That a fat bearded man could slide down my chimney and deliver presents. All this after he landed 20 thousand pounds of reindeer and other presents on my roof.
I thought actors replayed the movie every time we put one on to watch. It hit me one day as I was rewinding that they were all moving backward really fast and I had to stop and reevaluate what I thought I knew.
I used to believe that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, an entire watermelon would grow inside your stomach. I was terrified of eating fruit for way too long because of that. Kids’ logic is undefeated honestly
Well.. I remember my dad’s response when I said how ‘if you love someone they love you back.’He quietly laughed gently explaining it doesn’t quite work like that. I was extremely puzzled and surprised!!
I thought there was a tiny society living in the bathroom fan. Kind of like the society in the locker in Men in Black. I also thought there were tiny societies living in chandeliers.
For some reason I believed that to adopt a kid, parents would go into a factory and a lineup of adoptable children would be shown to them via conveyer belt. I remember wondering if the kids lived on the conveyor belt and how that worked with food and stuff. I probably realized it made no sense when I saw Annie for the first time.
That women were physically incapable of getting pregnant past the age of 35. Then I was later told that if they did have a baby past that age, it was considered a miracle if the baby survived. I realize now that my mother was a deeply ignorant woman who repeated whatever she heard and taught it to her kids as “facts.”
That my stuffed animals would come to life while I slept. So at bedtime I would tell them to have fun and to also wake me up so that I could play with the real life version of them.
Another kid told me this and it freaked me out for years until I realized it was inasane:
Dragonflies have an extremely painful sting, and it can only be treated by transferring it to another person. Doctors decided to use babies for this since they won’t remember it, and this was why my sister cried all the time as a baby. I thought my parents were MONSTERS!
I could fire a bullet and make it reach the moon.
Here is how it worked.
I would fire a bullet, fire another right behind it, another right behind it. Bullets will keep pushing and reach the moon.
Spouse’s cousin lived in Florida as a young child, moved north in elementary school. All the other cousins convinced him that there was such a thing as “snow sharks” and he refused to play in the snow
That math was different when my Dad was young. If I asked a math problem, he would give me the right answer, but always add “when I was in school.” I would always think to myself that I need the answer for now, not waaaaayyyy back then.
That when tv/films had a freeze frame. It was because the camera was stopped. I was very impressed that the actors could get back in the exact same positions when they started filming the next episode/scene.
I only figured it out when there was a freeze frame cliffhanger where two people were literally falling off a cliff into the sea & the freeze was them in midair.
That people who do evil eventually get their just desserts. I still want this one to be true, but the reality is that many don’t, and many others get punished for items well beyond their control.
When I was three, I thought carnival rides were operated by giants living underground who flipped a huge light switch beneath each ride to turn them on and off.
My dad had a classic car that he worked on and drove around. He liked to listen to the oldies radio station. I was convinced that the old car could only play the old music. Didn’t really occur to me that he listened to that music in other places. The music was a part of riding in that car.
In Germany, we have a social system in which people who do not work receive state assistance. As a child, however, I thought that people who make special social arrangements (idk help out at nursery school or something like that) receive these benefits.
That Samantha and Endora from Bewitched were real witches who could see me and they would curse me if I didn’t show appreciation after the show. But I loved Bewitched so I kept watching it and worrying. I would clap after every episode and tell them they did a great job. My parents worried about me.
The Muppet Babies cartoon show had a nanny and the only thing that would show on screen were her legs. I waited until a commercial and ran to our living room so I could watch the show on the big screen we had.
My child mind thought she just didn’t fit in my tiny tv and I needed a bigger tv to see her whole body. My older sister laughed and explained the mystical workings of animation and tv broadcasting.
When I was a kid I overheard a segment talking about trans people. The family members were upset about it, so I thought they were criminals. That is, they must have done something bad and being turned into the opposite gender was their punishment.
All the “vitamins and nutrition” was in the crust of my bread. My husband had to gently explain to me that the good stuff doesn’t just float to the top lol.
My granny just didn’t want to waste because we were poor as hell 😂
When I heard a band or singer on the radio, I thought they called the radio station and sang the phone. It was perfectly logical. After all, I was forever hearing ppl call in and they’d be broadcast over my speakers.
