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!

Why we didn’t just photocopy money. I thought I’d be sorted as an adult as I’d just buy a photo copier and print myself money. I remember my mum telling me that it was illegal and would go to prison. I was convinced that I could get away with it as i’d do my copying when nobody was home. When I saw my teacher using a guillotine I thought I’d be able to mass produce my fake notes.

Even when I saw the UV light to check notes I’d think of all the places I could use fake notes without the checker.

I was basically a criminal in the maker. I spent years thinking of how I’d live my life as a millionaire with my unlimited money.

What do you mean, that your metal spoons have eroded?

Same 😂

When I was a small child the term 'ceasefire' seemed to be on the news a lot, I thought it meant that people built a big bonfire and then sat around it talking.
It didn't occur to me that it meant 'stop shooting at each other'.
I also thought that in Star Trek there was a place called 'Bowbligo' where no one had been before.

Probably quite a common one but as a small child I couldn't understand how Jesus managed to grow so much between Christmas and Easter.

when I was growing up conjoined twins were still referred to as ‘Siamese twins.’ I used to wonder why it was that twins from Siam were joined together.

My dad owned pubs and he used to take the slot machine cash home to count and I would help him count it all out into the little bags and then into the big bags.

I once went with him to the office to drop the bags off and when the receptionist asked how many, he said two bags and I rather loudly corrected him that we had counted THREE bags. He very crossly told me, and the lady, that it was just two bags and I was so annoyed because I knew I was right!

Now I realise he was obviously keeping it from the tax man! I must have been about 6 at the time

I used to hear adults talking about property and saying things like He payed £140 000 for that house . I wondered how the man managed to save that much cash . It was years before I understood the concept of mortgages .

When I was about 6-7, my mum went for tea with a friend at a pub called “The Gun Inn”. We (dad, younger brother and I) dropped her off and I spent the car journey home in tears because I thought people with guns were going to kill her! Was very relieved (and confused) when we picked her up that evening and found that she had not been shot dead 😂

The lord of the dance settee is clearly a bloke who takes over the sofa in the chillout room of club😁

My DM had a wooden spoon she must have had for ever - it was worn right down on one side. When clearing her house I kept it for sentimental reasons - and told dh NEVER to put it in the dishwasher.
Of course he eventually did, and buggered it. 🤬
But was very remorseful.
I’ve still got it, though.

Cant remember when I realised that the hymns we sang at Junior school did not contain the lines,

Good Mrs Murphy all my days shall surely follow me

and another one

I'll lay by night and day ti be a pill grim.

When I was a child, my uncle lived with us. For a short while, so did my aunt. Both were siblings of my mother; my aunt was only a few years older than my mum, but quite a bit older than my uncle. I was nearly 40 before I found out that when my aunt affectionately called my uncle "son", she was telling the truth. (Turned out 'uncle' was actually my cousin, and everybody seemed to know except me!)

I just couldn't understand how they managed to grow a baby in a test tube

I thought test tube babies were in test tubes too but never dwelled on the physics.

I thought when I could reach the latch of the front door (it was fairly high) it meant I was an adult & would move out.

I was convinced the hotel manager i stayed at one summer was a vampire. This was because he looked like one & acted weird! As I got older I realised he was just a perv.

I went to Convent School and remember being indoctrinated that getting pregnant before marriage was the worst thing you could possibly do, but then being told that you could get pregnant after you turned 12.

I had no idea how anyone got pregnant, so lived in total fear of reaching my twelfth birthday.

Thinking that if I wrote to Jimmy Saville's show I would appear on it magically. I was disappointed every week! A blessing in disguise, be careful what you wish for and all of that.

My aunt got divorced in the early 1970s when very few people did.

My mum and dad took me and my brother to her house to babysit her children because she had to actually go to court.

Just before she left my little asked her mum, "Will you bring the new one home?" Asking 'new what?' she discovered my cousin thought that you went to court to get rid of one husband and the court would assign you a new one.

It was years later when I found out what it meant when pet dog had been sent to a farm.

This is one I've heard a child in our family mishear recently!😄 they thought exactly the same! It must be a common one.

I thought my mother was teasing me when she said raisins and sultanas were dried grapes , because I liked grapes and hated raisins and sultanas .

I never found out she wasn't teasing until I was well into my thirties .

When my Dad used to leave the house he'd sometimes say "I'm off to see a man about a dog". I would get so excited that we were getting a new puppy. This must have happened dozens of times before I worked out it just meant mind your own business.

Another, when I was around 9 years old I remember standing in the bathroom of my aunts house where we were staying for the weekend. I had developed a bit of a tummy, and thought it must mean I was having a baby. At the age I was the only concept I understood of babies was that women got bumps. I remember just thinking well that's that then, I must be having a baby.

The giant crayon. I must have been pretty young I guess - maybe 5 ish, and the teacher was asking us if anyone had seen the giant crayon in town. I was imagining some sort of mammoth crayola.
She was of course talking about a crane. The mechanical kind, not the bird, which would have also caused confusion. I'm not sure when that realisation dawned...

Do shops still do this?

I thought, when our neighbours were talking about someone new on the street who had "paid in cash" for the house that this meant he had shown up to buy the house with a suitcase of fifty pound.notes

I'm remebering so many more now.

I recall my sister who was in secondary school telling me she'd burnt her hand on a bunsen burner. For some reason, the image in my head of a bunsen burner was like a bouncy castle with fire and I couldn't understand why they would allow something so dangerous in a school. I was very disappointed when I started secondary school and realised what it was.