What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?

My gran told me whilst visiting my dying mum in hospital my mum looked at me and said I wasn't the pretty little girl I used to be. I was 13 months old at the time. For the majority of my life this crushed me until I realised that my grandmother, being much much older, didn't believe in ribbons and bows and pretty clothes. Mum meant it in that way and it wasn't a rejection of her baby.
At least that's my feeling now although a tiny bit of me still feels crushed if I'm honest.

Oh my God!!! Really?! My eyes have been opened! I can't believe I never knew this UNTIL TODAY! HA HA ha 😂 For years I've thought....What?! Why?! Why is she kissing Santa? What about Mrs Claus?! Didn't think he was that sort of bloke! Thank you! 😂

I recall driving through an industrial estate and seeing a huge sign TOILET, I commented about it to OH. He pointed out that some wit had inserted an I between To Let!

I used to do exactly the same thing! I was about 24 when the penny dropped 😬

I love this! Made for each other!

I have a friend who as a little boy, wrote to his Uncle Brian and Aunt Margaret to thank them for a birthday present. He wrote, "Dear Brain and Maggot". 😂

My brother spent ages studying a map looking for Random, the place where organisers went to draw the winner, as in The winner's name was drawn at random.
The same brother, years older, was looking at a road atlas of Germany when he came to visit, he couldn't find the big city of Ausfahrt, hardly surprising as it means Exit.
More than one person new to Germany would park their car then not be able to find it, but they knew the street where they'd parked it, Einbahnstrasse, sadly that means one-way street!

Me too! It used to worry me so much!

I had read Prudence by Jilly Cooper when I was around 12 and took from that parquet flooring was pronounced parkwet and Canapés rhymed with apes. I went to a fancy party in my 20’s when I lived in London and they had parkwet flooring and lovely canapes, they all laughed there tits off at my gaucheness. My friend still only calls canapé’s canapes to this day he sends me pictures of his dainty pasty bits with a picture of a monkey.

in a sense it is, the root of sit & situation are the same!

I only ever heard the words 'dual carriageway' said and not written down, so I thought it was a Jewel Carriegway.

The extent my imagination went to. I pictured a long gold road with jewels and diamonds all down it, glinting in the winter sun, emeralds and golds scattered amongst sparkling silver trees.

My grandparents said we'd have to go on the Jewel Carriageway to go to the shopping centre to get me new school shoes.

Imagine my disappointment, dear reader, when my grandad turned the engine off having driven us to the shopping centre. I asked when we were going on the Jewel Carriageway. Utter devastation when he told me we already had. My life was downhill from there tbh.

That the two elderly ladies in the bungalow opposite us weren't just friends who house-shared 😁. (Good on 'em!)

I thought this too! Such a shock to find out that it was continuous! I think I kind of told myself that sanitary towels were just there as some kind of back up between toilet trips.

Ah that's so sweet. I remember thinking that I would marry potatoes when I grew up because I loved them. Shame we can't marry our dogs really! They'd never let us down!

SERRA-mix or ser-A-mix? (Link to 1m18s clip of Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep)

or "Seura MIKE" I read it like that.

If we asked our Mum what was for dinner, she used to either say, "Pig's head and marmalade', 'Three leaps at the larder door', or ''Bread and pull it'. She thought each one was hysterical 🤣

Me too! I remember Princess Diana being on the news and she had short hair, wore normal clothes and....shock horror.....drove a car! It blew my mind when I saw a picture of her in a pair of trousers! I thought that all princesses lived in towers or castles. 😂 I remember visiting my Aunt in London when I was tiny. She was a childminder and had a little boy with her that she was looking after. He told us that Lady Diana was his pre-school teacher. I knew that she was soon to be married to Prince Charles and I couldn't work out what she was doing having a job and not being rescued from dragons!!!

My mother used to say "Don't worry - it's only the angels moving the furniture about."

You're right, that is what it means - but it is not how I understood it as a child

Mommy is kissing Daddy, dressed as Santa!

I had friends who were twins. They used to have separate birthday parties at their house on successive Saturdays. I thought these were their actual birthdays and that their mum had been in labour for a week.

Someone is going to have to explain this to me! (Shameful 50 year old embarrassed shuffle!)

My Dad was Irish and at his Catholic school in Ireland they had to recite the sacraments...."Baptism, Confession, First Communion, etc." The last one on the list was "Matrimony". For years he thought they were all saying, "Bags of Money." I remember him telling me that he couldn't wait to grow up so that he could go to church and be presented with his bags of money. 😂

They also used to have the recite the prayer "Hail Mary". In the part that goes, "Blessed art thou amongst women", he thought they were all saying, "Blessed art thou a monk swimming". 😂 😂

I may be wrong but I think she meant that she thought that Nitty Nora could only tell her to do her laces up after having looked at her head first. As if looking at her head was a prerequisite for giving the order to do laces up!

Awww thank you! Glad it made you laugh. 😀 My Mum and I still laugh about it now. I was so scared. I also couldn't work out how the teacher was so calm and jolly about it all.😂 🤣