I’ll go first. The whole “if you swallow gum it will stay inside you for 7 years. “ wrong. Complete fake. Or another one. Cracking your knuckles gives you arthritis. Also wrong.
What is a “fact” you learned growing up that turned out to be false?
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If you pee in the pool the water turns blue. False, but many anxious moments during childhood bc of this
“We’re from the government. We’re here to help”.
That people thought the Columbus was going to sail off the end of the earth.At the time of Columbus It was common knowledge that the world was round
University will be very strict with grades.
Being an Engineer will let you buy a big house (Maybe in other countries)
Democrats were weak on Russia
You won’t automatically get sick for not wearing a jacket in the cold. That’s been proven to being a myth.
Proteins can’t be the genetic basis of disease – until Prions came along
You can’t replicate DNA – until the right extremophile came along allowing PCR
You can’t edit DNA – until CRISPR
You DON’T lose more heat through your head. Edit for spelling and because my original post was a mess!
My grandparents owned a manufacturing company that made parts for Polaroid cameras for a few decades, so I always knew this but: You are not, in fact, supposed to shake it like a Polaroid picture, OutKast!
Leprosy is highly contagious.
You taste different tastes with different parts of your tongue, the food pyramid, you eat x amount of spiders in your sleep.
My dad is an engineer and a fearful person, so taught me to think through every little detail before acting.
When I started working, and received testing for moving to upper management, I was criticized for not being able to think on my feet…which was more my nature.
Soon, I was being my true self and getting promoted. Life was so much better!
Of course my dad still sees what I do with my life as a negative…wanting me to over think and over plan…but he’ll never get it…so I just ignore his comments on how to do things.
This lifestyle is sustainable.
Carrots are good for the eyes. This was WWII propaganda so the nazis didn’t realize the British had radar and explained why their pilots could see their planes from so far away.
Teachers use to say your school records will stay with you forever throughout your whole life. I think they wanted to keep the kids in line as we, as a baby boomer, always had over 40 students to a class in the 50’s and early 60’s where I lived.
Mommy birds will not abandon the baby birds if you touch them
I grew up thinking tyranny and fascism was not possible in the USA…
An ice age is coming
Actually, same for me. My parents would tell me I was going to get big swollen knuckles from cracking them. And the bubble gum thing too, lol.
That adults were all responsible. And capable of basic arithmetic
Trickle-down economics doesn’t work. Oddly enough, making the rich richer is actually bad for the rest of us.
That Florida was going to be underwater from climate change by 2003, and winters would be a thing of the past.
Happy wife, happy life. Wrong, they are never happy.
Get a dog instead, you’ll both be happy.
The United States was ALWAYS the good guys in all the wars we fought.
That you can gain weight or be obese even without consuming more calories than you use.
Turns out it’s always down to calories in vs calories out.
You’ll get cramps if you swim after eating. Or sitting too close to the TV is bad for your eyes.
Masturbating makes you blind. That is only half true, and you only start losing your vision around 45.
That quicksand is as big of a problem as seen in the movies! Nowhere nearly as fast or as abundant.
When I was learning to drive my friend told me that if a stop sign has a white rim it’s optional. My folks made me take private driving school and I ran a stop sign and my instructor slammed on the breaks. “Why didn’t you stop”? “It has a white rim it’s optional”. Turns out it’s not optional.
MSG is bad for you.
That vikings were a race of people who wore helmets with horns.
A balanced diet starts with twelve whole ass loaves of bread a day as the base of the pyramid.
9 planets.
Lemmings commit suicide by jumping off cliffs into the ocean. I think I remember seeing a film of it in school
Republicans are more fiscally responsible and better for the economy than democrats
You only use 10% of your brain, and you lose 90% of your body heat through your head
Swallowing watermelon seeds will cause a watermelon to grow inside your stomach. Turns out to not be true, but it was so convincing at the time.
That breakfast is the most important meal of the day. None of them are any more important than the others.
My first grade teacher told me blood in our veins is blue and only turns red when it is oxidized
“God loves you and has a plan for you” – that sort of thing.
I grew up hearing about how the high school or college years are the best.
I’m almost 42. My 20’s were far better than my teen years.
My 30’s were far better than my 20’s.
So far, my 40’s are shaping up to be far better than my 30’s.
I think those that relish in the past might just be bored or something.
Girls don’t fight each other. Why the lie?
Mikey died from eating pop rocks with Coke.
People who get married mean it when they make promises.
