Strange things you thought as a child

[rallyingaround]

I used to think there was 100 pennies squashed up into a pound.

I was quite certain that Pride & Prejudice was about African Americans in the US. Had no foundation for this belief whatsoever, but suspect I had somehow confused it with Roots. I was too young to have read either of them anyway.

I cannot imagine what Kunta Kinte would think of Elizabeth Bennett. 😂

That if you swallowed air, they were extra breaths and would add to your lifespan. I must have been so windy as used to gulp down air for minutes at a time!

I used to think that people born on 29th February only aged a quarter as fast as everyone else 😂

I used to think sharks would be much more of an issue in life

I was always scared one would come up the plug in the bath, then I was scared one would appear in the paddling pool if it was left outside overnight, then I was scared that there could be a shark at the deep end of the pool.

I still wouldn’t enter a quiet or empty swimming pool now… who knows what’s in there 🦈

I thought the same thing about oranges and milk too @Toddlerteaplease . You should never eat an orange and drink milk at the same time as it would curdle inside you.

It much have been a fairly popular belief, as I actually recall talking with friends about when you could eat an orange after having the school milk and be safe. I think we were worried about eating them at lunchtime.

Well a popular belief for some reason or you're the friend who told me and it was just a few of us that believed it .🤣

Fact.

Sharks, rabies and quick sand where a real and genuine threat in the 80s

Thanks so much, I thought it was just me, I'm going to google synaesthesia, soooo glad I'm not the only weird one!

It happens on cruise ships too! Must be the sea air.

I thought that people in the past only seen things in black and white and that seeing in colour was a relatively new phenomena.

That was my rationalisation of black and white films/photographs.

I posted before I read this.

I’ve never known anyone else to think the past was in black and white. I’m glad it was not just me!

The same nephew showed me up again on a school trip to the local farm when I (stupidly) volunteered to help out. A cow was feeding her calf and he shouted at the top of his voice again ‘look, that donkey’s licking his Mums willy’. I get my revenge by bringing these incidents up at every available opportunity, especially in front of his new girlfriend 🤣

@Righthandcider

Paris actually used to have a system like this
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_pneumatic_post

A friend and I believed that when a film or TV show showed a flashback to when a character was young, it was the same actor and they filmed that bit first then came back years later to film the rest. We used to say it was a good thing nobody died or changed their mind about acting in between them filming these scenes or the film would never get finished!

I was 3 when my mum was pregnant with my sister. I thought she was a little miniature girl (like a real life Barbie) who lived in a house in mummy's tummy with a bed, a cooker and fridge, toys etc.

DS saw Michael Jackson's Thriller video when he was 6. He was then terrified of going into the bathroom alone for a good 6 months as he was convinced Michael Jackson as a werewolf was hiding in there. I've just asked him and he says he genuinely believed it.

When I was 8 or 9 I refused to get dressed /undressed in my bedroom as I didn't want The Osmonds ( in the numerous posters on my bedroom wall) to see me naked!

Omg 🤣🤣 hilarious! I bet it wasn't at the time though lol

I also had the numbers/letters/days being different colours. I have always assumed it must have been from the colours of the letters etc in the books these things were initially taught from. Interesting to hear that others have it too and it has a name! I also dream in different colours if I am sick. The colour corresponds to whatever is wrong with me. If I wake from a yellow dream it invariably means I am going to throw up.

The guerilla/gorilla thing was also me - I grew up hearing snippits of the Vietnam war on the news and assumed it meant our soldiers were fighting gorillas in the jungle. I thought the enemy had lots of trained gorillas!

I thought carrier pigeons talked. My GPs had a talking budgie so I think I assumed that carrier pigeons took messages to people.

@TwoLeftSocksWithHoles

I know right. Lots of MY clothes shrunk in the wardrobe during lockdown too! 😂Should NOT have left them in the dark in the wardrobe!

I remember speaking to my parents about blood donation as a child, but I misunderstood. For ages I thought once you turned 18 and people would just come and take your blood, you got no choice in the matter- I was pretty scared of the idea of turning 18 for a bit (I was under 10!)

My dad told me Mr Bean was an alien and I believed that until fairly recently 🤔 thought that's why he was so odd because he wasn't from earth!

That's implied in the opening credits, so definitly not totally baseless!

I heard somewhere that people have 7 layers of skin. I thought that meant that every time you cut/scratched yourself you'd damaged one of the layers and then you only had 6, do it again in the same place you'll have 5 etc etc.

Eventually if you hurt yourself 7 times in the same place there would be no skin left and it would just be exposed bone.

To prevent this I kept a notebook detailing where exactly I hurt myself, so I would know when I got down to my last layer or 2 of skin on my elbow (for example) and could wear protective clothing over that area!

So it is!! Must have been 20 years since I watched it. So is he an alien then??

As a very small child in the 50s I once managed to get behind our big old ‘wireless’ to see the little people who were talking.
Not sure I’ve ever been so disappointed since - just wires and little light bulbs!

And I thought the Queen would always lie very neatly in bed, on her back, with her arms tidily by her sides on top of the blankets. Not sure whether I also thought she’d still be wearing a crown, but probably. 😂

That if someone 'raised an alarm' it was a physical thing that was raised in the air and I spent ages pondering what it looked like and how I'd know where to find it to raise if need be.