I was embarassingly old, probably at least in junior high school, before I fully understood how male genitals were arranged. For a long time, I didn’t understand the whole testicles in a sack under the penis thing: I thought they were arranged one directly to the either side of the penis. When very young, I thought that the penis was segmented into spheres called testicles (a.k.a. “balls,” logically) that contained the sperm.
I blame the overly simplistic line drawings used to teach sex education. For crying out loud, a photograph wouldn’t have killed us!
I still to this day have a hard time envisioning the womb being as small as it is, despite having seen a real one in cross-section and all that. It seems to me that it should be at least as big as a butternut squash, even without a baby in it. Yet once again, literal biology disappoints the imagination.
I too, was very concerned about giving my stuffed animals equal rights. I rotated their sleeping schedules nightly so that no one was left out. They all got their turn. :rolleyes: Hey. Even teddy bears need love.
Pregnancy and sex: I thought a man and a woman laid in bed and peed together
( sex ), making one big pool of mixed pee ( conception ). Logically.
I used to pray the same prayer every nite, word for word. Included in this was my recommendation that all the policeman and all the firemen of the country unite, knock on the door of every house, enter, and then arrest all the bad people and confiscate all the guns, leaving the world a perfectly safe place. Voila-world peace!
Duh.
I was also deathly afraid of E.T. and witches. I was convinced that E.T. would be on the other side of my bed if I dare check, and the witches would come and bite off my ears if I didn’t sleep w/ the blankets pulled up over them. I still like to sleep like that. Still haven’t bothered to see E.T. since then either!
Lastly, I thoroughly thought Madonna was singing, “I’m a Cheerio” Girl.
I was confused by Material Girl as well–I’d never heard of the word in the context of money so I was thinking along the lines of that Febreze advert with the denim characters!
When I was little and saw the “don’t drink and drive” PSAs, I got very angry. Because I knew that if you didn’t drink anything, you would DIE, and these people must be trying to kill anyone who wanted to drive! And my mom drove ME places! Hence, these people wanted my mom to die!
I also thought that a witch and her goblin henchman lived in the toilet, and if I wasn’t out of the room by the time the toilet made a certain sound in its flush cycle, they would get me and drag me down into their toilet-lair, which was somehow separated from the rest of the household plumbing. Eventually, I realized this was stupid.
When I was very young, I (apparently) had a dream where my mom told me that penises were called “uddies” - some sort of diminutive form of “udder”. It made sense to me at the time. I mean, I was pretty familiar with cows, and a penis seemed pretty similar to a cow’s teat to ME. Pink, squirts liquid… I believed this for AGES. Then my mom found out and laughed at me, and insisted that I must have dreamed her telling me. I was kind of mad for a while.
For a while during my childhood, Qadgop worked afternoons and evenings. I decided I wanted to be a doctor, since I didn’t like getting up in the morning, and of COURSE all doctors had the same work schedules.
My older sister told me that bananas were actually pig’s tails. I believed it for a long time.
My mother was cooking my dinner and she scalded the green peas. I always liked green peas but these were horrible. I balked and she yelled at me to eat them as they were “black-eye” peas. I didn’t know any difference until I moved down South when I was 18. All I knew is that I didn’t like black-eye peas.
I wasn’t not fond of other vegetables including asparagus. My mother used to tell me to eat them because it would put “hair on my chest”. My natural response was why she and my sister would eat the asparagus.
Thank goodness it didn’t have any permanent effects. I really like bananas, black-eye peas and asparagus now that I am older. And for the record, I don’t have much hair on my chest.
I believed that President Lincoln was famous for freeing the sleighs. I hypothesized they must have gotten stuck in a snow drift, and he went out and got them unstuck. Really.
I believe I was told the truth at some point in early to mid elementary school. Ask mom, maybe she remembers. I sure remember her laughing at me. :mad:
Also, I haven’t listened to that song she sent me yet. I’ve been switching back and forth between operating systems a lot, lost the link. I should go look for it…
When I was about 7 or 8, my brother told me that it was mud inside black olives. I believed him, of course, and couldn’t bring myself to eat black olives for years.
Oh, I just remembered another childhood belief that is entirely his fault! He told me that imaginary numbers were ones like “twelveteen” and “eleventy-three”. I believed him for a while and actually went around telling other children that that’s what imaginary numbers were.
