Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Random things you believed as a child light hearted

241 replies

NimbleHiker · 14/02/2026 15:36

I thought that my neighbours were moving their furniture about when it thundered. I thought that the moon was made of cheese. I thought that periods started on the first day of each month.

OP posts:
BigBrownBoogyingBear · 15/02/2026 14:16

I also thought the channel tunnel was a tunnel under the sea, sitting on the sea bed. Rather than a tunnel under the ground under the sea.

BigBrownBoogyingBear · 15/02/2026 14:12

I thought Margaret Thatcher was married to Arthur Scargill. I felt really sorry for them having such an unhappy marriage. I'd have been around 7 years old at the time!

OSTMusTisNT · 15/02/2026 14:11

NinaGeiger · 14/02/2026 20:57

I thought twin towns had exactly the same layout, so like if one town built a new housing estate, the twin town had to as well

I thought Town Twinning was something to do with herbal tea bags well into my teenage years!

OSTMusTisNT · 15/02/2026 14:09

WalkDontWalk · 15/02/2026 12:39

I thought that there was a village - and I could picture it very clearly - called Mowermeadow, where one man and his dog went.

Whoa, so Mowingmeadow isn't a place? Oops 😆

OSTMusTisNT · 15/02/2026 14:07

I can remember seeing vouchers or coupons in the newspaper, magazines, cereal boxes etc that were mean to be cut out and filled in. They always had a dotted line round the border with an image of scissors obviously indicating which bit you were meant to cut round.

I must have only been about 2 but I remember pointing and saying "cut, cut". In my head I was asking if the image of the scissors was a real pair of scissors but whoever I asked didn't speak toddler and answered something like "yes, you can use scissors to cut".

For years after, I was convinced that image of the scissors somehow came to life with adult magic and would cut the coupon out, I tried so many times to magic that picture into real scissors and funnily enough never managed it 😳.

IlovePond · 15/02/2026 14:00

I also thought guerilla warfare was ‘gorilla’.

Mind you, I also thought the Cod War was rival groups of fish fighting! (In my defence, this belief was fuelled by a line drawing in the local paper that always accompanied regular updates on the issue, which had two cod facing off whilst looking very annoyed!)

ChimpanzeeThatMonkeyNews · 15/02/2026 13:24

Onefortheroad25 · 15/02/2026 11:36

Salt cooled your food. My brother told me this and I believed him.

Where had he heard that, or was he just messing with you?

igelkott2026 · 15/02/2026 13:22

Diversion · 14/02/2026 23:07

That when Guerrillas were mentioned on the news that they were the monkey kind of gorillas and I could never quite understand why they were involved in war

Same!

Original poster
NimbleHiker · 15/02/2026 13:11

I thought that it was against the law not to have a roast dinner on a Sunday. I can still remember going to the seaside on a Sunday when i was 6. I was convinced that we would get arrested because we had fish and chips for dinner.

OP posts:
amusedbush · 15/02/2026 12:47

I was shockingly old when I realised that Stars in their Eyes was edited, and people didn't immediately transform into pop stars when they walked through the doors Blush

WalkDontWalk · 15/02/2026 12:39

I thought that there was a village - and I could picture it very clearly - called Mowermeadow, where one man and his dog went.

BeGentleMentor · 15/02/2026 11:45

I thought everyone that was married was married to someone the same age as them.

My Aunt was not happy when I commented about her being 50 because we'd just had a 50th party for her DH and she was only 35!

sueelleker · 15/02/2026 11:41

When little, and sitting upstairs on the front seat of a bus, I thought the traffic coming towards us was going under the bus. I couldn't see it going past us.

ABeerInTheSunshineMakesMeHappy · 15/02/2026 11:39

Diversion · 14/02/2026 23:07

That when Guerrillas were mentioned on the news that they were the monkey kind of gorillas and I could never quite understand why they were involved in war

I imagine a lot of us thought that - possibly to an age when we should have known better!

Onefortheroad25 · 15/02/2026 11:36

Salt cooled your food. My brother told me this and I believed him.

ABeerInTheSunshineMakesMeHappy · 15/02/2026 11:30

budgiegirl · 14/02/2026 18:17

Up until I was about 10, I thought I was born in Warsaw, Poland. I was very disappointed when I found out I was born in Walsall (sorry, Walsall)

I thought that Public Weighbridge was a town. I was definitely older than I should have been when I realised it wasn't.

I remember when I was at primary school our class was read a story about some children who came from Warsaw. I think the story was about them escaping the nazis and it seemed a rather frightening place to live, which really confused me as I knew that we went there every year to see the illuminations at the arboretum (in Walsall).

WhatASmashingBlouseYouHaveOn · 15/02/2026 11:09

A classic that I dont think anyone has mentioned. My grandad told me if you're pulling a face, if the wind changes direction it will stay that way. I was terrified of it and thought id spend the rest of my life like that, so it worked!

MelancholyEnchantment · 15/02/2026 10:35

My brother convinced me that people on TV were replaced by robots as the real people had to be stored away so that they could be shown again (I was very little at the time). So when mum was interviewed for a vox pop, I kept screaming "I don't want a mechanical mummy!".

starrynight009 · 15/02/2026 09:57

That if you drink cola and then eat a polo your stomach will explode.

sashh · 15/02/2026 09:51

I blame RC schools for this but I couldn't understand why people were upset when someone died because now they would be in heaven.

Jimmyneutronsforehead · 15/02/2026 09:31

This is very outing, so hi Mum!

When I was 5 we went on a caravan holiday with my grandparents and my great grandmother.

We'd just come back from the tiger club, and my great grandmother told me to draw the curtains. I was frantically looking round for a pen and a piece of paper, and she just kept barking "draw the curtains!" at me. I'd never been so panicked in my 5 years of life so I grabbed one of those CD marker pens and drew a pair of curtains on the caravan table. Anything to stop the vicious barking.

When my mum came in she saw I'd drawn all over the table and sent me to bed.

When she came in and asked why I'd done it, I said great grandma shouted at me to draw the curtains she burst out laughing.

It wasn't actually until years later that I learned that draw the curtains meant close the curtains.

EleanorReally · 15/02/2026 09:27

white bread sends dogs mad,
in fact brown bad is worse for their digestion

EleanorReally · 15/02/2026 09:26

our cat ran away to get married.

Dbank · 15/02/2026 09:25

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 14/02/2026 17:39

I think it is.
I also thought that because I could see the people on telly then they must be able to see me too. And spent a good long while holding a grudge against the late Terry Wogan because I waved at him once during an episode of his chat show and he never waved back.

Show quote history

Likewise, but it was the newsreader Gordon Honeycombe. I knew they were watching me because they had the shots in the gallery where you could see all the monitors.

TheFutureIs · 15/02/2026 09:13

I thought drink driving meant someone was driving along sipping on an alcoholic drink

Swipe left for the next trending thread