Stupid things you believed as a child

[Soubriquet]

Remember those aliens in goo, that everyone said if you held them back to back it would make a baby alien.

Or that the furby’s of the 90’s would be able to say your name and people would spend hours trying to teach the furby to talk

I still have my Furby . He is bright blue and he used to talk to my cousin's Furby.

When I was a small child, I got very upset when my brother ran around using the bicycle pump - I told my Dad that he was using all the air up . I honestly thought that the pump contained the air.

That there were spiders in the ends of bananas - that was what the black bit was.

If you swallowed apple pips/chewing gum/a bit of wrapper stuck to a boiled sweet, it would clog your guts up and you'd die.

When I went to bed and could hear my parents downstairs in the kitchen and the sounds of pots and pans and things, I thought that was them running a witches coven and they would be cooking up potions in a cauldron.

If you broke your "shag' band bracelet you lost your virginity

I remember them. Never had one though

I didn't believe much of them.
But my mother and father would tell me things like If I swallowed chewing gum, it would stick to my heart and I would imagine my heart covered in heart

My mother also used the classic if you don't eat your carrots, you won't be able to see in the dark
And you will get square eyes from watching too much tv

My mother used to tell me she got pregnant by making a prayer whenever I asked her how are babies made.

I used to believe in crazy things like if my dad could punch and smash the TV, we could all step in to whatever programme was on.
And real life movies, were being filmed as they were happening and I used to say to my dad, its real life so why is no one stopping the lady being hurt/the dog thrown in the lake or the man running with a gun. Why would they just film it. Then they explained to me BASED ON REAL LIFE

I thought as soon as you're 18, you're this great big adult and must leave the family home. I was scared of being homeless, and not able to pay bills and end up in prison. LOOKING BACK, THAT WAS SO RIDICULOUS.

I also used to think my porcelain dolls and teddies were real and used to talk and do things when I was at school.

And u would imagine my heart covered in chewing gum* that was meant to say!!!

We had the alien one too, you'd put them together in the plastic egg back to back in the fridge for some reason and they'd have a baby.

My mam of course made it worse by sneaking smaller aliens into the eggs overnight so we thought it was working.

We also had leaving snacks in fairy circles if we found them so the fairies wouldn't come and take us away. I lost many a Club bar and pepperami to fairy circles.

Swallowing chewing gum can kill you
Eating your crusts will give you curly hair
Going out with wet hair will make you ill

Swallowing watermelon pips was dangerous and would grow a watermelon in your stomach.

I was very confused as a small child in the late 1960s/early 70s about 'poor people' after watching Oliver Twist and somehow believed that there was a workhouse for 'poor children' and I had a horrible fear that if my parents died, I might end up there as an orphan despite having a big extended family with grandparents and aunts and uncles.

I thought Bob Marley was my uncle.

Until I was 12.

Readers:

I'm very white, and very much from Belfast.

That is the most random one ever. How?

I used to believe that the Blue Peter presenters (John Noakes, Peter Purves and Lesley Judd when I was little) used to live together and I used to imagine them all sharing the one big bed. In a platonic sort of way to sleep in, not in a dodgy threesome sort of way!

I used to think that if you died, it would be on the news. Not national news, but regional (clearly national news would have been ridiculous..). Just like "and in other news, 90 year old Fred bloggs died today".

I honestly believed bin men only worked one day a week..

That when I was grown up I would know exactly what to do in any situation, and the answers to everything.
I also wouldn't like sweets, ice cream or fizzy drinks, but would like tea and coffee.

I still prefer sweets, ice cream and fizzy drinks to tea or coffee, and I'm most disappointed to find out I still don't know the answer to everything, or exactly what to do.

I believed it was illegal to have the interior light of the car on whilst driving. In fact, I told my own children the same as I’d never had reason to believe it wasn’t true 😳

I’ve got a very unusual first name. My lovely brother told me that people with unusual names were more likely to spontaneously combust. I took him very seriously and spent my entire childhood thinking I could burst into flames at any moment. It took a friend forcing me to watch a documentary about the wick effect before I got over it.

I used to believe that babies were made from all the food you ate and that, when you'd eaten enough, you went to hospital and the doctor took out the baby 😁

brilliant

I was told the red birthmark on my shoulder was there b/c my mother ate too many strawberries when she was pregnant. Believed it for years and told many people.

Turns out it was a haemangioma, also known as 'strawberry naevus' because they look a bit like strawberries. Nothing to do with eating them. I was mortified when I found out I'd been lied to!

If you held a buttercup to your chin and there was a yellow glow that meant you liked butter 🤷‍♀️🤔

The yellow flowers on dandelions were called 'wet the beds' and if you touched one then you'd wet the bed that night 🫣

Yes I also got told my aliens would reproduce if kept back to back with another one.. never did 🙄

We used to think the grey lady would appear of you looked into the mirror and said her name 3 times.. don't know, I was always too scared to say it the third time 😬

What!? I thought this too.... until 30 seconds ago.. apparently 😂

I believed that to have a baby a dad had to put his penis in a woman's vagina for 9 months!!! I had images of my parents managing the weekly shop like this 😂😂

Truly believed that if I crossed my eyes while the wind was blowing they would stay that way