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What Were YOUR Erroneous Childhood Beliefs?

I never believed in Santa Claus.

I was such a timid child, just as well.

I vaguely remember believing in Santa Claus, but I wasn't very old when I realised it just made no sense and couldn't possibly be true. I was maybe 6 or 7?

Had to keep up the charade for a few years as I have a sister who is three years younger.

It was always quite clear that the presents were from Mum & Dad, Nan & Grandad etc, Santa just delivered them. They weren't actually from him.

More Yodel than magical.
 
In our house Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny were always treated as fictions that were fun to pretend to believe in. On the other hand, influenced by various fantasy TV shows and movies, I maintained a belief for a very long time that Santa might really exist if you believed in him. I'm not sure that one has totally gone away. And I still have a fascination with depictions of Santa that deviate from the Coca-Cola standard, particularly the tall, thin St. Nick types.

I always believed stepping on cracks was bad luck, but didn't hear the common "...and break your mother's back" reason until I was 10 or so. When I asked my mother about it, she said she wasn't familiar with it, but grew up hearing "Step on a crack and you'll piss in bed." Here is Gahan Wilson's take on it from his "Strange Beliefs of Children" in an old National Lampoon:
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I just remembered another belief of my childhood: The Memorial Day ceremonies I would attend typically would have 7 rifles fired three times as a tribute to the war dead, followed by the playing of "Taps". I thought the "Taps" was in tribute to anyone who was accidentally killed by the rifles that had just been fired.

I never went for storks dropping babies down the chimney for a family to have a baby.

At a young age I did not know how, but I knew pregnant women and babies went together.
When I was very young and I asked my parents where I'd come from they told me "We found you under a gooseberry bush.". This thread's really making me want to re watch Big Fish now. I love that film.
 
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How old were you when you realized Santa Clause was not real ?

I don’t think I ever accepted that Santa Clause was real, maybe because my family was poor when I was young.

But my mom always had stockings hung with our names on them no matter what.

I did get a electric train set once and I was so happy I ran it to death.

Very young, because I heard my mother rummaging upstairs in the attic every Christmas Eve, and also realized that my mom's writing matched Santa's writing on gift tags (and the card inside the Easter basket)

I also thought the idea of the Easter Bunny was ridiculous. I was kind of cynical now that I think about it!
 
Have we had the one yet about if you swallowed chewing gum it would wrap around your tonsils and kill you? .. I was talking about that with the Mrs a couple of days ago and she admitted she'd once swallowed gum as a kid and was convinced she was going to die.

We were told it stayed in your stomach for seven years!
 
My mum told me that there was a magic starfish that buried small toys for good children at the seaside. She would point to where to dig and there would be a toy dinosaur or matchbox car. I knew it was her all along but i thought that this was a thing all parents did for their kids, and that the Magic Starfish was a well known tradition like Father Christmas and the Ester Bunny.
 
My wife is a big coffee drinker and I may possibly drink coffee if it has lots of sweetner and cream in it.

As I look back the reason why I never went for coffee is because my mom told me if I drank coffee, it would stunt my growth.

Well, I ended up at 6 feet, so maybe my mom was right ?
 
My mum told me that there was a magic starfish that buried small toys for good children at the seaside. She would point to where to dig and there would be a toy dinosaur or matchbox car. I knew it was her all along but i thought that this was a thing all parents did for their kids, and that the Magic Starfish was a well known tradition like Father Christmas and the Ester Bunny.
When my niece and nephew were little, we all went on a seaside holiday together. My Dad took me into a gift shop and bought a bag of shells, he told me the little 'uns had set their hearts on finding a load of shells so me and him were going to sneak down to the beach before them to scatter the shells because they're weren't any there :).
 
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My wife is a big coffee drinker and I may possibly drink coffee if it has lots of sweetner and cream in it.

As I look back the reason why I never went for coffee is because my mom told me if I drank coffee, it would stunt my growth.

Well, I ended up at 6 feet, so maybe my mom was right ?
Of COURSE she was. It's your MOM.
 
I was discussing this thread with my husband. He is from a farming district about 100 miles from where I was raised. As a child, he had been taught "Step on a crack and break your mother's back." I was taught "Step on a crack and break your back."
 
For me (Essex boy) it was "Don't tread on the cracks or the bears will break your back"
 
I never went for storks dropping babies down the chimney for a family to have a baby.

At a young age I did not know how, but I knew pregnant women and babies went together.
I was told where babies came from (and how they were made) at the age of about two, when my mother was pregnant with my brother. I remember her telling me, so I think I must have either been a very precocious child, or so traumatised that it's stayed with me.

Aged about ten, a friend came up to me in the playground gasping to tell me that she'd found out how babies were made and I just shrugged and said 'yeah, so?' She had, apparently, been hoping it was all lies.

And some of these wonderful childhood misunderstandings are making me go awwwwww.....
 
