Misconceptions You Had as a Child

seltzermint555

I thought burritos were tacos and tacos were burritos. For some reason the correct names for each just did not make sense to me.

There was a big white plantation style house in the next town over and I thought Dolly Parton lived there. Seriously had that in my head until I was a teen, too.

Until I was about 11 years old, I thought any adult who drank alcohol - even had a six pack of beer in the fridge - was an alcoholic and should be feared. My parents were not drinkers, and I guess I got this idea from school somehow (?)

Also due to school programs about stranger danger, I thought any man - or even woman - might molest me at any time. When I spent the night with a friend I was on guard to fight off their dad, stepdad, brother, etc. FTR I was never in any scary situation or abused in any way. I just had this idea because of warnings from adults which I took overly seriously.

I thought Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were fine. But I was horrified by the idea of the Tooth Fairy flying around in my bedroom and coming close to my head. Also, I thought she wanted my other (permanent or still-attached) teeth, too. That didn't go over well with me.

Mostly I was just really obsessed about the specifics of things like sex, pregnancy, and childbirth. Since I (thank goodness!) hadn't experienced any of those things, but could tell that they were a mysterious taboo topic with most adults, I was utterly confused and fascinated by these topics. Luckily my mom handled it well, she was a nurse and not shy to tell me factual details or lead me to age appropriate reading materials. But I was always coming up with some crazy question, like if a woman in our neighborhood was very skinny I didn't understand how her larger husband could "do it" with her without it going all the way through her body and hurting her...LMAO, what a weird kid I know.

I was also horribly literal & DEAD SERIOUS when it came to church and Bible stories. I won't go into much detail there, but I would really work myself up into a meltdown/frenzy and it led to many meetings with various ministers and professors when I was a girl. Again I feel so lucky I had good parents during all of that, not some psychos who would have had me sent away or scheduled an exorcism for all of my religious doubts and concerns ;-) One event in particular was seeing a Harvest moon right after a Revelations story about the moon turning to blood...I was bawling my eyes out and telling my parents I didn't want to die at age eight.

theJTfitness

Not really a misconception, but I accidentally stole a peppermint from walmart when they had those candy buckets. I purposely didn't watch the local 6:00 news out of fear that I'd be on there for stealing!

Wenderzs

That street lights were controlled by people who worked under the roads pushing buttons to turn them red, yellow and green.

And my favorite is that I never understood as a child why anyone would spend the money in their wallet when they could just write on a piece of paper (a check) or hand over one of those plastic cards instead!

Sweet_Potato

When I was in Girl Scouts someone gave us tips for selling cookies. One of the sales pitches was "If you're on a diet the cookies can be frozen!". Dieting was still mysterious to me at that time, and it didn't occur to me that someone would want to preserve the cookies to be eaten after losing weight. So I assumed that freezing a cookie transformed it somehow to be lower in calories. Would have been nice if that were true!

bitxbit

The people in the TV watched me, too

That my toys played at night, after I was asleep (in truth, learned later, my mom would pick up random toys before she went to bed! WHEW... 'cause that's the stuff scary movies are made of!!)

Clowns are wicked...:noway: ... still not convinced that this is a misconception!!

My Dad's forearm scar (inner wrist towards bend of elbow, about 6" long), really was from an arrow, while fighting Indians... Yeah, well, who knew about pencils in ashtrays and car crashes?!!

The_Aly_Wei

That being on fire was going to be a common occurrence when I was an adult.

HAHAHAHA Yes I remember this and quick sand is everywhere.

^^^THIS!

Unknown

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seltzermint555

I was really young, thought the sun and the moon were the same at one point, until I saw both at once. My mind was blown.

A friend of mine, who is a former honor student, an RN and has delivered thousands of babies, and has 4 kids of her own, thought this until she was 32.

dgeorgiadis

That if you ate pop rocks and drank coke your stomach would explode.

lucylousmummy

that babies were found in the cabbage patch (and this was before cabbage patch kids came out) i was absolutely devastated when i found out they didn't

despite the fact that i lived with my dad, i thought the milkman was my real dad because he used to wave to me every morning???

whilst in infants school (year 2) some older kids told me the school toilets were haunted by a green finger, legend was the caretakers wife had died on the school field, her finger had turned gangrene, fallen off, and crept to the school toilets, where it lurked, waiting to stroke unwitting kids, and as unbelievable as that sounds it actually continuously crept me out till the school was knocked down 2 years ago (bearing in mind i'm 37 lol)

if you didn't hold your breath whilst going under a bridge, it would collapse on you

twinkles2121

I thought that blood was really blue cause thats what your veins look like, and I thought once it hit the air it turned red....lol

My mom would swear to you that this is true. :embarassed:

FoxBean

I was really young, thought the sun and the moon were the same at one point, until I saw both at once. My mind was blown.

