What were your assumptions about the world as a child?

The TV one really made me smile.

I assumed for years that my dad worked in a mug factory, because he once brought home a Charles and Di mug “from work”.
I also assumed all the proper grown ups I had met (teachers, doctors, mums boss etc) all knew each other and had meetings.
I think also there was a strong assumption in the 80s that nuclear war was just inevitable. You don’t hear that so much now, even though it’s actually more likely to be true!

Honestly, maybe having emotionally-neglectful, immature parents who thought the world was hostile and stacked against them, and whose main ambition for their children was to never stand out from the crowd may have been a boon. I expected my adult life to be awful, and it’s been way better than I expected.

I thought when I was ten or eleven I had to leave school at 15, get a job in a shop, marry one of the boys on the estate and be a SAHM while hoping he didn’t drink, beat me or end up in prison.

Discovering that in fact university wasn’t ’just for rich people’ (my parents, who lived two miles from a famously pretty campus, thought that peoole like them weren’t allowed inside the gates and tried to persuade me not to apply because I looked like I had ideas above my station) and that I was clever enough to beat the private school boys to a scholarship was better than anything I ever dreamed of for myself. (Because my dreams were so cramped, rather thsn because my adult life has been one long glory, I mean…)

That people who got married planned it all out logically and stuck to it (I was a very sheltered child and rocked to the core when my parents split when I was 24).

I actually used to lie in bed when I was about 5/6 thinking to myself who will I get married to? And worrying that I didn't want to marry any of the boys I knew!

Joke's on me anyway. 35 and still unmarried (ltr though).

When I was a very small child I thought all adults were really good people. I truly believed they all were honest and lovely and trustworthy. I don’t know why I thought that because I was definitely taught stranger danger both at home and at school.

Good things happened to good people. Bad things happened to bad people. The police always caught the baddies and they went to prison, justice always prevailed.

doctors could always make you better and save your lives.

if you worked hard you’d have a fairly comfortable life

Travelling in the car one day I must have asked too many questions by the time I asked Mum why she drove around dicarded bags in the road rather than over them. Her irritated reply "you don't know what's in them, it could be a brick or anything." Whenever I later saw a discarded bag in the road I wondered why people threw bags containing bricks into the road, 50 years later I still drive around bags, just in case.

I thought I'd live in a BIG house, beautifully decorated and furnished (even knew what colours i'd have) and would have some land and stables. I would have loads of clothes (that bit is true!) including riding outfits and would spend my time as a well dressed lady of leisure and riding in my spare time.
What my husband would be like didn't figure much in my plans. just aswell as my real life one jumped ship after we decided we weren't suited.
So never got the manor or the horses but life isn't so bad!

Ah, that would make a lot more sense!

I don’t think there’s any quicksand in Blyton! I now desperately want to know where so many people got their childhood fear of quicksand….

Quick sand was a real danger! I have Never ending story to thank for that, it scarred me for life. And I still think about quicksand every time I go to the beach.

Yes definitely this.

I would have a nice house, holidays each year and be married in my 20s and true love was easy find. All jobs paid well and everyone lived where they grew up.

mid 40s. Met DP 5 years ago, no kids as didn’t want them. Just bought a nice house and I need save for everything. Adulting sucks. My parents made it look easy

I thought that the usa was a shopping centre. When there was a death in a film i thought that the actor was dead in real life. I thought that a general anesthetic wouldn't work when i had an operation. When it thundered i thought that my neighbours were moving their furniture about.

I was absolutely convinced that I would become a marine biologist working in Bermuda (as if that was a legit career option for anyone and everyone) and that the ship I was working from would just sort of go under as if a big bath plug was pulled!

That when cats stayed out all night it was because it was one of there cat friends party.
That if I got a whiff of prick stick I’d end up like zamo from Grange Hill. (Due to a terrifying glue sniffing advert)
That you got AIDS from eating dirt. (I remember being really worried about this)
That Pipes from Ghostwatch 1992 was very real, this scared the life out of me,

That it would end in nuclear apocalypse. I wanted so badly to live in Lewisham because as we drove to my Nana’s house there were signs saying it was a nuclear free zone. 70’s child.

Also that baited breath meant that person hadn’t cleaned their teeth.

That I would help the police solve a baffling murder ( I read lots of famous 5 and secret 7 books )

So did I! I still have a tendency to wonder if the police have thought of following a (usually fairly obvious) line of enquiry, if a case is in the news.

That everybody's family was like mine.

I remember hearing on the news that gorillas (guerillas) were being armed in the jungle. Couldn't work out how big monkeys would have been taught to shoot gun. Or why they would want to.
Spontaneous combustion occupied more of my free time than it should
I had a book which featured SHC over 3 or four reports. Including photos. I spent a ludicrous amount of time surreptitiously tying to smell myself to see whether I had started to smoulder

That your driving test consisted of driving one way with an instructor showing you what to do, you drove home then got to keep the car as you could now drive.

The quick sand thing completely! I’m sure most of us were convinced (in the 90s anyway) we would grow up with this being a dangerous hazard at any beach we went too!

Finally that teachers were the most clever, sensible grown ups and knew everything. One look at my teacher husband tells me that is very much not the case 🤣

Me too @DeanStockwelll Adulthood has had a few nasty lessons for me

I thought that when the radio or TV were on that there were miniature people performing inside the sets.

I was rudely shocked out of this once aged about 9 when someone told me David Bowie was not playing a live gig inside my TV.

I believed that the boogie man was real.
I also that if I ate fruit seeds I would grow an endless supply of fruit. I was disappointed many times ✖️

I thought everyone on TV must be a nice person otherwise they wouldn't be allowed on TV. It was the 80s the height of Jimmy Savilles fame 😞

I knew someone who thought that cartoons were performed by actors in dress-up. He thought that the people in costumes at Disney World were the actual actors in Mickey Mouse and Cinderella on the TV.