Childhood Misconceptions

Silent Protagonist

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What childhood misconceptions did you have until you were older than you would care to admit?

Personally I thought "diet" was just a flavor of soda/pop like the cherry versions of coke/pepsi. I always preferred diet to regular as regular was too sweet, even for child me). Long after I learned what calories were(the chemical energy needed to heat a cubic centimeter of water one degree or something?) a friend took a friendly jab at me for drinking diet to watch my weight or something. I confusedly asked him the heck was he talking about and a quick look at the nutrition facts printed on the can revealed the zero calories compared to the regular hundred and something. I was 13.

A friend of mine thought only girls were supposed to use shampoo and had been using bar soap on his hair. He did not correct this mistake until High School, when there were group showers after gym and after school sports and the like, and a fellow athlete asked to borrow some shampoo.
 

Jamieson 90

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When I was about five or six I couldn't for the life of me understand how people could speak two different languages, as such I used to think they had one ear for understanding one language and the other ear for the second one, yeah I know it was stupid but well I was a kid.
 

Fappy

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I thought "parmesan" cheese was pronounced "farmer John's" cheese.

>.>
 

M K Ultra

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Nov 27, 2012
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I used to think



was a different flavor of



I found out the difference when I pestered my grandpa so much he gave me a glob of Beechnut.
 

Esotera

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My dad conditioned me from an early age to think that Michael Schumacher was a really evil man and shouldn't be allowed to drive in Formula One. I never really questioned it so this stuck with me until I was about 13 and wondered why on earth I hated the guy so much.
 

AgentNein

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Don't know if any of my misconceptions overstayed their welcome, but I WILL say this. One of my first memories as a child was being batshit obsessed and amazed with the trolley in Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Like, it went through it's little trolley hole and came out in basically another fucking universe!

How did that happen? I'm sure a lot of other kids accepted this at face value, not me. I was blown away.

I think I can safely chalk up my love of good out-there SF and stuff to that particular thing.
 

shogunblade

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Apr 13, 2009
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When I was a kid, I used to question the logic of some characters choices (in cartoons) instead of getting caught up in it.

This changed when I turned 11 or so, but when I was younger, I used to overanalyze lots of cartoons. Also, I knew a lot of adult jokes before I was old enough to even know when I should have known about them (There is a joke in Rugrats about Grandpa watching a movie when the kids go off to bed called "Lonely Space Vixens"... I got that joke at about 8, and it was awesome).

I also thought Viagra was a body of water, like Niagra Falls. Little did I realize until I got older that nothing about Viagra has a fall to it, and that's a true story.
 

Vault101

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I used to think beer was just another soft drink flavour that grown-ups liked...and would occasionally drink some of my dads
 

Prime_Hunter_H01

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It took me while to figure out that the price on the gas station sign wasn't the price to fill the tank completely but the price per gallon. So I was always confused when people were complaining about a 25 cent increase in gas price. And before I figured that I was already in charge of saving my allowance if i wanted a game so I knew the value of money.

Captcha: Play in Style.

So I talk about my perception of money and i get a casino add.
 

excalipoor

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There's a medieval castle near where I live that functions as a museum nowadays. The place is kept in a good condition, and for the most part people are allowed to wander freely.

One day when I was about five, me and my mother were exploring the nooks of the castle, when we came across something that shook me to the core: a toilet. As it turns out, princes and princesses defecate too.

A part of me died that day.
 

Saulkar

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I used to believed that the Speed on the CD drive was proportionate to the speed you could run videogames.
I used to believe that the TV screen was a portal with a glass shield.
I used to believe that teenagers were geniuses.

I used to believe that all of the gas put into a car slowly accumulated in its entire volume.
I used to believe that steers were the same as horses.
I used to believe that if you went far enough off of the highway you would fall off of the earth.
I used to believe that the earth was a sphere floating above the ground which was China.
I used to believe that every gravel road led to a haunted house.
I used to believe that cartoon characters were inherently stupid and made decisions I could easily tell were the wrong ones when I was four. I now know that there are a couple of smart cartoon characters.
I used to believe that all cartoons targeted to an age demographic below eight were stupid when I was 3, wait! I still believe that.
I used to believe that I would always have an eidetic memory, when I was 3. 17 years later I wish that were still true.

excalipoor said:
something that shook me to the core: a toilet. As it turns out, princes and princesses defecate too.

A part of me died that day.
Slightly similar, I have always had a fascination with dragons and one children's book where a dragon was dressing up for Halloween had the dragon wrapping itself with toilet-paper in his bathroom. I think that speaks for itself.
 

1nfinite_Cros5

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I used to think that, at a four-way traffic-light intersection, there was a room beneath the road that controlled which lights turned from red, green, and yellow and it had to be done by people manually.
 

TheRightToArmBears

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I'm sure there's a load of things, but at the moment I can only remember not understanding maps very well. I grew up on the English side of the Bristol Channel, so I could always see Wales. When I looked at maps I assumed that Ireland was Wales, and where I was would be somewhere on the Welsh coast. I never quite knew where Ireland fitted into the whole thing though...
 

Souplex

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Jul 29, 2008
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I have been wrong about one thing in my entire life.
I regret my mistake to this day.
When I was four years old, I declared girls icky.
I now understand that girls aren't icky, they are in fact, quite pretty. Unfortunately they're insane.
 

bigfatcarp93

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Mar 26, 2012
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I used to think that the world used to be black-and-white, and that's why old movies and shows were in black and white.

I also though that traffic lights were controlled by sensors in the roads that could tell when a car was coming.
 

Dags90

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Oct 27, 2009
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I was told and believed glass to be a slow moving liquid until my high school chemistry book corrected that falsehood.

I'm surprised two people posted about the gas prices thing. That was a relatively common word problem for multiplication.
 

Psychedelic Spartan

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Sep 15, 2011
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First off, one that I'm surprised nobody has posted yet: I thought that babies came out through the mouth.
I thought that if I walked far enough I would fall off the world
I thought that if I cut up food that I didn't like into small enough pieces, I could convince my parents I had eaten it
I thought random meant scary (no idea why, I just did)
I thought beer was just soda
 
Oct 2, 2012
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I used to think that white people only existed on tv (and thus were fake) except for me and my one friend and our families. I just thought we were black people with a skin condition.

I believed that until I was 13 and picked up a real history book and was completely destroyed till I was 15 when I got my first computer and internet.
 

T4FF3R

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Mar 22, 2011
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I used to think that there was a supernatural being that created the earth and people and everything else in the universe! Supposedly this guy had big plans for everything and everyone, but he wasn't too busy to listen if you had problems that you couldn't sort out on your own. He doesn't talk much anymore and doesn't really suspend the laws of nature to do amazing things these days, but he was kind of a big deal a long time ago.

Kids will believe anything. :p