The stories in this article are incredibly relatable. I mean we all have things we are ashamed to say we believed when we were younger – don’t we?
For instance, you may have thought that the boogie man would chase you if you roamed around in the dark. And as a result you ran up the stairs once you turned the light off or maybe you avoided darkness altogether. See – we can all relate!
Interested in more stories? Find the original thread at the end of the article.
I’m the youngest person on my team at a pretty big corporate office so I get “justly” crapped on all the time due to my naivety.
We had a conversation on gross sounding foods that are actually delicious. Like jello being cow bones, ice-cream having seaweed in it etc. At 25-years- old I blurted out, “oh and gravy being turkey blood!!! So gross, but pretty delicious.” The entire table just stopped eating, looked, and laughed.
My dad convinced me they slit the birds throat and “juiced” it to make gravy.
breeseyb
My dad said the world was running out of toilet paper, so wed have to use leaves.
The 5-year-old me used leaves and I dont wanna talk about it.
Sect5
My grandad told me when I was quite young that he didn’t drive the car but that car knew where he was going and used the indicators to tell him which way to go, he just followed its instructions.
He even used to get in the car and say “morning car, we’re going to Morrison’s today”.
I believed this for an embarrassingly long time.
shut-your-noise
That I was allergic to cigarettes. Well played, Mom.
tuplski
Because of the way my dad explained recycling to me when I was 3, for the longest time I thought it was like a trading system.
I lived in China at the time so the only recycling bin I ever saw was a big one at my school. I remember the school announcing it’s installation, which then prompted me to ask my dad what it was. He explained it as a special box where you put things and then someone else takes it and turns it into someone new. I thought that the “something new” was something I got to have. I remember my dad putting newspaper in the recycling and me checking the bin day after day for the “something new.”
cerslicer
The pool light is a trap door leading to the ocean that sharks can come through.
I thought the sharks would eat me but only if I’m in the deep end alone.
Majestic_Dildocorn
That once you get your period you’ll bleed every day for the rest of your life.
I don’t know how I misunderstood sex education that badly, but boy am I glad I was wrong.
Ontokkii
When I was a kid I believed that if you took medicine for a condition you didn’t have that it would cause you to have symptoms of that condition.
Like if you didn’t have allergies and took Benadryl it would give you allergies. I believed this until I was like 18.
Trick_Blue
That a G spot was just somewhere that felt good to be touched or kissed.
Like I believed my neck was my “G spot” until I was like 17.
Knot_My_Name
You know how we say that hairs have roots?
Well, when I was kid I thought that it was similar to a plant. I would pluck a hair out and then try to plant it somewhere else…usually on my fingertip. I would do my best to try and keep the hair in place so the root would set and the hair would grow there.
I did this for months before I found out that it didn’t really work that way.
-eDgAR-
White people are superior to other races in every way. I remember being overweight and covered in acne and extremely rude with few friends thinking I was better than a Black kid.
My Dad was the typical hardcore racist type and that kind of mentality really is taught through generations. I have grown up and changed so much as a person since (and my Dad is changing little by little too).
dreamingpopcicle
That the pictures on the side of the U-Haul trucks were specifically because someone was moving to that state or place that was shown.
I didnt realize they were random until I was probably 15.
adamdeluxedition
That black women made chocolate milk.
I was a young, sheltered child.
GIf***ingJane
As a kid I believed garbage and litter caused tornadoes.
I’m not really sure why but when I saw a plastic wrapper on the ground I’d pick it up and smugly say ‘no tornadoes happening today!’
I no longer believe this to be true.
Syek26
When I was about 5-years-old, I thought the inside bits of a pomegranate were “nemo eggs.” I even tried hatching a bunch of them in a sink full of water.
s4ilorm00n
I thought this even for shows that weren’t cartoons. But I knew that they couldn’t all be in the T.V at once, so I decided that they must live in the ‘video home system’ tapes and only worked in the T.V. Every time I watched a show I thought that the people who lived in the VHS would somehow get from the VHS machine to the television and put on a live performance for just me.
JangWolly
I believed oral sex was people having a direct conversation about sex, as in “I would enjoy having sex with you. Would you like that?”
I pictured people politely thanking each other for the conversation, shaking hands, and cheerfully parting ways after having the conversation. I assumed this was how adults decided whether or not they would have actual sex together at some point in the future.
I blame Monty Python, because I came to this odd conclusion after watching Holy Grail and seeing the scene where Sir Galahad gets rescued from peril. I don’t think I’d ever heard of oral sex before that.
acorngirl
I thought the umbilical cord was called the biblical cord until my late teens. I never saw it written down and had interpreted the way it was said correctly.
I felt like a moron when I finally found out that I believed it was biblical cord the entire time.
gamingguy1990
Up until at least 9 I thought you could get pregnant from exchanging saliva. I got worried when we were on a trip and my mom was going to use my dad’s toothbrush while on a trip because we forgot hers at home (gross in retrospect I know) because I was afraid she’d have another baby.
Mind you, my parents hated each other. They were never married. I was an accident. I understood all those complex concepts and knew another baby between them would be bad but was convinced sharing a toothbrush would get her pregnant. Strange how I could understand some complexities but not others. Oh well.
angel_kink
I knew that drinking and driving was a crime but was unaware of the fact that it referred to alcohol.
I thought that my parents were breaking the law while drinking pop and driving.
fredducky
Man, I remember back in the mid-80’s to early 90’s, I was taught (and believed for longer than I care to admit) that certain bands were Satanic and would have secret messages playing backwards in their music, inspired by Satan and his demons.
Of course I eventually realized that was not true and ‘KISS’ doesn’t stand for Knights in Satan’s Service, Led Zeppelin didn’t have ‘Stairway to Heaven’ composed via demonic influence & AC wasn’t for Anti-Christ/Devil-Child.
But still, I cringe to this day.
tamammothchuk
I was raised catholic so of course I had to go to church as a kid (I no longer believe or practice).
Nonetheless, every Sunday when I was a kid I genuinely thought that the priest was God.
mmn2030
I believed Disney world was in the clouds and that you had to take a rocket to get up there. I guess it was because of the old commercials they used to have.
Michigan_Ent
I thought I was white. I am in fact the son of immigrants from India/Pakistan, but I thought there were only white people and black people, I had no idea that brown people were a thing, despite being one. I wasn’t dark enough to be black, so I thought clearly I was white.
The best part was how I learned the truth. There was a large gathering of family and friends at my grandparent’s house and the news was on in the background. I don’t remember what was said on the news, but evidently it was something negative pertaining to race. It prompted me to dramatically wipe the sweat from my brow and loudly declare “Boy, am I glad I’m white”. There was silence in the room as everyone looked at me and then erupted with laughter. My mom explained some things to me that day.
kingoflint282