When I was about 6 I had this terrible dream about the easter bunny breaking into our house and killing my family. Having older siblings, I knew that things like Santa, etc were pretend but the dream was so vivid I just wasn’t sure about that huge pink bunny and spent many easter eve’s lying in bed, scared to sleep.
Whoah! ForgottenLore , your post really freaked me out because I used to think the exact same things!
I don’t know why, but I had convinced myself that I was an alien and was constantly scouring the sky, watching for that big ol’ ship to appear and take me home. I think this started shortly after watching Close Encounters , but I’m not really sure.
Then, when I was around 11 or 12, I thought that I could move things with my mind. I would “practice” with toothpicks and straws. I even tried to “blow out candles” with my mind. Never worked.
As some others have posted, I, too, thought that everything in the “old days” appeared in black and white.
I also believed that a ring of mushrooms would really turn into faeries at night.
I know there’s more, but can’t think of anything else right now.
I thought that skyscrapers were those jets that leave white clouds behind them. (Get it, because they leave a line, they “scrape the sky”?)
I also thought black people were white underneath their clothes (but only til I was about 3…I saw the lady from next door naked (WHY? I don’t remember…) and that’s when I realized that their private parts were dark, too. I think I thought it would be like the palms of their hands and bottoms of their feet, lighter than the rest of their bodies.
there were between 3 and 5 weeks in a month. I think this was because of trying to understand why there was between 28 and 31 days in a month. I know it doesn’t make any sense. Maybe that is why my bills are not paid on time.
Anything my uncle told me to do was OK, including riding my new Xmas snow saucer down the shag carpeted stair into a wall.
Also somewhat related
I inexplicably did not know what an ottoman was until I was in my 20s. I guess I thought that thing just did not have a name.
I thought you’d see thru that one when I gave you the “Calvin & Hobbes” collection from which I lifted that concept!
Now go find that song link! Mom thinks you’ll really like it because it has a line about someone who doesn’t shave their legs or something. I think it sounds sorta country-western so my brain turned off when she played it at me.
I thought condoms were big, loose-fitting, plastic underwear.
I’m also in the group of would-be telekenetics.
I thought “don’t drink and drive” was referring to drinking anything while driving, not alcohol. So, I was always ocnfused by my mom drinking water while driving - I thought it was illegal.
For some reason, I remember thinking that in order to get pregnant with my little sister (born when I was 5), my parents jumped up and down on their bed. This next part doesn’t make much sense unles I tell it in story form - I’ve tried to sum it up in a a sentence or two, but it hasn’t worked.
One day, my dad and I were out in the yard doing something. Working on the lawn or car or something. I think we were picking up dried cut grass and putting it in the bed of the truck to take down to the swamp that we lived on.
My mom called my dad into the house because he had a phone call. I waited outside for what seemed like foreveeeeeer. I thought that that was when they made my sister. Dunno why.
Story done.
Once, I got stung by a bee that got stuck in the back of my shirt. My mom flushed it. I was terrified for months of going in that toilet - I thought the bee would come out of the toilet and sting my butt.
Once, a cat of ours died (we had a lot of Barn cats). I thought it was “buried” in the hollowed out, still-standing trunk of a dead tree.
I thought sharks would come out of the bathtub drain, so I usually took showers. (We had a bathtub in one bathroom, and a standing-only shower in the other.)
I thought that the laughter you heard during shows was the laughter of other people watching the show. I remember that one time I pressed up against the speaker and laughed really loudly, thinking everyone who watched the show could hear me.
I thought Daddy Long-Legs were “seeds with legs.” My mom told me that I used to “plant” them.
I lived out in the boonies. Closest house was half a mile away. I thought there was always someone in th lawn, looking in my window as I changed (I lived on the 2nd story).
I thought Bloody Mary would come out of my digital clock, and It would come out of the sink drain.
I thought I could fly with an umbrella, like Mary Poppins.
Man, I can’t even get rid of most of my stuffed animals. How’s THAT for irrational. I tried! When going thru old boxes, I wanted to send them to the thrift store, but I felt guilty. I’m hoping that I’m confusing this feeling for good old fashioned nostalgia. Either way, I’m just saving them for my future child/children. Just in case…they want them. YEAH!
