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!

@Katiesaidthat I'm 43 and also only learned that from Mumsnet. I always imagined the piggy going shopping with a wicker basket on his arm.

As a child I thought princesses were like out of a storybook. Beautiful dresses, long curling hair etc. I was really shocked the first time my mum showed me a picture of one of the royal princesses in the newspaper - not even Lady Di lived up to my expectations!

That when it says 'Add sugar (or whatever) to taste', that the thing had no taste or flavour until you had added the sugar.

I remember the excitement I felt when driving up a hill to be told we would be driving ‘into the clouds’. Turned out the clouds were a bit of a disappointment.

I always thought, up until now, and think I still do, that that means to your taste, no? Depending on how sugary/salty/spicy etc you want something?

When he was about four my DS1 started asking me lots of questions about God, but particularly focused on whether he was watching us right now. Not surprising as we're a church going family, so I just answered that I believe that God is always watching over and caring for us etc. He did not seem reassured or satisfied by this. Which made more sense when he saw me talking with our vicar and asked me afterwards 'what God had been saying to you, mummy?'. He thought the vicar was God himself - no wonder he wasn't keen on the idea he was watching us even when we're on the loo etc!

Not so much misunderstood, rather misled. My DM used to talk about my younger sister 'falling asleep' at school. Many years later I realised she was having petit mal seizures.

I thought the “trespassers will be prosecuted” signs meant that the trespassers would be electrocuted - and was alarmed about that for some years.

I know it's not custardy and I don't think I ever thought that it was, but I always picture someone covered in custard when I hear/read custody.

Custardy battles would be a lot funnier.

Such a funny word on signs in M&S - linger-y. It was quite a while before I heard anyone actually say it.

My sign one was houses with big To Let signs ih the windows. I thought it said Toilet!!

This is the honest truth….. I genuinely thought until my mid thirties that your “ Birthday Suit” was the outfit you wore when you left hospital after being born 😄😃

@BillStickersWillBeProsocuted I also thought the black market was a place, where people sold clandestine luxury goods. For some reason in my head it was in Germany either between the wars or during WW2. I read a lot of books as a child, some of which I probably shouldn't have been reading! I never thought about the police finding the black market though. I think maybe it was an ordinary market in my head but you could buy the secret luxury stuff there sometimes.

When I was little there was lots of drama about kids ‘cracking their head open’ - the thought horrified me and I worried about it constantly. That was until I witnessed it myself and realised they just meant a cut or graze.

I was very disgruntled and all empathy went out of the window. I remember being around 6 and whinging on to my poor old dad about the notion of a head being cracked wide open and that this was nothing on that scale and why do people say that when it’s not true blah blah.

To this day it pisses me off when people don’t talk about things accurately. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I've no idea! I can't see why they wouldn't but maybe I'm behind the times!

A common one but I thought Gerry Adams was a man called Sinn Fein until I was in my late teens.

Asking my mum why we have belly buttons, and she said 'that's where the baby is attached to the mum'. It wasn't til I was about 13 or 14 that I discovered it wasn't via the belly button opening up and letting the baby out that we get here! I was quite horrified 😂. How innocent we were.

When I was a small child my mum looked at me and exclaimed, "Bunny you have your wellies on the wrong feet!" Apparently I looked confused and replied, "but these are the only feet I've got?!?"

When Princess Diana died I was 4. Me and mum was watching the funeral on TV. She was telling me the names of the royals. I asked if the princes would kiss the Princess so she'd wake up.

Thanks disney

We were a no TV house and yet my mum and dad were always up to date on current events and TV shows… they had a TV in their room. Literally didn’t know till I was 20. I said something about how my dad didn’t read the newspaper but was always up to date and he was like “yes because I watched the news”. Turns out the giant TV cabinet shaped thing at the end of the bed was in fact a TV cabinet.

When people asked a pregnant person How far along are you?
I thought they were saying How far OR LONG are you?

Also all those songs from the 90s with the sexual innuendos that I happily sing out loud proudly!

Spice Girls-when 2 become 1
Venga Boys-Boom boom boom
Aqua- Barbie Girl
Shaggy- it wasn't me
Lou Bega- Mambo no.5
Sisqo- thong song

To name a few... Wonder what my parents thought 🙄

I used to think it was said "myzuhlled"! 😅

I always used to think when they said that “a man/woman is helping police with their enquiries” that they were actively helping them. It didn’t occur to me until later that they were likely suspects in the crime.

Yes this!
I remember my dad looking at houses in the window of the estate agents. When I saw the prices of the houses he was looking at I was disgusted- as he had told me we could not afford a pony and I knew they cost much less than the houses he was looking at!

We need to make this a thing. Can you imagine the speeches?

As a young teen starting to learn about sex, I thought men had to go on top as they needed gravity to guide the penis in.

Bless him, my poor dad ended up explaining an erection to me.