I used to believe that headstones in graveyards would grow over time. I thought this because the older ones were always the biggest and most elaborate, and when my sisters died (twins died in childbirth), they had these flat stones. I remember thinking, “I can’t wait to see what their stones look like when they grow.”
I believed that animals and insects had like houses and jobs and families. Like a squirrel dad would come home from work gathering nuts and hangout with his family, cook dinner, watch tv in their house inside the tree. In some ways I think I still kind of believe this.
I used to believe that if I swallowed gum, it would stay in my stomach for seven years. I used to avoid it like the plague, thinking I’d have a big, stuck ball of gum in there forever!
My daughter just got the biggest laugh out of me thinking the Insemination intro to Look Who’s talking 2 was actual footage. To this day I had an image in my head of a very basic sperm egg scene with added talking I thought must have been filmed in vitro only to rewatch and see how obviously animated it was
That consciousness is an emergent property of the universe. I now see that consciousness is fundamental. Matter is emergent from it.
Does it make more sense that matter organized itself into consciousness or consciousness organized itself into matter?
A teacher told me every time you threw a piece of trash on the ground it put a hole in the ozone layer. I think about it all the time and I never ever throw trash on the ground because of it.
That a centuries old man lives in Spain, but for some reason insists on celebrating his birthday in our country, by having his employees climb through chimneys or enter through your backdoor and put candy in your shoe and leave a bag full of presents.
Comments
Animals could talk
That the moon followed my car everywhere because it liked me
If you swallowed a seed, a full tree would grow out of your stomach
That your face could permanently freeze in some comical expression.
The light inside the fridge stayed on forever when you closed the door, and tiny fridge people lived there
If I ran fast enough, I could eventually take off like a plane
That the government could see you through your TV, so I always dressed nicely to watch cartoons
That if I swallowed gum it would stay in my stomach.
If you ate too much gum, your butt would stick together permanently
When I was a kid, I believed that there was a god and that he loved me.
Life experience and a broader knowledge of the world has shown that to be a fairly laughable notion.
When actors died in movies, they actually died for real and just ‘volunteered’ for it.
That grannies are sailing on the markets, I was wondering why my parents bought my grandma (she wasn’t that nice)
Turning the lights on in the car while driving was illegal and would immediately get you arrested
That a fat bearded man could slide down my chimney and deliver presents. All this after he landed 20 thousand pounds of reindeer and other presents on my roof.
I thought actors replayed the movie every time we put one on to watch. It hit me one day as I was rewinding that they were all moving backward really fast and I had to stop and reevaluate what I thought I knew.
I used to believe that if you swallowed a watermelon seed, an entire watermelon would grow inside your stomach. I was terrified of eating fruit for way too long because of that. Kids’ logic is undefeated honestly
Parents love their children
That adults had everything figured out and were never scared of anything
That if I didn’t blink both eyes one of my pupils or iris’ would be larger than the other.
That you could really dig a hole to China
once a moth entered our living room while I was watching TV and it became a thing that if I watch a lot of TV insects will come hurt us.
I countered that I don’t watch TV, I play video games (contra, mario etc.)
If you made a silly face for too long, the wind would ‘freeze’ it like that forever
I used to think the moon followed our car whenever we drove at night, like it was personally stalking us. I was dead serious about it too.
I don’t know
Well.. I remember my dad’s response when I said how ‘if you love someone they love you back.’He quietly laughed gently explaining it doesn’t quite work like that. I was extremely puzzled and surprised!!
Treat others like you want to be treated and kindness wins. Oh and there’s good in everyone.
If my mom didn’t get me out of the bath quickly, I would get sucked down the drain.
I thought there was a tiny society living in the bathroom fan. Kind of like the society in the locker in Men in Black. I also thought there were tiny societies living in chandeliers.
Carrot makes u whistle
Watching old black and white tv shows, I believed that life was like that back then. They hadn’t invented color yet.
That swalloed gum would live in my stomach forever
For some reason I believed that to adopt a kid, parents would go into a factory and a lineup of adoptable children would be shown to them via conveyer belt. I remember wondering if the kids lived on the conveyor belt and how that worked with food and stuff. I probably realized it made no sense when I saw Annie for the first time.
