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AIBU?

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Original poster

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

806 replies

Carryonrunning · 24/01/2025 08:53

Was just chatting to a friend about this:

  1. Hearing all the boys in class talking about how a girl’s tampon fell out in the classroom. Lived in fear of this for many years before I realised they meant it fell out of her bag, not her body!

  2. Opening the door of a sauna with my cousin (which was right in the middle of the spa area, so not private) on holiday in a nice hotel and my uncle inside shouting at us to close the door. I cried for weeks thinking I’d inadvertently seen him naked (although I didn’t actually see anything). Couldn’t look at him for years without feeling sick before I was old enough to realise we were just letting the heat out and annoying the other people in there! No one was naked in mixed sauna in the very public pool area of a nice spa hotel full of people!

OP posts:
BlossomCat · 24/01/2025 09:22

My dad came home from work one day with a hessian sack he'd acquired from somewhere. He then told my mum, 'I've been given the sack'
It took me years to realise that a) he was joking and b) you don't get given an actual sack when you lose your job.

VanCleefArpels · 24/01/2025 09:17

That the men who used to offer to push us on the swings at the play park may not have been entirely altruistic in their intentions 😬

Flustration · 24/01/2025 09:15

As a young child I thought you became an adult at 100 years old. Imagine my shock when someone at primary school told me it was just 18. I had a full on existential crisis when I realised most people don't even live to 100!

Seeline · 24/01/2025 09:11

My family didn't have a car, so my main experience of driving when I was really young was my grandad. He only drove us occasionally and from these rare experiences I worked out that the white line in the road was a guideline to keep you straight - a wheel each side of it. When I got to about 8 I began to wonder how cars going in opposite directions could both straddle the centre line without crashing.

As I got older I realised my grandad was a really bad driver 😆

CynicalSunni · 24/01/2025 09:10

I used to think the the song 'i got my my set on you' by george harrison was about adoption.
I mean it said takes patience, money etc. But mainly cause he said child haha.

JohnLapsleyParlabane · 24/01/2025 08:54

Thinking my dad was "fun" and mum was "boring". Actually he was (is) a drunk and a nasty one at that.