# Weird things you believed as a kid **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [December 21, 2020, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583 "2020-12-21T23:41:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/61 "2020-12-23T16:19:47Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > I believed that women had one breast for each child they had. My mom and all my aunts had two kids each, so logically they had two breasts. Except my one aunt had three kids, so I figured one of them was adopted. What would little you have thought about the Dionne quintuplets’ mom? ---
**Author:** ![blondebear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blondebear/32/1022_2.png) [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/62 "2020-12-23T16:23:39Z")
I had a science book for kids that had a section on gravity with an illustration of what would happen if it failed–people and cars and dogs and cats flying up into the air. Somehow I got the idea that losing gravity was a randomly occurring natural disaster like an earthquake. This led to me being very aware of my surroundings for trees and things I could hold on to so I didn’t fly off into space. ---
**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/63 "2020-12-23T16:31:14Z")
[Mean\_Mr.Mustard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mean_Mr.Mustard)’s post reminded me that I use to think that when a singles were plaid on the air, that they were the not so great songs on an album. The reason being, if you like this song then there are even better ones you can hear if you buy the album. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/64 "2020-12-23T16:36:00Z")
My theory was that if I was lying in bed with my entire body including my head covered by the bedding, I was safe from whatever was under the bed as well as ninja assassins. The only problem is that it gets really stuffy under there so I couldn’t stay under there for long. ---
**Author:** ![BrickBat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ac91a4/32.png) [@BrickBat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrickBat)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/65 "2020-12-23T16:39:49Z")
A few come to mind: Everything ( the whole world ) was in black & white until not very long before I was born. When at a gas station I could never understand how those gas pumps can hold so much gas inside. All dogs were boys, and all cats were girls. There were only two religions: You were either catholic or jewish. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/66 "2020-12-23T16:53:21Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > There were only two religions: You were either catholic or jewish. This was my initial view of the world of religion. Even though I knew the kid next door wasn’t Catholic, he went to that Prezibaritan church, but it had a cross in front of it so it must have still been Catholic. ---
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/67 "2020-12-23T16:57:11Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#): > > If you ran the wheels on a battery-powered electric toy backwards, it would recharge the battery. > I knew both motors & generator had wire coils in em–I thought that was how it worked. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Well, kinda… It’s putting voltage into the battery… Way back in the slot car days I taped two permanent magnet motors to a board with their cogs meshed, put a 6v flashlight bulb across one’s terminals, and applied 12v to the terminals of the other. The one being spun developed enough voltage to light the bulb, but not to full brightness. It was not very efficient. Experimenting further, I spun by hand the cog of a motor with and without the bulb on the terminals, confirming that a loaded generator takes more energy to spin than one with no load. OTOH I remember falling for the “moon is following me” illusion when I saw it low in the sky while riding in a car. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/68 "2020-12-23T17:04:39Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > There were only two religions: You were either catholic or jewish. I grew up in a jewish neighborhood. My mom was jewish, my dad was christian, but we didn’t gop to church/shul. Everyone in my school was jewish. As a result, as a kid I thought that christians were a minority among a jewish population. When I was in second grade, a mormon family moved in to the neighborhood. They didn’t celebrate halloween or birthdays. I thought they were the most radical people I’d ever meet, and was a little afraid of them. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/69 "2020-12-23T17:55:16Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I had a science book for kids that had a section on gravity with an illustration of what would happen if it failed–people and cars and dogs and cats flying up into the air. Somehow I got the idea that losing gravity was a randomly occurring natural disaster like an earthquake. This led to me being very aware of my surroundings for trees and things I could hold on to so I didn’t fly off into space. I had a teacher say something about, “if the Earth stopped spinning, everything would fly off”, so I thought that the spinning imparted gravity for a long time. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/70 "2020-12-23T19:14:36Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > > [@BrickBat](#): > > > > There were only two religions: You were either catholic or jewish. > > I grew up in a jewish neighborhood. My mom was jewish, my dad was christian, but we didn’t gop to church/shul. Everyone in my school was jewish. > > As a result, as a kid I thought that christians were a minority among a jewish population. I had a similar experience. From grade 2 through grade 4, I went to a public school in an area where a neighborhood with a large Jewish population bordered an area with a large WASP population. A very large percentage of my schoolmates were Jewish, though there was a decent smattering of Anglo-Canadian kids there too (I’m from a Serbian family that could be described at the time as nonreligious/non-practicing Orthodox Christian). This and possibly related experiences led me to believe for a long time that a much larger segment of Canadians were Jewish than is actually the case. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/71 "2020-12-23T19:18:09Z")
