What misconceptions did you have as a child?

[Geekster1963]

I always used to think that a 99 Ice cream was called that because it cost 99p. If only it did cost that now. I used to think Pubs that said ‘free house’ on them meant you got free drinks.

I use to think earwigs would burrow in to my ears on a night I also use to think I would really miss school as an adult, when I ever said I hated school I would always get you’ll wish you were back in 10 years.. to this day I have never wished to be back at school 😂

I thought babies were made by rubbing belly buttons with someone!

My mum is a doctor but I learned about the facts of life from the boy in school who had learned from a teenage brother.

Honestly I’m really not stupid- I outed my parents about Santa’s existence when I was 4!

But..... I did believe all dogs were male and all cats were female until about age 7

Not when I was a child, more teenager. I though that you could easily get pregnant just by having sex.

MAN was I wrong! No one tells you that actually it is near on impossible. even if you have 'normal' fertility the odds are against you.

I'm surprised anyone gets pregnant quite frankly.

I used to believe dustbin men only worked on the days they collected my rubbish.

Thought it was an awesome job as they only had to work one day a week

I used to think that all people who spoke a foreign language thought in English and just could translate really quickly.

My brother used to think they made up the news. Come to think of it...

moonlight I used to think the same about people thinking in English and translating all the time. I remember being impressed by a little kid on holiday speaking in a different language!

I used to think that adults with jobs got a long holiday in the summer like you did at school and didn't have to work for those weeks.

@vampirethriller
I thought cul de sac was a dirty word, no idea why though.
“Cul” does mean arse in French, do you think that someone once told you that maybe?

Bit of a regional one here but in scotland we talk about “links” sausages to distinguish them from square sausage (which is a bit like a McD sausage patty). I thought that my Mum was talking about “Lynx” sausages and they were made from a rare and beautiful wild cat! Did NOT eat them.

I thought tea was for women and coffee was for men (because my dad drinks coffee and my mum drinks tea). I was astonished when the big manly builders who came to do our extension drank tea, like ladies!

I thought that a beer garden had enormous (six foot tall) glasses of beer in them.

That a sleeping policeman really was a sleeping policeman.

I thought a coma was a special bed they put you in when you were really ill (kind of like a giant version of NICU beds), after hearing that people were 'in a coma' or 'put into a coma'.

And I'm another who thought all people thought in English and translated to their own languages.

Genuinely believed bitching/bullying was a child/teen thing and did not exist once over the age of 20 or so.

I used to think 'lingerie' was pronounced lin-ger-ee and always got confused in the lingerie section in M&S as I thought laungereet was a separate word and what's this lin-ger-ee word mean? Makes sense in my head anyway.

The revelation when I realised it was a french word, my goodness!

@Frazzlerock - totally! I'm sure we learned it properly in biology lessons but maybe parents and teachers gave that impression in the hopes of sparing us all a lot of trouble. Despite taking precautions, I lived in absolute dread that it could happen any time.

Although to be fair, with irregular cycles and frequent, frantic, furtive sessions, teens probably do have a better than average chance.

That Pukka Pies were filled with puke 🤢 genuinely believed it till I was about 18

I remember being convinced for years that the sky made noises at night, eventually my mum explained it was the M6 I could hear, and that I just didn’t notice it in the day!

I too was freaked out by the policemen sleeping inside speed bumps!

I thought for a baddie to be arrested, he had to lie on his back on the ground with an Alsatian standing over him, its front paws on one side and its back paws on the other.

GoodbyeSummer I recently had to disabuse DS of the notion that all the bands on the radio were live and took it in turns to go into the studio and play. He had come running in all excited to tell me David Bowie wasn't dead at all - he was on the radio right now!

I did, as a child, believe that Australia was in the Actual Future rather than a different time zone. I always wondered why they didn't warn us about bad stuff that was about to happen.

That there were massive letters all over the world spelling out place names and some in the sea, like there were on maps! I wondered why I never saw any!

There was also the time when I was watching an old musical with my Nan - "how come they all know the song and dance and can join in just like that?" I didn't realise it was all rehearsed and filmed over months etc, I thought the people all just turned up and went with the flow, haha.

As a child I used to believe that if you hurt yourself, say grazed your knee, then anyone touching it could feel the pain too. I was always saying to my mum "touch it mum" if I bumped or grazed myself, and then I'd look at her face for her reaction to the pain I was feeling.

That girls and boys had different ages they could be. It actually made no sense and wasn't even girls were odds/evens and vice versa. It was just certain numbers for each!!

I also thought a man had to be older than a woman he was married to, I still remember being shocked when I found out my dad was younger than my mum

That pylons could electrocute you just by you getting near. Thanks, public information films.

As a child I thought that my parents were lying when they said I would grow up🙈I thought I would stay a child forever and that adults were put on the earth as adults and children remained children!
Also didn't understand the digestive system very well as I thought that everything I ate just built up in my body and that one day all the food would be up to my throat

Another one! I thought that little people lived in the traffic lights and that's how they changed!