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What Were YOUR Erroneous Childhood Beliefs?

Other than point 2 they are all true, aren't they?

(Teddys talk all the time, don't they?)
 
When I was little I recall being in in the car and driving with my father past a big power station....one with big chimneys producing loads of smoke.

I asked my Dad what it was and he told me it was a "cloud machine."

A few weeks later at school teacher asks does anyone know how clouds are made... naturally I immediately put up my hand and shared my cloud knowledge with the whole class.

Clouds are made by enormous cloud machines that emit the cloud material from big concrete tubes that sit on the ground.

I can reall not believing I was wrong especially when teacher launched into some hard to believe explanation about water evaporating fromthe sea and condensing into clouds.

JWS
 
There's a TV ad running here, wherein a father tells his young son that kitchen towels are full of tiny elephants which suck up spills. I didn't believe that any father would be rotten enough to tell such barefaced lies until I read JoeWestSydney's post just now. :roll:

Both his father and the TV ad one should have a metal bucket lowered open-end down over his head and beaten with tyre iron.
 
The greatest ad in the world is (i hope) still playing here in Oz where a Dad tells his kid that the Great Wall of China was built during the time of the Emporer Nazi Goreng to keep the rabbits out of China.
 
LaurenChurchill said:
...Great Wall of China was built during the time of the Emporer Nazi Goreng to keep the rabbits out of China.
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Didn't it work then? I suppose they just burrowed under it.
 
thebeagle1 said:
my mum used to tell me and my sister that every time we whistled indoors that a sailor would die. She insists now she didnt but I can clearly remember it - then came a stressed childhood telling schoolmates not to whistle and then giving them the reason. Oh dear. Naughty mother :roll:
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My mother had a more sinister take on whistling indoors. When I was very little and first learning to whistle, I tried it once (and only once) indoors. I say only once because she clouted me so hard I nearly saw God. When I picked myself up off the floor, she told me that I was never, never to whistle indoors again, as it made the Virgin Mary cry. Apparently the soldiers whistled while they gambled over Christ's robes during the crucifixtion.

I don't blame my mother, though - she was a true believer. I don't know if I ever believed this or not - I certainly learned not to whistle in the house, let me tell you.

Now the nuns, however...I absolutely blame them. :evil:
 
meowfur said:
thebeagle1 said:
my mum used to tell me and my sister that every time we whistled indoors that a sailor would die. She insists now she didnt but I can clearly remember it - then came a stressed childhood telling schoolmates not to whistle and then giving them the reason. Oh dear. Naughty mother :roll:
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My mother had a more sinister take on whistling indoors. When I was very little and first learning to whistle, I tried it once (and only once) indoors. I say only once because she clouted me so hard I nearly saw God. When I picked myself up off the floor, she told me that I was never, never to whistle indoors again, as it made the Virgin Mary cry. Apparently the soldiers whistled while they gambled over Christ's robes during the crucifixtion.
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Whistling certainly has a place in sailors' superstitions, but I'm surprised to hear it cropping up in a religious context.

There are 2 versions of the sailors' superstition. One is that that certain people from Finland could 'whistle up a storm' (by witchcraft).

The other is more mundane, and relates to the British Navy. Once upon a time, many orders for setting sail, etc, were conveyed by whistles (like the Bosun's Call). So whistling on board could be mistaken for a ship-handling order, and could cause confusion or even disaster.
 
rynner said:
Whistling certainly has a place in sailors' superstitions, but I'm surprised to hear it cropping up in a religious context.
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Clearly you were not sentenced to a childhood of Catholic catechism. I think the nuns' superstitions make sailors look like a most pragmatic lot. My experience occurred in the 50's and 60's, though. My mother was raised in the church in the very early years of the 20th century. I believe women aspiring to the convent now are required to be more formally educated, and perhaps don't have (or at least don't "teach as truth") quite so many superstitions.

Sorry to go so OT...the "whistling" thing brought it all back; hence, the spewage.
 
meowfur said:
thebeagle1 said:
my mum used to tell me and my sister that every time we whistled indoors that a sailor would die. She insists now she didnt but I can clearly remember it - then came a stressed childhood telling schoolmates not to whistle and then giving them the reason. Oh dear. Naughty mother :roll:
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My mother had a more sinister take on whistling indoors. When I was very little and first learning to whistle, I tried it once (and only once) indoors. I say only once because she clouted me so hard I nearly saw God. When I picked myself up off the floor, she told me that I was never, never to whistle indoors again, as it made the Virgin Mary cry. Apparently the soldiers whistled while they gambled over Christ's robes during the crucifixtion.
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My mother would go spare if we whistled indoors, it was considered bad luck to the household. I guess that was an erroneous childhood belief as I still avoid doing it now (not that I now believe it is bad luck, though).

