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!

Until I lived in Yorkshire, I thought that when the weather forecast said there would be snow in hilly areas, that it meant the whole area including the valleys. I did not know that it could snow on the top of a hill and not in the valley next to it. Still don't quite understand

RIP step hen gat ley 😥

Yes I got cashback yesterday

I think a lot of margarine was made from animal fat in those days so it may not have actually been vegetarian.

When I was at school, one of the boys was convinced that a destitute was another word for a male prostitute - and I had no idea that he wasn't correct!

When they used to say on the news that they’d found ‘a body’, I used to think they meant just the torso, no limbs etc

When I started uni, I had no concept of what an overdraft was.

I saw the numbers of my balance going up on the screen, even though I was regularly withdrawing money, and bizarrely didn't twig what the minus sign meant.

I just assumed that my Dad had been putting money in my account for me; he did do that when he could, but not quite as regimented as that: i.e. that I'd withdraw £20 and Dad would pay in exactly £40 at that exact same time, so the balance was thus £20 higher and I also had £20 in my hand.

I was an adult, for goodness' sake!!!

Thinking Broadmoor was full of comedians. I could see the lights of the hospital from my bedroom window and my mum would tell me it was a place for "funny people" (early 70s).

David Cameron had that exact same misconception - which he demonstrated with TV cameras on him... as an adult... as Prime Minister!

I can remember my dad saying something about his birthday suit once and wondering what he was on about because he hadn't had a suit for his birthday that year.

You’re welcome! Exactly I was picturing a talking a camel with 3 humps. Think there was a cartoon video to help the visual.

even know when he’s occasionally interviewed I still think he’s called Alice the Camel

I don't get this?

Same here!!

My DS2 (aged 21) got a car (bit of a banger) a couple of years ago and when the power steering went on it, he said to me, "but surely that's what I pay the insurance for, so they will fix it for free?" bless him, he's the smartest one in the family tbh as well.

<no hope for the rest of us lol>

I still think of custard when I hear it now 😆

I love this so much! Alice the Camel - excellent

That the song 'daddys home' by Cliff Richards, was about a home for daddy's, not that it meant daddy was coming home to stay.

I used to think there was an actual choir singing every time my parents put a record on - waiting somewhere ready to sing

Also used to think runners (people running) ran everywhere all the time

My 5 year old thinks that when her clothes get too small they keep shrinking and eventually will fit her teddies

When I was 11 years old, I overheard a conversation between my mum and a neighbour. The neighbour was telling my mum that her (the neighbour's mum) had cancer and that this had begun with a lump on her chest (the neighbour and my mum were too prudish to use the word 'breast'). A few months later, I was having a bath and noticed two lumps on my chest, one on either side. I panicked in silence for weeks, convinced I had cancer and checking the lumps from time to time.

Then, at school, we started what is now called sex education (then, in the '60s, it was coyly called the facts of life). We girls were taught about periods by a female teacher, Mrs Guinn. After the lesson, I went up and asked her whether the lumps on my chest were cancer. She reassured instantly me but I remember with embarrassment 50+ years later her suppressing her amusement at my musunderstanding. It never occurred to me to ask my mum, unlike my daughter, who when hers started to grow, asked: 'Mum, how big are my breasts going to be? Will they be the same size as yours?'

Jewel carriageways!

I thought they were called that because the different coloured cat's eyes always looked like pretty jewels on the road.

When I found out it was actually a dual carriageway (might have been 17 reading the Highway Code) I was kind of gutted.

i loved my dog so much i assumed i would marry him when i grew up. i was crushed when my parents eventually explained that wasn’t possible.

Something I have said before, the hymn, There is a green hill far away without a city wall puzzled me, I couldn't think why a green hill would need a city wall. Later I realised that 'without' meant outside the city walls.

My late mother couldn't understand why the horse Bar ran in every race she watched on TV, when the betting odds were shown Bar was always at the end but it never won anything.

I was born in the 1950s.

When I was growing up I noticed that the only women who got pregnant were those who wore a gold ring on the third finger of their left hand.

I deduced that there must have been something about the ring that made women get pregnant, but I couldn't decide whether it was the pressure of the ring on the finger, or some sort of chemical reaction from having something gold wrapped around the finger.

In the few months between the day we were taught about periods at school, and whether I actually started my periods, I believed that the time you are menstruating was like going to the toilet.

What I mean is you know like every few hours you have to go to the toilet to urinate? Well I believed that for the five days you're on your period every few hours you would go to the toilet and expel some blood then just pull up your pants and walk away until the next time.

when my period actually started and I discovered that the blood came out constantly for that five days, I was absolutely horrified and I could not work out how women dealt with this in their everyday busy lives.

perhaps I was not listening in class when they talked about sanitary protection?