What were your assumptions about the world as a child?

Love this thread. I worried about human combustion after seeing it in a book, the photo of only the leg remaining... I was convinced there were little people in the back of the TV doing all of the acting, was very disappointed when the TV repair man came and took the back off and all I could see was wires…

I love this - perfect example of how kid brains work.

I thought that the expression "it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, it's what's inside that matters", meant that having good-looking insides (guts and stuff) was more important because that's what makes you healthy.

I thought politicians and leaders were the most trustworthy and honest people and that's why they had those jobs.

I also used to think rules given to me were universal rules so I often got confused when I told an adult off for something I had been told off for and I got more punishments for doing that.

Oh no, I am so invested in this thread now!
Why did we all worry about the Bermuda triangle? It would only ever be a problem if we went there, I can't remember many families going for a jolly around the Bermuda triangle 😆

Also, yes to death by quicksand, train tracks (I lived in the middle of no where, I did even see a train track until I was an adult! ) and overhead power lines....basically lots of unlikely ways to die would get me.
I also believed in Werewolves but if I slept with my head under the covers I should be okay.

I thought older people had always been old, couldn't imagine my Grand Parents ever going to school or 'courting' during WW2.

That’s adults had life figured out, no they were just winging it!

That the Bermuda Triangle would feature far heavier in my life than it actually has!

I really wish this was true .

That there was a good chance I would die of spontaneous human combustion. I was obsessed with the weird little stories in the Readers Digest and loved Fortean Times (I was an odd little soul!)
I also wholeheartedly believed being an adult would be amazing.....all of the things I could choose to do or not do! Basically I have created so many rules for myself in my head I might as well be a child, I'm just parenting myself and as it turns out I am rather strict and not much fun. I parent my actual children very differently obviously but for me the rules are ever present and very hard to maintain.

You and me obviously watch Blue Peter in the same era 🐕 .

I am glad I am not the only one that had concerns about quick sand.

I had forgotten about the Bermuda triangle fear so I am now thinking about that and have the song going around my head too , thanks ! 😵‍💫

When I was really little, I thought the only religions were Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Judaism. I grew up in the American Midwest. 🙂

I thought all squirrels were red.

That nuns were fictional or extinct or something. My flabber was truly gasted when one sat next to me on the bus (I was late teens too 😳)

From the age of nine until maybe eleven, I thought gay men had sex by somehow pushing one man’s penis into the opening of his partner’s penis, and I thought lesbians had sex by somehow pushing one woman’s vulva into the other’s vagina.

As a disabled child I genuinely believed I would have the same opportunities as everyone else and be seen for who I am and what I can do. It has not been the case

That all wars would stop by the time I was an adult because people would realise they were obviously a bad idea.

Oh gosh, yes I had forgotten all about the Bermuda Triangle! Spent many a night awake as a child in the 90s thinking incessantly (and clearly unnecessarily) about this! Don’t think I’ve heard anyone mention the Bermuda Triangle for a good two decades now!

I thought that everyone who died would be on the news. Not like, national news top headline. But local news “and finally, 90 year old Jane Smith died today of natural causes.”

Oh yes, I remember Quick Sand, often appearing as a threat on TV. I think it was The Land of The Giants.

Funnily enough, my ambition was to have a nice four bedroomed house on the sea front, a husband who was something like a bank manager or GP, to be a SAHM and have my own little run around car. Looking back that would have bored me rigid.

I had no ambition whatsoever but all my friends who were going to be actresses or artists or have creative jobs in London, and who were academicially clever and did all their homework, stayed at home or went back home and had lives not unlike the one I described above but with possibly a bit less money

I also thought that I was collecting foil to cure dogs of blindness and wondered how on Earth the foil helped fix their eyes 😂

I took everything at face value. I thought (though was puzzled by) it that actors who were killed in films really died. I also believed that newspapers printed truth - my wake-up call was when Greville Wynn, a businessman who travelled to Russia and arrested as a spy, turned out to be really a spy. Our newspapers had protested vociferously and indignantly that he wasn't.

That wars were only stories.

I thought that the only countries were the UK, France ,Germany and USA. I knew of the Bermuda Triangle and worried about it for about 75% of each day in case it expanded 😂

I also was terrified of dying in quicksand (in rural Hampshire). Also thought getting cut off by the tide was highly likely. Think I read too much Enid Blyton.