What crazy things did you believe as a child?

[SinkGirl]

Just been discussing this with DH after realising that DT1 thinks that putting on his coat in the morning magically makes the school bus appear.

We were remembering things we believed as children, some courtesy of adult fibs but others... who knows?

Here’s some of ours:

• That the kidneys in steak and kidney pie are not actually kidneys, they just have the same name
• That the moon is only a few metres above our heads (blame the grandparent who said the moon was the same size as the dining table, plus child logic)
• That all cats are female and all dogs are male, or (much weirder) that poos are gentlemen and wees are ladies (this was me, and I have literally no idea where this came from - I even remember imagining a cartoon poo in a top hat, so I’m wondering if it was something I saw in a book?)

Obviously aside from Santa, Easter bunny etc, what obviously bonkers things did you believe as a child?

I believed if you so much as looked at a pylon you would die and that next door’s budgie would give me rabies.
( thanks 1970s Public Information films).

The road works sign for as a warning about umbrellas, my grandfather told me that as a little kid and I believed him for years

I can’t believe that I thought the world was black and white, just because the pictures were. Still not 100% sure on that 😂

That Jesus grew very quickly, he was born in Dec and died as a man around April (All in the same year)

That if you picked dandelions it would make you wet the bed. And that thunder was caused by clouds banging together.

That every body saw things in black and white up until about 1939. (Which is why all the old films were shot in black and white.) I even once asked my grandma at what age she began to see in colour?.

That purple jelly beans, jelly babies and purple opal fruits were poisonious.

That grandparents were just random old people who were assigned to you at birth. I remember thinking one day. Why were these two people my grandparents and not Mr.and.Mrs Wadsworth (the elderly couple who live next door to them.) Then one day I heard my mum calling my grandma mum and I was like 'Is she your mum then?' and they couldn't believe I didn't already know that. The sad thing is I could have even been 5 or 6 at the time.

That there was an all-powerful old man in the sky who had a big beard, and he invented the world in just seven days.....

That if you stood outside (preferably next to some trees) and held your index finger out a bird would land on it too much Disney

I do actually remember when I was about 6 years old that I had an ongoing secret project to prove that I could fly by jumping off the arm of the sofa armed with things like: an umbrella, a couple of balloons (not even Helium filled), a kite I made from an A4 paper, sellotape and drinking straws, flapping two random feathers, a bin bag, the poorly blanket. Thick as mince.

My dad told us the small industrial unit down the road was the glue factory - where they turned horses into glue. “If you don’t behave, I’ll send you up the glue factory”
The year I got a tape recorder for Christmas he left a message on it from ‘Father Christmas’ which I believed for a long time!

I thought there was a little man living in the piano who pulled the strings inside.

I can't for the life of me remember the term - possibly meta awareness? - that describes knowing that something exists when you can't see it, but I genuinely believed that people and things only existed when I was there for much longer than is typical as a child/young teen.

I was diagnosed with autism in my early 30s and this is apparently a fairly typical trait, but realising that other things existed without my being there weirded me out.

@MrsBobDylan

My lovely little six year old told me yesterday that he was hoping by to be chosen as 'Class Ambassador' at school today. I told him that there were 29 other children who could get it and that he shouldn't get his hopes up.

He told me that he can make things happen just by thinking about it and wanting it and that was his plan.

Well today readers, he got his wish and probably thinks he has magic powers 😂

He might well be right! Positive thoughts do get results. Kudos to your lad. Xx

I woke up from a really vivid dream when I was small, then spent the rest of the night worrying that someone else was having a really intense dream and I wasn’t real.

@AgeLikeWine yep.

i used to worry about the radio DJ when my parents played tapes in the car. i thought he just had to sit in the dark and wait until he was needed to talk again.

as an added bonus, one of their tapes had Helen Reddy’s ‘Angie Baby’ which terrified me with the idea that if you were in a room and someone turned the radio down you would be sucked into the floor.

i was an anxious child. my greatest fear was the werewolf that hid downstairs at night waiting for me to go for a wee so it could gallop up the stairs and eat me on my way back to my bedroom. i’m still a little bit scared of that.