A friend of mine, who is a former honor student, an RN and has delivered thousands of babies, and has 4 kids of her own, thought this until she was 32.

I hope she is just messing with you! :huh:

CallMeCupcakeDammit

When driving in the car at night I thought the moon and stars were moving with us.

My son thought that about the moon! He said "look Mom, the moon is following us!"

Spiderman was my boyfriend.

Hawaii and Alaska are next to each other, because they are together on the map! I'm not going to say how old I was when I realized this was not correct.

If you bring an ant-covered rock into your bedroom, the ants will stay on the rock.

I also did the mad leap from my door to my bed (until I was 20, ssshhh, don't tell!), but one time I missed and sliced my thumb open. I told a half-truth and said I fell off the bed and cut it on the bed frame.

FoxBean

I thought that blood was really blue cause thats what your veins look like, and I thought once it hit the air it turned red....lol

My mom would swear to you that this is true. :embarassed:

This is a common myth! Most well educated adults believe this, I did at one point too!

tbonethemighty

My parents used to tell me that the reason my Dad got to leave church early on Easter morning was so he could "unlock the door to let the Easter Bunny in". I threw a fit every year about why my dad was so freaking special that he got to hang out with Easter Bunny and why I couldn't meet him too... (only now in typing this am I realizing that wait, all of our eggs and baskets and whatnots were hidden around the yard/garden...which didn't have a lock...hmmm...)

RockWarrior84

the stuff on TV was real


:grumble: :grumble: :grumble: :grumble: :grumble: chuckie doll

Rivers2k

That if you ate pop rocks and drank coke your stomach would explode.

Yes I was so scared of this cause I loved pop rocks

CallMeCupcakeDammit

Lol!

One misconception that came to mind was courtesy of my puritan mother. I was told that unmarried people are unable to have children. Imagine how embarrassed I was when in 4th grade, one of my classmates said her older sister was pregnant. I of course asked who her husband was. I was told she wasn't married and I of course said it was impossible to be pregnant. The whole class completely lost it. It took several years for that incident to be forgotten by others. Thanks mom!

LOL.... I had cancer as a small child and have no ovaries, therefore no female hormes, I started taking hormone replacement medicaiton around 12 years old. My grandmother told me that I couldn't drink alcoholor use any other drugs because I took perscription medication and it would hurt me. I was like 18 and in nursing school before I figued out that what I took were the same hormones that everyother woman on the planet already had. LOL but kept me from drinking or using drugs in high school, my hat off to her!!! LOL

cuinboston2014

I also am one for the blanket needing to protect me - though I still kinda believe this and won't sleep without one

That those little pincher bugs (Idk the real name but theya re black with little clipper like things from their heads) would crawl in my ear and make me deaf. I've since been terrified of things in my ear - I react much like the guy in There's Something About Mary

That Friday the 13th required me to dress up in as many layers as possible and sleep with a squirt gun so I'd be safe

I also thought being an adult would only be fun.....

tbonethemighty

Oh yeah, and that I was going to marry Nightcrawler from the X-Men. That one actually hung on for a while into my semi-adult years...might explain why I moved to Germany, too...

GothyFaery

Sometimes the house would have a really bad smell to it and when I would ask my dad what that smell was he would say he lit the wrong end of a cigarette. It wasn't until I found his stash after he died that I realized it was pot. I was 18.

AMHouse85

Grapenuts. Why on earth would you want to turn a grape into THAT? lol

Rivers2k

Evil monsters came out at midnight looking for people who were awake.

Happilynaked

-My Grandfather was the only brown person i had ever seen until i went on vacation and saw someone black...i asked her if that happened from being at the beach for a long time before my Dad could wrangle me.

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THIS IS FUNNY!!!

Rivers2k

Grapenuts. Why on earth would you want to turn a grape into THAT? lol

LOL! I thought they would taste like grapes. I was so disappointed when my mom finally bought them.

bookworm_847

That street lights were controlled by people who worked under the roads pushing buttons to turn them red, yellow and green.

And my favorite is that I never understood as a child why anyone would spend the money in their wallet when they could just write on a piece of paper (a check) or hand over one of those plastic cards instead!

Haha, I used to think both of those things too.

I remember one night when I was little, my sister and I wanted our mom to take us out to dinner. She said she didn't have enough money, and I helpfully said, "Just write a check."

SugarBaby71

I thought that at 30 years old you were nearly dead. For real.

MissAnjy

I thought that every time you had sex you had a baby.

I went up to my friends parents once and proudly said "you've had sex two times"........

LOL

runnergirl0721

Santa was real...

There - I said it.

you mean he isnt?

wolverine66

i thought tartar sauce was made from tartar and was grossed out how anyone would want to eat a sauce scraped from people's teeth.

I still can't eat tartar sauce.