Randomly odd things you believed as a child and possibly beyond...

[Elmo230885]

I live this type of thread...

(I'm not talking about believing in Santa or the tooth fairy)

I'll start. I had a cousin named Stephen and he had the middle name Dean. For some reason he used to switch and go by either name. So as a child I believed that Dean was short for Stephen in the same way Bill is used for William.

Edit- Love not live

Not me - too long ago but my children.
Running in zig zag lines reduced the risk of getting hit by lightening.
Eating bread crusts made your hair curly (a bonkers TA at their primary)

My youngest’s English teacher thought she was scouse for nearly a year, because of her accent. It was only after the teacher realised who her brother was and questioned the difference in speech patterns that it came to light.

I thought everyone who died was on the news. So when my grandfather died I remember watching the news expecting it to be mentioned.

To not go near a swan as they'll 'break your arm'.

@CherryPavlova

Not me - too long ago but my children. Running in zig zag lines reduced the risk of getting hit by lightening. Eating bread crusts made your hair curly (a bonkers TA at their primary)

My youngest’s English teacher thought she was scouse for nearly a year, because of her accent. It was only after the teacher realised who her brother was and questioned the difference in speech patterns that it came to light.

To be fair to the TA 'eating crusts will make your hair curly' is almost like a common saying.

Hundreds of thousands of people in the UK say it, not just that specific TA.

No idea why or where it came from. The people who say it don't even believe it, it's just something you say to kids about eating crusts 🤷🏻‍♀️

Creepy kid alert. I used to think people were buried in actual grave stones. I was very confused as to how they got the person into them. I figured in the end that they must cut and squash the person up.

When my mum used take me on the bus to my nan’s I was always baffled that the destination on the front didn’t say ‘BabySpider’s nans.

Nurses were women. Doctors were men.

That when a women was pregnant they had to keep on having sex for the baby to keep growing

Good thread op

I've just looked it up, no idea when it started but it's been around for generations (and spread to the US and Australia with immigration from UK).

It was what people said to get children to eat crusts when having curly hair was particularly desirable 'You won't get curly hair unless you eat your crusts'

That my uncle was George Michael

I would have been toddler age and probably only saw my uncle a couple of times a year, but I remember my mum used to watch Club Tropicana on the TV (think she had it on video ) and I remember thinking, "oh, there's uncle x again!"

That you 'fell' over and got pregnant.

That if boys had Willys and girls had Mary lou's (my kids know the terms this is what I was brought up calling them )

If I had a bum what did boys have?

I believed eating sugar gave you threadworms until I was in my early teens.

I was a greedy child for sweets so I guess my parents had to keep me off the sugar lumps somehow

I was very excited when my dad said we'd take the dual carriageway.

Jewell carriages. I couldn't wait. I thought it would be like Cinderella.

Extremely disappointing.

Through her work, my mum had to call a police station custody suite.

Custardy sweet. Mmmmm.

I believed for a long time that there was a dye in the swimming pool which would show if I wee'd in the water.
I also have a fully grown up friend with dc of her own who told my dc that as snails got bigger they moved to larger shells. I had to tell her she was thinking of hermit crabs and she was utterly shocked

Ha ha ha these have made me smile

I also remember believing that cats were female and dogs were male

For some reason I thought that if you fell from a great height it was the fall that killed you not the landing and that you would be dead before you hit the ground. No idea why I thought that, well into my 20's in fact

I remember my little sister being baffled by floating candles. She didn't understand how they stayed lit in the bath! I'm assuming this was because my mum used to light candles when she got a bath.

I also remember the same sister standing at the edge of the water on the beach looking baffled. My dad had just told her his watch was waterproof to 50m and she was trying to figure out how the watch would know he is 50m from the shore.

White dog poo used to be common in the 1970s. My dad told me it was poodle poo, which I believed was the truth until around age 40.

That farm animals in those trailers on the motorway were going on holiday.

And that when piggy went to market (in the nursery rhyme) he was off to do some shopping.

I believed that parents HAD to be married in order to have a baby! Probably until I was 10!

I also believed that everyone owned their house. Until we sold ours and rented while we built a house...the renting concept really baffled me! I always wondered where the owners were staying as I couldn't possibly imagine that they had ANOTHER house 🤣🤣

@Awwlookatmybabyspider

Creepy kid alert. I used to think people were buried in actual grave stones. I was very confused as to how they got the person into them. I figured in the end that they must cut and squash the person up.

When my mum used take me on the bus to my nan’s I was always baffled that the destination on the front didn’t say ‘BabySpider’s nans.

Nurses were women. Doctors were men.

That when a women was pregnant they had to keep on having sex for the baby to keep growing

I thought that when you were pregnant you couldn’t have sex until after the baby was born.

I believed this until I was in my late teens

@Lelophants Jesus Christ... I also thought shopping market, until today!

I thought that if you kissed a boy you could get pregnant.

And that babies were born through your belly button.

😊

Yes I remember the whole swans breaking your arm thing! Bloody yobs

@Cheerybigbottom

I believed eating sugar gave you threadworms until I was in my early teens.

I was a greedy child for sweets so I guess my parents had to keep me off the sugar lumps somehow

I had a boyfriend aged 19 who believed this. I gave him some Ovex, poor sod.

My sister told me, and I believed her, that the purple bits inside runner beans were poisonous to children under the age of 10