That women were physically incapable of getting pregnant past the age of 35. Then I was later told that if they did have a baby past that age, it was considered a miracle if the baby survived. I realize now that my mother was a deeply ignorant woman who repeated whatever she heard and taught it to her kids as “facts.”
That my stuffed animals would come to life while I slept. So at bedtime I would tell them to have fun and to also wake me up so that I could play with the real life version of them.
That we knew who built the pyramids
Another kid told me this and it freaked me out for years until I realized it was inasane:
Dragonflies have an extremely painful sting, and it can only be treated by transferring it to another person. Doctors decided to use babies for this since they won’t remember it, and this was why my sister cried all the time as a baby. I thought my parents were MONSTERS!
That politicians are intelligent and rational individuals…
But then, I was a kid during the last decade or so of the Cold War, so I guess that could be somewhat excused at the time…
That if I picked my nose my head would cave-in
My mamaw used to tell me putting salt on a birds “tail” feathers- it would let you catch it
That when there’s a dead person in a film it’s not actually the actor it’s an extremely realistic model that’s been made of them.
If you crossed your eyes and someone hit you in the back, your eyes would stay that way. 🤣
Watching football on TV and thinking the refs spoke very loud even though they weren’t yelling. Mics never crossed my mind.
The Santa Claus thing.
On our local TV station, as in many, the meteorologist talked about “the weather for Santa’s journey” on Christmas Eve.
Besides that, other kids laughed at me and told me it was all a lie, yet, knowing that, my mom told me they were wrong.
My mom’s motives still don’t make sense to me decades later.
I could fire a bullet and make it reach the moon.
Here is how it worked.
I would fire a bullet, fire another right behind it, another right behind it. Bullets will keep pushing and reach the moon.
That i should look up to my brother. It makes absolutely zero sense.
A body shop was an actual body shop.
I was pre-school, okkkkkkkkk??? 😂
Spouse’s cousin lived in Florida as a young child, moved north in elementary school. All the other cousins convinced him that there was such a thing as “snow sharks” and he refused to play in the snow
That things in the world start over again every morning. 🤷♀️
That math was different when my Dad was young. If I asked a math problem, he would give me the right answer, but always add “when I was in school.” I would always think to myself that I need the answer for now, not waaaaayyyy back then.
I had to pray for everyone I know every single night or they would die.
Walking outside barefoot, a tapeworm would hook to you. Grow inside you, and eat your intestines
That it was illegal to mix icee flavors in the same cup.
As a child I tried many times to move small objects like a Jedi
That when tv/films had a freeze frame. It was because the camera was stopped. I was very impressed that the actors could get back in the exact same positions when they started filming the next episode/scene.
I only figured it out when there was a freeze frame cliffhanger where two people were literally falling off a cliff into the sea & the freeze was them in midair.
dogs were boys and cats were girls
That people who do evil eventually get their just desserts. I still want this one to be true, but the reality is that many don’t, and many others get punished for items well beyond their control.
My older brother told me boogers were dead brain cells – and when my nose was running he said my brain was dying.
To this day mother still thinks I used to cry just because I didnt feel well.
I thought Gwen Stefani’s name was No Doubt. Like first name No, last name Doubt. 😂😂😂
When I die, if I’m not cremated, I will become a skeleton. And I was terrified of becoming a skeleton.
When I was three, I thought carnival rides were operated by giants living underground who flipped a huge light switch beneath each ride to turn them on and off.
My dad had a classic car that he worked on and drove around. He liked to listen to the oldies radio station. I was convinced that the old car could only play the old music. Didn’t really occur to me that he listened to that music in other places. The music was a part of riding in that car.
If my dog got sprayed by a skunk they would smell like that forever.
And that if I got hit in the head when crossing my eyes, they would be permanently stuck like that.
In Germany, we have a social system in which people who do not work receive state assistance. As a child, however, I thought that people who make special social arrangements (idk help out at nursery school or something like that) receive these benefits.
That dragonflies would sew my lips together.
That Samantha and Endora from Bewitched were real witches who could see me and they would curse me if I didn’t show appreciation after the show. But I loved Bewitched so I kept watching it and worrying. I would clap after every episode and tell them they did a great job. My parents worried about me.