I was also told constantly by both my parents (I paraphrase) that a "whistling woman and a crowing hen is no good to beast or men" - meaning it was uncouth - although it was my dad who taught me how to whistle :roll:
 
After reminising with my family the other day, I remembered another one.
For years I really did think ash, "Is good for the carpet." and wondered why! :oops: :D
 
akaWiintermoon said:
After reminising with my family the other day, I remembered another one.
For years I really did think ash, "Is good for the carpet." and wondered why!
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Sorry to be the dumb one around here, but can you elaborate, Wiintermoon? I'm enjoying this thread, as ever, but you've completely lost me there!
 
Peripart said:
akaWiintermoon said:
After reminising with my family the other day, I remembered another one.
For years I really did think ash, "Is good for the carpet." and wondered why!
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Sorry to be the dumb one around here, but can you elaborate, Wiintermoon? I'm enjoying this thread, as ever, but you've completely lost me there!
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Presumably tapping the ash from your cigarette onto the carpet instead of an ashtray is "good for the carpet"?
 
gncxx said:
Peripart said:
Presumably tapping the ash from your cigarette onto the carpet instead of an ashtray is "good for the carpet"?
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Usually, someone asks the smoker, "Why did you do that?"
The smoker answers, "The ash is good for the carpet; keeps away the moths."
To which the innocent usually reply, "I don't see any moths."
And the smoker smiles.
 
About 2 years, ago when my daughter was 4 she asked what I do in work, as I have an extremely boring job I thought it would be funny to tell her I wrestle Bears for a living. She laughed and said she didn't believe me. I thought no more of it untill I phoned her from work (last week) and she asked if she could speak to one of the bears.
 
I believed that when driving in a car late at night, the moon would race you.

I also thought that a voicebox was a transparent crystal and when you 'lost your voice', the crystal popped out, and that pregnancy was when a mother ate her child.
 
TsukinoUsagi said:
I also thought that a voicebox was a transparent crystal and when you 'lost your voice', the crystal popped out...
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This video must have terrified you!

bjork2j.jpg
 
TsukinoUsagi said:
I also thought that....pregnancy was when a mother ate her child.
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Well, that's sometimes true, but only if your mother is a trap-door spider. <g>
 
Oh wow, this describes me perfectly:

I thought everything had feelings, furniture, bugs, pens, you name it. Getting ice was the worst. When I took ice out of the ice tray, I would try and leave a few cubes near each other so they wouldn't get lonely. Later I started thinking what if the ice cubes I left near each other didm't get along, so I had to debate each time whether it was better to risk an ice cube being lonely or it having to put up with unfriendly cubes.
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I found it here: http://www.iusedtobelieve.com/at_home/around_the_house/around_the_house_s1.php[/quote]
 
Lauren, thanks for the link. Had I known that those threads existed I probably wouldn't have started this one!
 
I thought that the people flying in jets/planes could see us up close on the ground no matter where I was, even in the house, so sometimes I would wave to them.

My mother also told me the old one about how eating bread crusts will give you curly hair, so I was careful never to eat them. Another one was my uncle who told us that if we peed in the pool, a red line would follow us.
 
Impybat said:
Another one was my uncle who told us that if we peed in the pool, a red line would follow us.
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I have a friend who works at a swimming pool and assures me that this is true! But she said its a purple colour!!!
:cry:
 
Its a bit sad that no one has contributed to this thread for over a year - I have already added my erroneous childhood belief so lets ressurect this thread and see if we can find some more.

It is a genuinely funny thread - especially the guy who used to wrestle bears for a living.

Joe
 
My mother used to tell me the usual parental lies - crusts/curly hair, creatures that visited at night to check if kids were in bed, etc - and I got my own back when she had a laptop for going on the 'net a few years ago.

She had no idea how it worked, so I was able to tell her that everyone on the 'net could see her through the screen, that everything she typed was intercepted and stored by MI5, that you couldn't turn off the laptop's internal mic so everyone could hear her talking, and so on... ;)
 
S'all true, we just usually don't tell you. ;)
 
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