That you literally couldn't conceive unless married - catholic upbringing

That if I ate apple seeds a small apple tree would grow inside me and make me constipated - mums fault

I already had curly hair so wasn't fussed about crusts but this one made my sister refuse to eat hers when she was told it by a dinner lady cos she DIDN'T want hair like mine can't say as I blame her!

That wishing bad things on people would make them come true - parents! Eg "I wish the earth would swallow you up" said in an argument would make it come true

All my grandparents and quite a few aunts and uncles were called by nicknames by me, siblings and cousins. They were...unflattering...some of them yet tolerated and even viewed endearingly within the family but the result was a combination of

I didn't learn some relatives official names until adulthood!

I (and the others of my generation) caused them to be teased/mocked by neighbours etc as we'd just quite openly say "right I'm off in granny knobbly knees (not a real nickname) has my dinner ready" we were quite young when doing this and so had no idea it was unpleasant and as I say the relatives we used these names on had no issue with it. Often came about due to the "babies" not being able to pronounce their proper names plus some duplicated names causing confusion

That Margaret Thatcher and Arthur Scargill were married!
Think that's my favourite so far!

I can't for the life of me remember the term - possibly meta awareness? - that describes knowing that something exists when you can't see it, but I genuinely believed that people and things only existed when I was there for much longer than is typical as a child/young teen. tbh I still have my doubts on this one, you lot could all be figments of my imagination for all I know

I was diagnosed with autism in my early 30s and this is apparently a fairly typical trait, but realising that other things existed without my being there weirded me out.

Ohh interesting. I have ocd dx and several mh hcps and my current gp have all said they suspect I may have Aspergers never been tested though I'm 48

I regularly have dreams where I just have a normal day in the dream, go to sleep in the dream then when I wake up I'm not sure if I'm still dreaming or really awake

I also had times I believed I was being watched/recorded at all times that everyone was. Whoever wrote "the Truman show"basically obviously had the very same idea. And the film cams out waaay after I was having those thoughts! So I wonder if they're actually very common?

I believed that babies were born out of the mothers belly button up until I was about 9/10! Never put any thought into how it would have got in there - just thought that the pregnant belly kept growing until the button popped open!

In fairness, I was taught by nuns in our very Catholic school, can't imagine even the most basic sex education would have gone down well.

EarthWonderer

That when I asked my dad where he'd been and his reply was 'up a tree in the park' aka mind your own business I really thought he had been.
We had the opposite of this. Whenever we asked where we were going/where Mum had been she said Timbuktu. As we never went to Timbuktu I assumed it was a made up place. I was most surprised when I found it on a map

I thought that Doctors and Nurses were the same job, but men were called Doctors and ladies were nurses.

Believing the world was black and white seems to be very common. My dc asked my Mum if she was confused when she woke up and the world was suddenly in colour.

To a girl to make a baby, a girl's belly button had to touch a boy's belly button....

When we used to ask for things my mum would say, yes, you can have that when my boat comes - I assumed the boat was the Titanic. I thought my mum's wealth was at the bottom of the sea, in goblets and jewels and one day, they would raise the Titanic and we would be rich. I worried about it becoming fragile over time and it never being raised so our riches would never be recovered.

When I was very little I made a determined effort to get behind our big old ‘wireless’, to see the little people who were talking.
Oh, the disappointment on seeing just wits and light bulbs!

The first crushing disillusionment of my life. 😄

Wires and lightbulbs!

I believed there was another land at the back of my wardrobe (too much The lion the witch and the wardrobe). I also used to look out for witches (after reading the witches by Roald Dahl), I was very influenced by books😬.

Oh yeah I read (and watched) Goodnight Mr Tom really young, and his mother claims to william she just got pregnant without any man involved or something because she was a bible bashing sort, so I thought that could happen for a while, like you'd just catch pregnancy like a cold

I was adopted as were my siblings. I was the eldest and actually got into a fight when I was 13 because I refused to believe babies didn't really come from London having been sent there by god