Silly stuped things your younger self thought was true 🤪😳

[Justjackie]

I will go first...first job after leaving school..thought you paid tax then at end of year got it all back! I thought it was some kind of loan to the government 😳 heard mam and dad mention getting '-tax-back' over the years and thought that was what happened!

@Karatema I hate that you can't quote a post with a quote in it but in reply to your:

I remember my friend's DSis stating this to us when we were teenagers and she was 8! She said she knew how often her parents had sex, we choked on our juice until she stated 3 times! We still remind her of this

This reminds me of a friend of mine that declared that his parents had only had sex 4 times (funny conversation about how awful it was thinking of parents having sex) as he had 3 siblings.

We pointed out the error of his ways as he's actually a twin! It took an absolute age for the penny to drop!

@ImAlrightThanx

That teachers only existed in schools and not as actual humans! Imagine my surprise when I saw my headteacher in Tesco.

Hahaha

On the same vain I can't ever imagine MDs and other top bosses starting out at the bottom.

[quote HopeHappy]@Karatema I hate that you can't quote a post with a quote in it but in reply to your:

I remember my friend's DSis stating this to us when we were teenagers and she was 8! She said she knew how often her parents had sex, we choked on our juice until she stated 3 times! We still remind her of this

This reminds me of a friend of mine that declared that his parents had only had sex 4 times (funny conversation about how awful it was thinking of parents having sex) as he had 3 siblings.

We pointed out the error of his ways as he's actually a twin! It took an absolute age for the penny to drop! [/quote]
Reminded me that I was convinced twins were made by having sex while already pregnant!

Never really understood if a man needed a poo and a wee if he had to sit down and stand up on the same visit to the loo or if he just poked it through for a wee afterwards. Still don't to be honest!

First job, over the summer, in retail.

That they would only pay me for the hours I was actually on site, not the hours I was away from home ... for a job in a small shopping centre 20mins walk away.

Middlesbrough is called Middlesbrough because it is in the middle between York and Newcastle. At least that’s what I was taught at school- in Middlesbrough 😂

I've always thought Barmouth was in Devon. It's in Wales!

@Onairjunkie

Someone in my family, who shall remain nameless, thought Dunkirk was in Scotland. Presumably somewhere near Falkirk.

I do think the Pontefract sounds Welsh.

That there were tiny little people talking inside our big old fashioned ‘wireless’. (In the Very Olden Days, obviously.)
Such a crushing disappointment when I managed to get behind it to look. Only wires and lightbulbs! 😢

My family were involved in some dodgy stuff when I was growing up. My older cousin, in particular, would often turn up at our house with TVs, VCRs, stereos, car radios, microwaves... We did really well out of his random "gifts". I was aware enough that these goods were obtained without paying anything and I knew that some people might see this as dishonest but I took the saying "fell off the back of a lorry" absolutely literally and I truly believed that my cousin and his friends spent their days and evenings driving behind lorries, just waiting to see what would fall off. I believed that lorries shedding their loads was a regular occurrence and once an item had fallen onto the road, it was absolutely fair game for people like my cousin to pick it up. I also believed that whenever I saw cars in lay-bys or on the hard shoulder, that they were in on the game and were waiting for a lorry to come by so that they could pull in behind. I used to cheer inwardly for those people, wondering what hey were going to get. I still remember the sense of shock, disappointment and betrayal when I realised what was really going on.

Similar to PPs around pregnancy misunderstandings. I saw an article in one of my mum's magazines about a woman who had gotten pregnant after drinking water from a fountain on holiday. I became so scared for a really long time that despite being only 10 years old, I might inadvertently drink from a fountain like this and end up pregnant.

As the above story might indicate, I was given no sex education at home at all. I learned a lot about sex and puberty from Judy Blume books but these failed to fill in all the blanks and I thought that periods were permanent. That I would come on one day and then bleed solidly until I was 45. I believed this right up until the day my periods started - I was crying my eyes out at the thought of this being the rest of my life until my mum eventually figured out the misunderstanding and put me right.

Also, this wasn't childhood but my dad confidently told me that in the UK, employers have to legally give you the day off to attend a funeral or wedding and I believed him. Unfortunately my first job was for a really strict company with a really awful boss and I ended up getting a verbal warning for explaining that I would be taking a day off for my auntie's funeral without having put this through normal holiday request systems, which would have been turned down as an auntie was not considered a close enough relative.

Disney was spelt Disnep with a silent p.

I thought cash out of the cash machine was free and always wondered why my mum didn't get more out 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

@LudoBear

I was 15 when I found out that the man doesn't put his penis into vagina and leave it there. I didn't know they put it in/put/in/out... didn't really know what they did actually.

I thought this too, I blame a book that I was given to read. 😂 I also thought that it was some magical process that would always result in pregnancy. I used to be a bit confused when I heard my mum discuss friends who were trying for a baby. 😂

I also thought that Blackpool was literally a pool with black water and I wondered why anyone would want to go on holiday there.

On the "sex" subject, I know I was not the only girl in my family to think that (long before my own sex life started) the man puts it in but just leaves it there for whatever time he wanted. I had no clue there was any movement involved.

Just saw above posts on the same thing! Obviously typing at the same time.

@iloveruby

I thought the outer hebrides weren't real - like a phrase to describe something as very far away.

I was 30 when i found out they were a real place

Same with me and Timbuktu!

@ImAlrightThanx

That teachers only existed in schools and not as actual humans! Imagine my surprise when I saw my headteacher in Tesco.

I knew my teacher came from Swansea because she told us and I thought that was a long way to come to work every day, Manchester area! My adult self is impressed that I knew where Swansea was at 8 or 9.

DesignforLife

My mum would confidently tell me things that were not true

eg

You can't use a deed poll to change your first name - except I did

X (person in family going to uni) has got their grant / loan and spent it already

I didn't go to uni until I was in my 30s and found out you had to actually enroll to get your first payment.

@sashh

Until very recently (University Challenge yesterday) I thought Strasbourg was in Germany.

Isn't it one of those places where if you were born there you could be French or German and if your parents are French you are German

No, it's exactly the same as anywhere else in France.

They do have laws with slightly different dates than the rest of France though, to account for the time when it was in Germany - and laws not being retroactive... some French laws started to apply later in Alsace.

When I was 10 or 11, I read a story in Just 17 about a girl who got pregnant after sharing a bath with her boyfriend.

I then became extremely resistant to going swimming because I had the idea that I would get pregnant from going swimming in the pool, which, being larger than a bathtub, was evidently one enormous spunk gumbo.

Eventually I told my mum what the problem was and she had to explain ejaculation to me and reassure me that men didn't just emit sperm permanently

That if women didn't take the pill they had a baby every month. In my defence my mum talked about all this stuff from when I was v young!

Posted this before but up until maybe 6 years ago I thought Zebras were fictional. I remember my parents telling me that a Zebra was a horse in its pyjamas ready for bed. So I spent many years thinking any pictures I saw of a zebra was a horse made to look like it was in pyjamas 🤦‍♀️ not my best moment when I realised

I thought that roundabouts worked by taking you to different places based on how many times you went round

I think this is a reflection of DMs driving to be honest.

@sarahc336

I thought cash out of the cash machine was free and always wondered why my mum didn't get more out 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

My friends son once asked my friend for a toy, and after she explained they didn't have enough money for said item, he looked at her in shock. "Well, we can go and get it out of the bank!" Cue long explanation of how adults worked hard for money that was put into the bank and it wasn't that the bank just supplied everybody with free money!