Things you used to think as a child ....

[justiceandtruth]

..... would be far more of a issue than it ever turned out to be.

For me I think
Quicksand & spontaneous human combustion.

Acid rain

I used to think that Some Mothers Do Ave Em was a public service film meant to show grown ups how to live their lives properly. I have used these teachings assiduously and so have never fallen through a ceiling while painting or ended up whizzing through traffic on roller skates pulled by a bus.

Quicksand!! I saw some horrific reenactment on TV at a friend's house of someone getting stuck in it, and for years I thought quicksand was a common cause of death

I think I've mentioned these before.

When my mum used to take me to see my Nan I always used to wonder why the destination on the front didn't say "Awwlookatmybabyspider's nans.

This one is macabre. When people died they were actually buried in the grave stones. I figured to fit bodies in there they had to cut them up and squash them. .

That when you were pregnant you had to keep on having sex until the baby was born other wise he/she wouldn't fully develope.

I used to be worried a lot about the sun dying. Someone once said we will all just be sucked into a black hole soon and I was like ok new fear unlocked.
Random thing I used to think as a very young child, I thought it was illegal to marry if the woman was taller and or older! I have noooo idea where I got it from but that's what I thought.. my friend was like, my mum is taller than my dad though? They have been married for years? I was like ...you're right... so at one point in was worried I would fall in love with someone shorter than me 🤷‍♀️

Protect and Survive - the public information film about how to survive a nuclear blast.

I really couldn't see how anyone could survive it - and if they did, life wouldn't be worth living anyway so what would be the point in trying.

Well, I reckon you were right there, @talktothefoot!

I remember believing that I could find myself locked up in a children's prison if I didn't behave: somebody might have fed me that story. Fortunately I'd stopped believing it when I read Jacob Two-Two meets the Hooded Fang, or I would have been terrified!

I remember never thinking about the fact or realising that my auntie whom my mothers brother married was not a blood relative or anyone really (my mother has 3 siblings, all the other uncles to it - 3 sisters 1 brother). I just considered them aunties and uncles, now having my own children I know there is a difference and I actually thanked my aunt the other day for being the most wonderful auntie my entire life despite the fact we are not blood related.

I used to think that whenever anyone died it would be on the news, so I'd think at least when I died I'd get a mention

Ha! We had this conversation just yesterday and mine were exactly the same as yours OP!

There has been nowhere near as high a prevalence of accidental radiation poisoning in my adult life as eight-year-old me thought there would have been.

Speaking of radiation, someone told me that luminous alarm clocks gave out radioactivity, so I was scared of them.

@hilariousnamehere

Quicksand!! I saw some horrific reenactment on TV at a friend's house of someone getting stuck in it, and for years I thought quicksand was a common cause of death

Me too! We must have all seen the same one.

When I started secondary school we were talking about moving towards the new ice age....

Yes to quicksand and spontaneous human combustion! Thought these were far more common problems than they actually are.

Also, used to be really concerned that even quick glimpses at the sun would totally blind me.

My grandad told me that red grapes were red because of all the dead dogs they buried under the grape vines.

I didn't eat red grapes for years 😕

Quicksand here too. Scared the bejesus out of me.

Spontaneous human combustion too. I saw that awful picture of the old lady and you could just see her feet in her slippers and it's haunted me ever since. I spent the next 6 weeks convinced I was going to burst into flames at any given moment. My dad didn't really help by saying 'Well if you do, can you make sure you're not sitting on the new sofa when it happens it cost your mother and me a fortune'.

I thought that people 'sleeping together', e.g. 'Michelle slept with Dave', meant to just go to sleep in the same bed. It took me quite a few years to find out that this is not what people (mainly Coronation Street characters) meant.

I thought a traffic jam was when cars became stuck in actual jam that had been spilled by a lorry onto the roads.

Quick sand for me too. I think it might have been on an episode of 999.
And also the sun burning out. I had a book that said it would happen on so many millions of years but i was too young to understand how long away that is!

I thought Britian was the only country that had drinking water so everyone who went abroad would be very thirsty and have to buy cans of obscure drinks. I also thought there wasn't much food 'abroad' so couldn't understand why people went away on holiday.

Thanks to the terrifying public safety film I always thought my foot would be instantly mangled if I strayed even a fraction over the yellow line on an escalator.

@Kottbullar

Thanks to the terrifying public safety film I always thought my foot would be instantly mangled if I strayed even a fraction over the yellow line on an escalator.

Oh yes definitely this. And I was and am still convinced that if I got within about 4 feet of the edge of the train platform I'd immediately topple onto the tracks.

I spent a lot of time worried about the hole in the ozone layer too, and imagining that in a much more literal sense than it was meant.

I always remember watching the end of tv shows particularly cliff hangers at the end of soaps and thinking that all of the characters were real and would stay in the very same position until the next episode would be shown 😜