Something about hair on your palms and going blind. Wrong.
“You won’t have a calculator in your pocket in the real world.” Lol. Now everyone has that and more in their smartphone.
Quicksand will be a significant obstacle in your life.
Crossing your eyes “they’ll get stuck like that.” To this day I feel uncomfortable about crossing my eyes or seeing others do it, even though I know no one gets stuck like that. I just can’t shake the feeling that you can injure yourself.
Sitting on a cold surface will give you a bladder infection. Completely false – displaced bacteria from your rectum will give you a bladder infection.
Crossing your eyes “they’ll get stuck like that.” To this day I feel uncomfortable about crossing my eyes or seeing others do it, even though I know no one gets stuck like that. I just can’t shake the feeling that you can injure yourself.
Sitting on a cold surface will give you a bladder infection. Completely false – displaced bacteria from your rectum will give you a bladder infection.
That Pluto was a planet. We should never forget Pluto.
That It’s physically impossible for women to have a visible six-pack. Completely bullshit
Swallowed gum stays in stomach 7 years
That it’s against the law to turn on the interior car lights at night. Our parents warned us on long road trips not to do this, because the police will pull you over for that. So I thought that was true until later when I was a teenager.
That the United States is a force for good in the world. Freedom and all that shit.
That popping your knuckles will give you arthritis.
Kind of a weird one – Multiple people told me that Leslie Nielsen didn’t “Understand” the humor that made him so funny in movies like The Naked Gun, Airplane, etc, that he was just so deadpan he read the lines and didn’t understand why people laughed at it.
I recently saw a recording of his intro as host of SNL from decades ago and he understood it perfectly: “I’m going to say unfunny things in an unfunny way, and somehow, that makes it funny again.”
Marilyn Manson did not remove 2 of his ribs ( iykyk) 😂
If you say excuse me after a fart, it won’t smell.
Daddy Long Legs are the most venomous spider but they can’t pierce our skin.
That men have one fewer ribs than women.
That hydrogen peroxide is good for wounds.
pluto is a planet (to me it still is)
Paul Revere yelled “The British are coming, the British are coming”
He did not. The colonists still considered themselves as British.
That it’s really ok to go swimming right after you eat. No more waiting for an hour to let your food digest before you could back into the water.
I grew up southern Baptist, so pretty much everything about history I was taught was complete bs.
That Rod Stewart was taken to emergency and had to have a gallon of semen pumped from his stomach.
The light in the car ceiling being on will get my parents arrested
Columbus wasnt a hero, he was a bully who failed upwards, bc merica
To save the environment, we need to stop using paper products and switched to recyclables (plastic).
Sleeping with wet hair makes you sick.
Doctors say that’s false, but every time I did that as a kid (accidentally) I woke up with a sore throat! So what’s the deal? Fact or old wives tale?
my dad told me Jim Henson died of AIDS
Asking this question will yield different results than the same question asked here last month.
Holy shit! so many! Most of them are covered by others. For me:
Family is everything.
Turned out to be the biggest pile of garbage… Surround yourself with people you love and they love you back. Relation has little to do with it. It’s great when it does.
Brown sugar & honey are healthier than white sugar. It’s all sugar babes
You’ve been in the water too long if your fingers prune.
It was proven to be an evolutionary adaption that ‘pruning’ increases the surface area of finger tips so we could grab slippery things in the water.
Not really a fact, but I thought all adults were really smart and new what they were talking about.
Step on a crack, break your mamas back.
Women have more ribs, because God took one from Adam to make Eve. I was told this stupid story by some teacher in Sunday school, and carried this “fictoid” around, lurking in the back of my head, for like 30 years.
“You’re not always going to have a calculator in your pocket.”
JESUS birthday is December 25th 😐. For the love of gawd I have no idea why this really hurt my feelings when I found out the truth 🥺….
The “alpha” pack animal. Most pack animals do not have a structured hierarchy like this, they are usually much more collaborative. The one only animals that actually display the alpha model are generally grass eating prey animals.
The “I’m an alpha” gym bros will never accept this
That it was illegal to turn on the interior lights of a car while driving after dark.
Full disclosure… I told my kids the same thing when they were very young and discovered that they had that option 😳😬.
“If you make a weird face for too long your face will look like this for the rest of your life.” I was one of those kids who immediately felt encouraged to try and hold the weirdest face for as long as possible hoping my face would be like that forever.
If you ignore them they will stop