I was told where babies came from (and how they were made) at the age of about two, when my mother was pregnant with my brother. I remember her telling me, so I think I must have either been a very precocious child, or so traumatised that it's stayed with me.

Aged about ten, a friend came up to me in the playground gasping to tell me that she'd found out how babies were made and I just shrugged and said 'yeah, so?' She had, apparently, been hoping it was all lies.

And some of these wonderful childhood misunderstandings are making me go awwwwww.....
OTOH I was told precisely nothing about it all, including menstruation, and woke up one morning thinking I was bleeding to death. :mad:

To be fair though parents can't get it right. I told Escet everything I knew about sex when he was about 11 and he later told me off for not including homosexuality. :roll:
 
OTOH I was told precisely nothing about it all, including menstruation, and woke up one morning thinking I was bleeding to death. :mad:

To be fair though parents can't get it right. I told Escet everything I knew about sex when he was about 11 and he later told me off for not including homosexuality. :roll:
I spent YEARS being upset that my parents didn't also wake me up to tell me about the meteor shower that Mum, Dad and my Sister got to watch .. then later on I learned that that was all bullshit and my Sister had just had her first period instead ..
 
OTOH I was told precisely nothing about it all, including menstruation, and woke up one morning thinking I was bleeding to death. :mad:

To be fair though parents can't get it right. I told Escet everything I knew about sex when he was about 11 and he later told me off for not including homosexuality. :roll:

I was told about menstruation, having two older sisters who prepared me. The girls in my fifth grade class also viewed a film about it while the boys got to have an extra recess. We were advised to tell the boys to "go ask your mother!" if they were curious about what we did that afternoon :hahazebs:
 
Anyone else have the one where you really believed, spending an afternoon at your granny's/auntie's, et c, that their TV set picked up completely different programes to the ones you got at home?
 
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I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before but when I was at school and Poppy Day came around I naturally assumed the paper poppies were for general kid use but the ones on wooden Crucifix Stakes were for killing vampires.
 
I spent YEARS being upset that my parents didn't also wake me up to tell me about the meteor shower that Mum, Dad and my Sister got to watch .. then later on I learned that that was all bullshit and my Sister had just had her first period instead ..
This is the sort of thing that helps you survive Triffid invasion.
 
Anyone else have the one where you really believed, spending an afteroon at your granny's/auntie's, et c, that their TV set picked up completely different programes to the ones you got at home?
If granny lived in a different region, then they probably did.
Visiting my Grandma, I would see London regional programmes, and visiting my Nan in Wales I would see a load of programmes that were for Wales.
 
My sister was born when I was 5 so I guess that I didn't believe my Grandmother's story that they were born in a cabbage patch.
I probably believed in Santa for a couple of years as there used to be free ones in each big store every Christmas, but by about grade 4 ( and I was a year younger than the others) I was told that it was your parents., so I would have been 7 or 8.
Like some others it was only one or two presents though as there was never a lot of money.
My cousin's mother had to tell him when he was 11.


7 or 8
 
If granny lived in a different region, then they probably did.
Visiting my Grandma, I would see London regional programmes, and visiting my Nan in Wales I would see a load of programmes that were for Wales.
‘Why is that man mud wrestling a piglet on the news?’
’You’re not in that there London anymore. You’re in The Regions. Nobody can help you now.’
 
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‘Why is that man mud wrestling a piglet on the news?’
’You’re not in that there London anymore. You’re in The Regions. Nobody can help you now.’
Ours went the other way, we lived in regional Devon but my grandmother lived on the Isle of Sheppey and got London TV programmes. I found the adverts most fascinating, they all seemed to be for sophisticated stuff (like fizzy lemonade). We weren't allowed to watch adverts at home, they were 'common' (but we did, of course, but they all seemed to be for tractors).
 
Ours went the other way, we lived in regional Devon but my grandmother lived on the Isle of Sheppey and got London TV programmes. I found the adverts most fascinating, they all seemed to be for sophisticated stuff (like fizzy lemonade). We weren't allowed to watch adverts at home, they were 'common' (but we did, of course, but they all seemed to be for tractors).
Sheppey is a weird place - out of the way & a bit of a backwater. Last time I went there a few years ago it was a bit like stepping back into the 60s or 70s, maybe 80s. What did you make of it when you visited?
 
Sheppey is a weird place - out of the way & a bit of a backwater. Last time I went there a few years ago it was a bit like stepping back into the 60s or 70s, maybe 80s. What did you make of it when you visited?
I had family living there so we visited regularly from when I was very small. So I really didn't think of it at all. It was just 'that place where my aunt and uncles live.'
 
In 1958 at age 12, I was dragged to the movie to see the musical Gigi.

I walked away believing that all married French men went home to their prostitute instead of their wife and children.

I wonder if it still like this in France today ?
 
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