What do you remember from your childhood that you now realise you really misunderstood?

[Carryonrunning]

Was just chatting to a friend about this:

1. Hearing all the boys in class talking about how a girl’s tampon fell out in the classroom. Lived in fear of this for many years before I realised they meant it fell out of her bag, not her body!

2. Opening the door of a sauna with my cousin (which was right in the middle of the spa area, so not private) on holiday in a nice hotel and my uncle inside shouting at us to close the door. I cried for weeks thinking I’d inadvertently seen him naked (although I didn’t actually see anything). Couldn’t look at him for years without feeling sick before I was old enough to realise we were just letting the heat out and annoying the other people in there! No one was naked in mixed sauna in the very public pool area of a nice spa hotel full of people!

Thinking my dad was "fun" and mum was "boring". Actually he was (is) a drunk and a nasty one at that.

I used to think the the song 'i got my my set on you' by george harrison was about adoption.
I mean it said takes patience, money etc. But mainly cause he said child haha.

My family didn't have a car, so my main experience of driving when I was really young was my grandad. He only drove us occasionally and from these rare experiences I worked out that the white line in the road was a guideline to keep you straight - a wheel each side of it. When I got to about 8 I began to wonder how cars going in opposite directions could both straddle the centre line without crashing.

As I got older I realised my grandad was a really bad driver 😆

As a young child I thought you became an adult at 100 years old. Imagine my shock when someone at primary school told me it was just 18. I had a full on existential crisis when I realised most people don't even live to 100!

That the men who used to offer to push us on the swings at the play park may not have been entirely altruistic in their intentions 😬

My dad came home from work one day with a hessian sack he'd acquired from somewhere. He then told my mum, 'I've been given the sack'
It took me years to realise that a) he was joking and b) you don't get given an actual sack when you lose your job.

@BlossomCat the origin of the phrase ' Given the sack,' did mean that though. You were given your tools back, in a sack and let go !
You were a very reflective child !

Another one! My dad had a shop and I remember popping in at lunchtime with my mum and him saying he’d taken £60 that day.

I thought he was joking because there’s no way anyone could make such a huge sum of money in one morning.

I realise now he definitely wasn’t joking and that’s a very small amount of money.

That I wasn't allowed to stay/visit one of my primary school friend’s house because I wasn't ‘allowed to cross the main road’ - yet went to school across the same main road every day.
My dad ‘knew’ my friend’s mum, nicknamed locally as ‘Slack Alice’.

Only as I grew up did I realise that it was my morals ( and his) he was protecting not my risk on the road!

I was telling my granddaughter the other day that when we studied road safety in school, we were taught to look left, then right, then left again. I always wondered why left twice, and right only once ?
I didn't realise it was to check.

I remember as a child hearing someone saying that they'd been fired. I couldn't work out how they were still alive as I thought it must mean that they'd been shot by a firing squad. Whenever I heard anyone talk about an 'ex', I thought it was just the letter 'X'. I didn't know what it meant and I thought it must mean that that person must be pure evil.....some kind of scary monster. 😂

That misled is pronounced miss-led and not mizzled!

In the shop when my mum and dad answered that they didn't want cashback I always wondered why they turned down free money

Sorry for asking - was your dad having an affair with the lady called Alice and didn't want you finding out?

I had a friend at school who had two brothers and a sister. Her older brother was named James, her younger brother was named Paul. But she told me that Paul's surname was James- I was so confused as to why anyone would name a child James James until I got older and realised that Paul was her half brother, and of course James had a different surname.

I remember leaving primary school one day and I heard the teacher say to a friend's Mum, "It's the last day tomorrow." I must have been about five. I actually thought she meant that it was the last day of the world. I remember laying in bed that evening and worrying and worrying. I opened my curtains and looked out for signs that the end of the world was coming (I remember thinking that maybe the sky would be a funny colour).

In the end I went downstairs, crying to my Mum and asked her if it really was the last day of the world the next day. To my amazement, she looked at the calendar. I remember thinking, surely the people who make the calendars wouldn't know when the last day is?! In reality she was just checking that it definitely was the last day of term. 😂 She hugged me and explained that the next day was just the last day of term, not Armageddon!!! I can still feel the relief now all these years later!!!! 😂

We moved dozens of times when I was a dc... Realised it was either my dm was dodging debt or had worked her way through all the local men and it was time to move on...
Once got attacked my a relative of her latest bloke. His dw knew and it went on for decades.

One bloke got taken out by a hitman... She kept good company my dm....

I was visiting my mum's friend with her. The friend was very proud of her son who was a newly qualified teacher, still on probation.

By then i'd learned not to question other adults, so waited until we got home to ask why the friend was so proud of her son who'd been released from prison and how could someone who'd been in prison be a teacher.

As a child I had a neighbour who lived across the road with her 4dcs, all in primary school with me. The neighbours husband was in prison and my mum was a single mum also so they helped eachother out. This neighbour was really eccentric and full of energy but had a nasty temper at times, a lot of school mums were scared of her as she would go off the rails if any child even looked at hers in the wrong way.
One morning I went round to her house and she had completely redocrated her living room and downstair bathroom over night, and even though she hadn't slept she was still wide awake and raring to go. I remember being in awe of this lady, her husband was in prision and she was alone with 4 DC but she smashing it.
It wasn't until I was an adult going clubbing, seeing the behavior of those on cocain did I realise this neighbour's secret.
I googled her ex husband and sure enough he was in prison for drug dealing after their house was raided and loads of coke was found.

My dad having road rage whenever another driver did wrong - he'd flash at them but I always thought he was trying to beep the horn but it wasn't working🤣

Thunder - don't worry its just the clouds banging together

Hopefully you're not in the UK? 😆

I am !
Sorry got my left n right mixed up 🤣

Depending on your age and the size of the shop that might have actually been quite a lot for a morning. Maybe why he mentioned it and it stuck in your mind?

I can feel the relief just reading your post!!