding with silliness and maybe a little embarrassment. When people experience an unknown situation or feeling, it’s common to giggle; her response isn’t nasty or perverse.”

She adds, “When your daughter points to her brother’s penis and laughs, just matter-of-factly respond with, ‘That’s your brother’s penis. Boys and men have penises, women and girls have vulvas and vaginas.’ Your answer is clear and honest. Now your daughter knows that when she has similar questions related to anatomy or sex, you’re willing to be the source of her information.”

And all the experts agree that when there is too much grabbing and too much emphasis on each other’s genitalia, the happy hour in the bath must come to an end.

For all the fun that goes on in my children’s bathtub, recently there has begun to be a lot of giggling – too much giggling. There’s the playing and the foam and the toys and then eventually, Kira looks up at one of her brothers and shouts “Penis!” I try to quickly let the water out and end the activity, though clearly, the damage has been done. But after 55 minutes of blissful harmony, how much damage is too much damage?

The psychiatrist I like to consult with on such matters smiled as I imitated Kira screeching around the apartment. As a mental-health professional, he said good-humoredly, he couldn’t help but tell me that it was time to wind down the baths.

However, he added, it probably wouldn’t make much of a difference if bath time was eliminated; Kira would still wonder why she didn’t have a penis, and the boys would still be curious as to what it was exactly that Kira had. This was a fact of life in my home and I should not view it as a damaging one.

My aunt, a therapist, blanched when she heard I still allowed the kids to take a bath together, reminding me that all parents think issues like penis envy and castration anxiety won’t really impact their children. But you never know, she reprimanded. She counseled me that since this is a parenting issue well within my control, I should exercise that control and, “just in case Freud was right,” put an end to the bath time brouhaha.

My mother, always the pragmatist, thought that the benefits of the quiet, peaceful playtime – for the kids and for me – certainly outweighed any potential damage. She thought that with all the fighting that goes on between the boys – the scratching and shoving, name calling, and heated competition – the detriment to their development caused by castration anxiety wasn’t going to even register.

Which brings me to the real point of sharing my investigation into Kira’s penis envy. As parents, particularly New York parents with access to a wealth of information, we often strive for perfection. Isn’t that what we try to achieve in every area of our lives? We may be savvy enough to realize that we shouldn’t be aiming for perfection in our children, but that doesn’t stop us from reaching for it in our role as parents.

It’s time to lighten up and stop beating ourselves to death for turning on the television every once in a while, or for losing our temper, ordering in pizza, and saying the wrong thing – for the third day in a row. If every so often we give our children an inappropriate answer, dole out the wrong punishment, or make a threat and then cave in, that’s okay.

Our job as parents will be judged in its entirety – not in the specifics. The preservation of our day-to-day sanity, our marriages, and a supportive and safe environment in our homes – these things are far more important than any one particular parenting issue. Never mind that Kira will be on the couch in 20 years analyzing her penis envy. As if that’s the only thing she’ll be analyzing.