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

There was a lot of obfuscation back in the day.

"Don't go down that alleyway alone."
"Why, what will happen?"
"Never you mind!"

Or, another random conversation remembered across the years...
"Put something under that paper when you're drawing, you've no idea how much that table cost!"
"Well, what did it cost?"
"Never you mind!"

I was terrified by those ads about AIDS with the icebergs and tombstones. I thought this new disease was just floating about in the air like a cold and little me could get it. Also formed the impression that "condoms" (some sort of medicine / drug presumably) was the way to avoid this but couldn't figure out how I might get my hands on the wonder drug. Adults looked at me with a mixture of confusion, amusement and disgust and told me not to worry, but gave no clue as to why I shouldn't or what any of these words actually meant. Eventually I swiped a leaflet in the doctor's waiting room while my mum wasn't looking and that answered some questions, while raising new ones. "Men who have sex with men" was a new concept and I spent a lot of time wondering how that would work. But by then of course knew better than to ask.

At the age of 8/9, friend and I used to roam around fields a mile or so from where we lived. By one if the fields was a stable. One day we passed and one if the horses being groomed. The girl grooming her said 'Queenie, pack it in.' I was puzzled about this for weeks as I thought it was about putting Queenie in a packet.

When I was little there was a reference on TV to someone getting the sack - asked my father what this meant and instead of explaining properly he just said, "Given the boot!". I was left with the idea that someone would get put IN a sack, and then kicked around by someone in boots. And that this might happen to anyone in any workplace, at any time - but I had no idea for what possible reason. Adult life sounded very hazardous and not at all appealing.

There's an outlet on Facebook called Sweet Angles that sells, not protractor-shaped sweets as one might imagine, but desserts. Fairly sure it should read Sweet Angels, otherwise it's rather cryptic as business names go!

When I was little I always read 'Menswear' in department stores as 'Men swear', which was the funniest thing in the world to me aged about 6 or 7.

I used to get very puzzled by those road signs that say no entry 'except for access' - I'd seen the Access card ads on the telly and thought the signs meant you needed an Access card to be allowed to pass the sign.

I also remember getting quite confused at school when we started doing the Egyptians and learning about the Pharaohs; we used to have Radio 4 on a lot at home and I'd heard the shipping forecast many many times, so my brain got a bit scrambled trying to work out what the Faeroes had to do with Egypt.

Similar confusion when I first heard of the Brecon Beacons; thought they were a variant of Belisha beacons.

And epic levels of confusion reigned for a week during primary school when my teacher was reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to us in instalments, and ended one segment on (I thought) 'They say Aslan is on the moon.' I was almost disappointed to discover he was only on the move.

Ah, the never-ending inventiveness of a child's brain. 😄

Also thought people behind held by the police were in custard tanks (custody).
And couldn't understand why the IRA released statements saying they'd done X, Y, Z thing.
I was pretty sure that if I'd blown something up I wouldn't ring the police and tell them.

There's a hairdresser's in Nottingham called Public Hair. It appears that they made the same 'mistake' too!!

My dad's favourite joke - look the 'i' has fallen out of that sign! Stopped being funny when I was about 7, he still tells it 30 years later...

Likewise! I thought it must have been a giant test tube...

When Louise Brown, the first IVF baby was born, she was referred to as a “test tube” baby.

I couldn’t figure out how a baby could grow in a test tube.

I heard about a war that was going on or just began. Genuinely thought i was going to be an evacuee (sp dyslexic) the next day

New next door neighbours had a sausage dog, I'd hear them call it and thought they were calling hot bread, because you know, sausage dog. Turned out his name was Fred.

Had a furby who's batterys were running out and it was making that weird sound. Was adamant he was dying. I was distraught, in true moaning myrtle fashion.

Thought the lyrics to "away in a manger" were, "the little malteaser lay down his sweet head"

My Dad always said this. Now I know he was off to meet your Mum.😄

For many years I thought it was Public hair. I couldn't understand why something so private would be called that.
I was in my 20's when I realised it was Pubic.....

I was playing in the woods with my friend when I was about 7, we were very industriously building an awesome den. We were collecting branches, etc, and we discovered a stack of magazines that had been dumped, absolutely loads of them. We looked through them and were horrified by seeing endless pictures of people hurting each other, or more specifically, men hurting women. We were very upset by them.

We had a serious discussion, and decided that the police needed to know about the horrors in these magazines, they might be able to arrest the men and stop more women being hurt. So we nervously went to my house and told my mum and dad, and took my dad to the woods to show him the evidence. It was decided that it was time my friend to go home for tea, and the Adults would report our findings to police 👮‍♀️

I don’t remember seeing any police. I think my dad filled a couple of bin bags with the porn mags and took them to the tip… 😳 I must ask him if he remembers that, I was so innocent 😄

After seeing a nude painting of the Colossus of Rhodes I assumed men had 2 penises. Wasn't aware that the second dangly bit was the balls since I didn't even know they existed. For the longest I wondered how you decided which penis to choose when you had sex

My son (6) thinks killing somone is hitting them

Wait, it doesn't?

When she was small my daughter thought there was a man sitting on the other side of the ATM, counting out money.
My younger daughter insisted she was older than her sister because her birthday was first in the year.

When I was quite young if I heard my mother saying to another woman that somebody had lost her baby I thought she'd just been careless.
The Easter hymn 'There is a green hill far away, without a city wall' puzzled me because I didn't see why a green hill would need a city wall in the first place.

The age you hit ‘middle age’.

As a child I thought it was somewhere around 24…..

@blubberball I just posted the same thing and hadn't read yours. At least I wasn't the only one

When I was walking through a field with my grandad, I saw a 'trespassers will be prosecuted' sign and asked what is a trespasser. He told me, and said that we were technically trespassing. I didn't ask what prosecuted meant because i thought i knew, but mixed it up with 'executed'. Even worse, my understanding of executed was beheaded, so I thought some crazy guards would come running out and chop my head off if I was seen! I became terrified of walking through the fields after that.

Having read William Tell at the age of 6, with the "cruel governor" (Ladybird book), I thought all "government" was cruel. Sometimes now, I think I was right.

I used to think that the adults in charge were competent and knew what they were doing

I thought prosecuted meant the same as executed. So I worried about accidentally going into a field that said Trespassers will be prosecuted, and being shot, hung or beheaded