What were your childhood misconceptions?

[Splodgerbodgerbadger]

I always used to think if a pub said free house it meant you got free beer.

There was this lorry place we used to drive past that always had a sign saying pallets wanted, I always used to think ‘why do they want paint pallets’.

There was a coal fire at my Granny’s house and one day my Dad touched it and I realised it was fake and it never felt as warm after that.

I thought 99’s were so called because they cost 99p if only!

When saying ‘the quick and the dead’ in church I was really worried that, as I wasn’t very good at sports, I wouldn’t go to Heaven.
I also thought tiny people lived in the back of the TV and used to feed them crumbs through the gaps

That only men went to work.
That only men can drive
That only men know about or allowed to have an interest in: DIY, cars, how to fix things, how to find places.
That men dont cook, unless they are chefs but women could not be chefs. Men don’t clean or do any kind of housework.
That all mums and dads were married, that all dads hit their wife and kids.That all kids were scared of their parents.

I grew up in the 70’s.

When I saw signs in public toilets saying only toilet paper was to be flushed and other items to be binned, I thought this meant you had to poop in the bin. Thankfully I was never in a position to test that out.

Similar to a pp, I thought that periods were permanent. That I would start bleeding as a teenager and not stop until I was in my 50s and wouldn't ever be able to go swimming again unless I used tampons. I actually thought this up until the day my period started. I was sobbing my heart out because I didn't want it to happen and my mum was trying to explain it all to me. I remember the moment of pure relief when I suddenly realised she was saying it would only happen for one week each month.

My family mixed with some rather colourful types. My cousin and his mates were always popping round with things that had fallen off the back of a lorry - a vcr, car radio, cd players etc. I took it very literally and genuinely thought they spent their days hanging about in lay-bys just waiting for passing lorries to shed their loads and anything they rescued from the road was fair game. Whenever we were driving on the motorway and we say cars stopped, I would be inwardly cheering for them, wondering what they were going to get.

I also thought that when you bought/moved house, you had to swap houses with the person you were buying from.

I was very confused about hair as a child. I knew it ran in families as my freinds had the same hair as their parents.
I had brown wavy hair like both my parents but my brothers were blonde, I assumed that meant they must have other parents with blonde hair and it was a secret that we didn't talk about.
My dad later explained that he had been blonde as a child but as he got older it turned brown.
So I assumed that blonde adult men were just massive boys who hadn't grown into their 'grown up hair' yet.

I thought all babies were born through a surgical incision being made in the mother's stomach (ie Caesarean)

😂DH and I have joked before about the Giant Triffid Warning Sign - it always makes me giggle.

Less entertainingly, I used to think limes were unripe lemons.

I thought North was always directly in front of you. Regardless of which direction you were pointing in. I now get to vote.

but I thought they were actually launching the rockets from there....like a special platform but for rockets :)

I thought that the programme Blue Peter was so named because one the male presenters was Peter so therefore the female presenter must be called Blue. Completely feasible to me as my grandad's nickname for DM was Bluey, (due to the colour of her eyes).

Also that the instruction “Dilute to taste” on a bottle of orange squash was a warning to be careful because the liquid in the bottle tasted dilute (same as a label on an electrical appliance might say “hot to touch”), ie dilute meant the same as concentrated.

I was in my 20s before I worked out why the answer to the question, “Are you alright?” would be “No, I'm half left.”

I used to think the “no added salt or sugar” sign on the packaging of cereal was like a legal warning, I used to get so scared adding sugar to my cornflakes!

when watching the crystal maze I used to think the contestants were so stupid for not knowing how to play the challenge, didn’t they watch the episode last week? - I used to think they were filmed live.

I too thought the world was black and white until a certain time.

I thought my Nan was always old. I was really shocked when I saw pictures of her younger and realised it was her.

if someone got married on a show I thought they were married in real life and thought that was real commitment to the programme.

I remember being very young, probably about 5 or 6, watching Juliet Bravo (TV police drama in the 80s) and wondering how she had all these sons working as policemen with her? Some seemed older than her? Because they were all calling her Ma'am. I thought they were calling her mum Was so confused!

I thought the wombles were common too!
My own is that I thought the 'menswear' sign in clothes shops meant men swear, which made total sense because my dad swore and my mum didn't.

@dropthevipers leaving a car park once GPS said to go east, wasn't sure whether to turn left or right so asked MIL (in her 60s) as she'd been there before whereas we hadn't. She said to turn right but it looked wrong so asked if she was sure - she said East is always on the right - North, east, south, West 😂

When very young I used to think you weren't allowed to leave the library without borrowing some books.

I used to go with my older siblings and they never left without taking out books. There was a barrier you had to go through to leave right next to the checking out desk.
My oldest sister once asked my older brother to return her books and never went back.

I thought the only way to be able to stop going was to ask someone else to go to the library to return your books, but then they would be stuck going until they could find someone else to return their books.

Yup, I was scared to go to library for a long time.

I thought hoisery was pronounced hoh-eye-zer-ee and was something very rude because we never went down that aisle in debenhams.

That the Queen and Margaret Thatcher were sisters as they had similar hairstyles.

And that Prawn Cocktail was very posh.

I thought this until I as in my 30s. By this time I’d had and visited a friend who loved in Wimbledon. Never worked it out on my own 🤦🏻‍♀️

I used to think you'd go to the loo for your period and it would come out like a single wee and that would be it for the month. I was so so disappointed to find out the truth.

I used to think that ‘to let’ signs were ‘toilet’ signs that the ‘i’ had fallen off

When My mum would take me on the bus to my nans. I always used to wonder why the destination on the front didn't say Awwlookatmybabyspider's nans. 😂

This one is rather twisted but I used to think that bodies were buried in the actual grave stone. I 'figured that they must have to squash and chop people up to fit them in. Good God I was a creepy kid 😂

This is going to sound very strange to anyone who didn’t have a Catholic upbringing but here goes, when they say ‘Lord have Mercy’ I remember thinking Mercy was a person

Another period related one.

I thought the box of Tampax that sat in the loo cupboard was actually for both my mum and dad to use....if they had the runs.

@HashtagShitShop inalso thought that about Sinn Fein! I think until I was a teenager 😂

This is very embarrassing. I was just 18 when I first went to vote and I had to ask for help as I hadn't heard of any of the people on my paper 🙈. I was expecting a list of the party leaders! I was at a good university at the time 😂