Didn’t realize this until John Mulaney pointed it out but I thought quicksand was gonna be a WAY bigger problem than it turned out to be
Dogs are male cats.
Life would get better as I got older. It didn’t, just got progressively worse. Death is the only dream left.
The Muppet Babies cartoon show had a nanny and the only thing that would show on screen were her legs. I waited until a commercial and ran to our living room so I could watch the show on the big screen we had.
My child mind thought she just didn’t fit in my tiny tv and I needed a bigger tv to see her whole body. My older sister laughed and explained the mystical workings of animation and tv broadcasting.
Religion. I don’t think I would say I believed it, but I doubted it.
As an adult, I’m certain I don’t.
The whole your blood was blue inside your body and red outside thing.
Like once exposed to oxygen it turns red.
In retrospect, makes zero sense.
But everything from cartoons to books seemed to illustrate a cycle of blue to red and back again.
When I was a kid I overheard a segment talking about trans people. The family members were upset about it, so I thought they were criminals. That is, they must have done something bad and being turned into the opposite gender was their punishment.
All the “vitamins and nutrition” was in the crust of my bread. My husband had to gently explain to me that the good stuff doesn’t just float to the top lol.
My granny just didn’t want to waste because we were poor as hell 😂
teachers sleep at school lol
If you added ice cubes to milk it would turn into alcohol
God
That everyone was born white and when they got to a certain age they could choose. Some just chose earlier than others.
I lived in extremely small town in Kansas who had exactly zero people of color in it. Same with the few towns around us we went to.
I was a very broken 5 year old when I found out I’d never be a beautiful Latina girl.
Man I was sheltered.
When I heard a band or singer on the radio, I thought they called the radio station and sang the phone. It was perfectly logical. After all, I was forever hearing ppl call in and they’d be broadcast over my speakers.
At one point i was convinced aliens were after me
That dogs were boys and cats were girls.
God
I was the only “real” person in the world, everyone else was a robot
I used to believe that headstones in graveyards would grow over time. I thought this because the older ones were always the biggest and most elaborate, and when my sisters died (twins died in childbirth), they had these flat stones. I remember thinking, “I can’t wait to see what their stones look like when they grow.”
The loud toilets in elementary school didn’t lead to setting off the loud fire alarm. I left a lot of unflushed nukes that year.
That there’s a sky daddy/santa controlling the world.
I believed that animals and insects had like houses and jobs and families. Like a squirrel dad would come home from work gathering nuts and hangout with his family, cook dinner, watch tv in their house inside the tree. In some ways I think I still kind of believe this.
That adults never cried.
I used to believe that if I swallowed gum, it would stay in my stomach for seven years. I used to avoid it like the plague, thinking I’d have a big, stuck ball of gum in there forever!
I thought new movies took a long time to get to my very small Arkansas town was because first they had to go to LA, NYC,….St Louis,….Little Rock….
That quick sand is a real life threat.
If you go to college everything will be fine.
Parents are always right
That it was okay to want to hang out in Michael Jackson’s bed.
There was a snail that lived in your nose and would bite your finger off if you put it in there. I think it was a Shel Silverstein story.
God. Total bs.
My daughter just got the biggest laugh out of me thinking the Insemination intro to Look Who’s talking 2 was actual footage. To this day I had an image in my head of a very basic sperm egg scene with added talking I thought must have been filmed in vitro only to rewatch and see how obviously animated it was
My parents and teachers- be used they were adults- knew what they were doing
That consciousness is an emergent property of the universe. I now see that consciousness is fundamental. Matter is emergent from it.
Does it make more sense that matter organized itself into consciousness or consciousness organized itself into matter?
God
Quick sand was right around any given corner and it’d get me
That I’d go to jail for watching the Lion King on YouTube.
Ghosts
A teacher told me every time you threw a piece of trash on the ground it put a hole in the ozone layer. I think about it all the time and I never ever throw trash on the ground because of it.
That a centuries old man lives in Spain, but for some reason insists on celebrating his birthday in our country, by having his employees climb through chimneys or enter through your backdoor and put candy in your shoe and leave a bag full of presents.
That bands were playing their songs live (in the studio) on the radio.
That the music, in a movie, at the movie theatre was coming from an orchestra behind the screen/curtain