And come to think of it, my bedroom was directly above my parents. No wonder he was awake - by the time I was downstairs, he would have been woken by my wandering in my room, and the sound of me coming downstairs. ---
**Author:** ![themapleleaf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/themapleleaf/32/14349_2.png) [@themapleleaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/themapleleaf)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/72 "2020-12-23T19:26:41Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I had a science book for kids that had a section on gravity with an illustration of what would happen if it failed–people and cars and dogs and cats flying up into the air. Somehow I got the idea that losing gravity was a randomly occurring natural disaster like an earthquake. This led to me being very aware of my surroundings for trees and things I could hold on to so I didn’t fly off into space. I recall an image just like that in one book. It may have been the same one. ---
**Author:** ![Cumberdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8c91f0/32.png) [@Cumberdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cumberdale)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/73 "2020-12-23T19:43:48Z")
To get a woman pregnant, men had to urinate inside them. I believed this because of how sperm was described. Also, I remember seeing video of the little guys swimming toward the egg. So after peeing in the toilet, I’d look down and see what looked like dark squiggly things “swimming” in there. So in my mind, the man enters the woman, pees then goes back to whatever they were doing. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/74 "2020-12-23T20:15:52Z")
That’s more complex than what I had believed at that age. I had been confused by how the Bible said that when a man “sleeps with a woman” the woman gets pregnant, and so when I was 5 or 6 I happened to be lying in bed next to my mom and I asked her if this meant she was going to get pregnant. She simply replied, “It takes more than that,” and fell asleep. ---
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/75 "2020-12-23T20:16:55Z")
I also had this belief that when you get stung the 1st time by a bee, it’s okay in itself, but it has the effect of making you severely allergic to subsequent bee stings. This misconception almost resulted in someone calling an ambulance for me at age twelve when I told them I’d been stung and that I was allergic to such stings. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/76 "2020-12-23T20:26:03Z")
> [@motu](#): > > adults watched the News, which was always talking about a WaterGate, which I pictured as a vine covered arbor by/with a waterfall. Never understood why they kept talking about that Water Gate but never showed it. I grew up hearing The Big People on the news in the early 80s talking about the Iran Contra affair & guerrilla warfare, and was always confused/disappointed when neither cobras nor gorillas were actually shown on the news. ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/77 "2020-12-23T20:28:14Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > My theory was that if I was lying in bed with my entire body including my head covered by the bedding, I was safe from whatever was under the bed as well as ninja assassins. The only problem is that it gets really stuffy under there so I couldn’t stay under there for long. [Here’s what you needed!](https://images.app.goo.gl/BGQqT5ZxRWZwaPww7) ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/78 "2020-12-23T20:30:39Z")
> [@BrickBat](#): > > There were only two religions: You were either catholic or jewish. One day I asked my mom about the Bingo religion. There was a church we passed all the time that had a “BINGO” sign on it. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/79 "2020-12-23T20:47:01Z")
My family had a similar story about a pet who went to live on a farm (a cat who we thought was a sweet friendly thing, until she shredded my sister’s face), but I know the story was true, because the farm in question belonged to a relative, and we’d see the cat (from a safe distance) when we occasionally visited. ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 23, 2020, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583/80 "2020-12-23T21:07:54Z")
> [@blondebear](#): > > I had a science book for kids that had a section on gravity with an illustration of what would happen if it failed–people and cars and dogs and cats flying up into the air. Somehow I got the idea that losing gravity was a randomly occurring natural disaster like an earthquake. This led to me being very aware of my surroundings for trees and things I could hold on to so I didn’t fly off into space. It’s a bit weird that a science book would try to explain gravity like this to kids, I think I would have reached the same conclusion as you. Next week’s lesson, what is a skeleton? - picture of collapsed shapeless blob of flesh [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/weird-things-you-believed-as-a-kid/928583.md?page=5)