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

322 replies

Elmo230885 · 17/08/2020 07:43

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.

OP posts:
GrouchyKiwi · 17/08/2020 12:00

@hilariousnamehere

I thought moving house meant putting your house on the back of a lorry and taking it to a new place... I was devastated aged 6 when I discovered that wasn't a thing...
This isn't unusual in New Zealand. My aunty & uncle bought a house and moved it on the back of a lorry to where they wanted it to be. And my grandparents' house was moved on a lorry by the people who bought it (as it was built on another aunt & uncle's land so they could take care of them).
spacehoppered · 17/08/2020 12:17

My dad and uncle going off for a 'nightcap' in the hotel (after a wedding) I was distraught I couldn't go too, thinking they were getting a proper 'wee willy winky' style night cap for sleeping in.

mummyh2016 · 17/08/2020 12:25

I used to think my great aunt was married to Cliff Richard. In my defence I was only little and I'd heard her talk a lot about her husband Cliff who I'd never met. She was also a huge Cliff Richard fan. Turns out I'd never met her husband as he passed away before I was born.

wanderings · 17/08/2020 12:27

I love these threads too. Here are some of my childhood beliefs:

That if I wore shoes without socks, my shoes would walk away by themselves, or that I might take them off and find my toes had vanished. (I think my mum had told me this one, and I was scared at school when we were sometimes made to wear shoes on our bare feet.)

That if things appeared a lot in fairy tales, they must be made up. I was surprised to learn about the reality of wolves, foxes, kings and queens, castles, prisons, rainbows.

When I watched other children being blindfolded to pin the tail on the donkey, I thought they would just see the scarf as a strip in front of them. I couldn't understand why they were all getting their tail in the wrong place! Then it was my turn, and it was a shock to find I couldn't even see the pattern on the scarf. Even after that, I was in denial that the same would happen again: but each time I was blindfolded, I couldn't see a thing. Sad

@Spanielmadness You must have watched Fawlty Towers. "You're not married, I can't give you a double room. It's the law of England, nothing to do with me."

@hilariousnamehere Although I knew that "moving house" meant the people moved and not the house, when we were told at primary school to write a story about moving house, I wrote about the house actually moving! Wink

hilariousnamehere · 17/08/2020 12:51

@grouchykiwi that has made my day Grin

@wanderings glad it's not just me 😂

And I lol-ed at the fairytales - I love narwhals and people are still surprised to discover they're real now - I'm in my mid thirties 😂

Livpool · 17/08/2020 13:20

@PopsicleHustler I also thought that about car doors. I was always terrified if the car was full - I'd hold on to people in the back!

2 things I was genuinely terrified about:
Spontaneous human combustion
The Bermuda Triangle

My brother is 10 years older than me and used to love telling me things that scared me

Livpool · 17/08/2020 13:22

And my DS believes that people on YouTube or TV live there.

DH asked him if he wanted him to record him and put him on YouTube and he screamed and cried. He wanted to stay in the real world

ShirleyPhallus · 17/08/2020 13:25

2 things I was genuinely terrified about:
Spontaneous human combustion
The Bermuda Triangle

How about quick sand?!

MsEllany · 17/08/2020 13:28

@CurtainWitcher

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.

Grin brilliant!
Livpool · 17/08/2020 13:29

Oh god @ShirleyPhallus how could I forget?!

I used to hate going to be the beach in case I came across some!

I was a very gullible child 😂

TurkeyTrot · 17/08/2020 13:36

@LunaNorth

I thought Piccadilly Circus was an actual circus, with a ringmaster and horses.

I thought Chesterfield was a county until I was in my twenties.

And I thought if you picked up a guinea pig by the tail its eyes fell out, until my then-infant school age child corrected me.

Oh, and until about a month ago, I thought if a dog’s front legs were pulled apart, its heart would split. My dad taught me that. God knows why. My brother couldn’t believe I still believed it. Blush

@LunaNorth

Guinea pigs don't have tails

Supermarketworker06 · 17/08/2020 13:51

I was told by my mum that if you unscrewed your belly button, your legs fell off. I didn't quite believe it but I never tried it just in case she was right.
Yes to pulling the dog's front legs apart would kill them, if I remember it's something to do with splitting their heart?

