What did you identify as when you were a child?

[JohnnyMcGrathSaysFuckOff]

I need something lighthearted after the incredible grimness of the thread about police intimate searches. As a SA survivor, flashbacks a-go-go

So I was thinking, what kinds of weird shit did you pretend to be when you were a kid? And how would your life be now if the adults around you had taken you really seriously?

My 3yo just announced she is a Terrible Potato who lives in a cave.

"I pretended I lived in a world where people were basically kind and accepting and didn't make fun of marginalised groups on the internet for laughs.... shame on the lot of you."

There's a serious side to it though which is that it is now considered correct to tell children who are pretending to be the opposite sex that they actually are the opposite sex.

Or, if the parent laughs it off like they would anything else in this thread, or even questions the child "oh you don't mean you're really a boy" that parent is unfit and the child should probably be taken into custody, or at least the child should be given the right to prescribe themselves medications.

I was a guinea pig. My mother did get fed up of that one, as I used to have long phone conversations (ancient landline in the living room) with my best friend, carried out entirely in squeaks.

I was also an orphaned slave heroically escaping to the North (USA).

One of the tomorrow people. It was my favourite game for a couple of years pretending to jaunt round the playground and at home.

He-man until my mum took my sword away because I hit my sister over the head with it. Also wolverine still quite fancy being him still.

I used to identify as Mog the cat.

It sounds like it's a normal part of childhood. And we grow out of it.

I was a horse and so was my friend. We had to have our stomachs pumped because we ate so much grass!
Apart from that i regularly believed i was a witch or a vampire

Horse too, and then a boy.

Well Fekko, you say that but watching events in our world unfold, my childhood identity still has a word with me at times. Heck, had I followed my calling, I could have made my profession my hobby!

I spent a year or so as a girl called Mary. I wore a lacy shawl over my head as long black hair- I must have baked!

Also spent a fair bit of time admiring both George and Anne from the famous five, sat because they were so brave.

That was in between making dens up trees.

I was a strange child, and certainly didn't fit in with my peers.

DS2 was Dora the Explorer for at least a year.

That was between his Bella from the Tweenies and his Woody phases.

Now he indentifies as an aimlessly wandering procrastinator in jockey shorts; usually found clutching a bowl of cereal.

An actress... tried my luck but didn't get very far. Although I am a huge drama queen now so I guess I'm sort of living the dream.

I was convinced I was secretly a twin.

I used to drop heavy hints to my parents about it, sure that eventually they would confess that I'd been right all along and that my identical twin (Margaret -- for some reason my parents had randomly named her after my gran, rather than the standard 70s names) had been adopted in mysterious circumstances.

Crikey. Just typing that makes it come back. It felt so real at the time.

DS1 was Virgil Tracy from Thunderbirds for about a year. He wouldn't respond to his real name, only to 'Virgil'. The baby names threads would have slaughtered me.

A duck

Then just as I hit puberty I became androgynous ( late 1970s early 1980s) which then led me into being a punk/ goth

I now identify as a grown up human being

A mermaid. Then I was a cat.
I lived as a squirrel for a day too.

For most of year 4 I convinced everyone I was Elizabeth the first hahaha. It worked mainly, until a teacher told me to stop.
My little brother got a Spider-Man costume one Christmas and we had to practically peel it off him because he was Spider-Man for ages.

A horse. Specifically a chestnut Arab, 15.2 hands high, outstanding but spirited and tetchy showjumper, which I would demonstrate with endless jumps set up in the garden.

Mercifully my friends thought this was excellent and had equine identities too, although perhaps not quite so sustained as mine!

🐎

This morning 2.5 year old DD says she is going to grow down to be a tiny baby and she has also been a cat.

She does knows that she is a girl because she has a ‘normal bottom’ (her own terminology) not a willy like some of her friends or Daddy.

A cowboy, I watched a lot of westerns with my dad. Later I decided I'd rather be a vampire.

Indiana Jones with my hat & whip...I didn't want to do all the seducing of women though. But definitely wanted to have adventures like him.

Shame on all you(r) parents for not calling the doctors and having you(r) children species reassigned 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I know Yankee, my parents really let me down. Not only did they turn a blind eye when I was cantering around insisting I was James Coburn, they also let me play football and learn carpentry. Do you think I have a case to sue?

Empress of the world
or a lawyer

A cooker. Not a cook. A cooker.