Yes to swallowing apple pips meant you'd get a tree growing inside you.

Yes to swallowing chewing gum meant it will kill you by tangling round your heart or stomach.

Yes to not having the inside light on in the car, it's illegal.

Yes to swans breaking your arm.

Were parents given a book entitled "Lies to scare your kids with?"

Wanderer1 · 17/08/2020 13:58

I thought that if I had my eyes closed when I yawned that I would instantly fall asleep! 😂

Bilbaboggins · 17/08/2020 14:04

These are brilliant!

In year 7 I was told by an actual trainee teacher in science class that it you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyes pop out.
As it was said by a teacher I really believed it for ages!!

RedRec · 17/08/2020 14:17

@Cavagirl there are a load of big old chimneys by the M62 / A1 junction that churn out clouds of white smoke. My daughter's friend, aged 9, came to stay and asked me if that was "where the clouds were made". We talk about it every single time we go past there (and they are 16 now).

lachy · 17/08/2020 14:18

@Supermarketworker06 Your mum lied to you...if you unscrew your belly button, your bum falls off, not your legs

Grin
TheLittleRedToothbrush · 17/08/2020 14:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Toddlerteaplease · 17/08/2020 14:50

Eating bread crusts made your hair curly (a bonkers TA at their primary)

My dad absolutely insists that this is true. He has very curly hair and loves crusts!

letsgomaths · 17/08/2020 16:25

That under drain covers along a London footpath, there lived a troll, who sailed along in a little boat (rushing water could be heard), who didn't like children posting stones through the drain covers, which would hit him on the head.

Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach vividly describes how the weather is made by cloudmen, including hand-painted rainbows, thunder made by drums, snow made by cloudmen turning a handle, and so on. I so wanted all that to be true! Also the peach stone being set up in Central Park as James's house, and the book written by James himself. ("And that is what you have just finished reading.") Central Park was too far away for to be able to check this, and be disillusioned.

letsgomaths · 17/08/2020 16:30

That some houses had a cage in them, like the witch's house in Hansel and Gretel. (Why would she have had a cage in her kitchen, just like that?) But it was only boys who were in danger of being locked up!

Supermarketworker06 · 17/08/2020 16:33

@Bilbaboggins

These are brilliant!

In year 7 I was told by an actual trainee teacher in science class that it you sneeze with your eyes open, your eyes pop out.
As it was said by a teacher I really believed it for ages!!

I remember hearing this not that long ago, and it being said that's why you can not keep your eyes open when you sneeze, it's an inbuilt thing with people to protect your eyes from falling out. I might have spent waaaay too long trying to do it, and I was actually quite grown up at the time (like about 50!) Eyes haven't fallen out yet!
Supermarketworker06 · 17/08/2020 16:34

[quote lachy]@Supermarketworker06 Your mum lied to you...if you unscrew your belly button, your bum falls off, not your legs

Grin[/quote]
Definitely told legs!

CaptainCorellisPangolin · 17/08/2020 16:40

@Lelophants

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

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

Oh God, I've only just twigged about this little piggy. I thought he was going to market to get roast beef and that was why he had it and the other had none. A sort of moralistic "don't be lazy, buy your own roast beef" sort of tale. Why's the pig eating roast beef.
CaptainCorellisPangolin · 17/08/2020 16:57

When I was 5 and we had local elections, my dad got a bit drunk and told me that the candidates were having a fist fight (beating the shit out of each other, to use his exact words) outside the local pub. This was my understanding of politics for quite some time.
My parents were quite surprised that, as a 7 year old, I was so interested in the general election but it was only because I was looking forward to watching John Major and Tony Blair beat the shit out of each other. I was quite disappointed.

wanderings · 17/08/2020 17:15

That there was a danger of being caned at secondary school (1990s); at primary school, it was rumoured that this happened at the nearby private school.