What are some of the strangest beliefs you have had?

[Mountainmama]

I believed all the wildflowers in the park were Indians (I was around 6). I also thought I could float. But a few good falls changed my mind - until I was a teen and we levitated a girl at a sleepover. Then it took a few more good falls to change my mind LOL. And then - -- I caught at least 3 of my kids doing something stupid, because they thought they could fly. Weird thing is -- 2 of them actually managed to make astounding leaps and survived! One Jumped down a flight of stairs, hit the bottom step and escaped harm (he claimed for years he had floated down) and another jumped off a roof and landed on his feet quite nicely. But, none of them ever thought flowers were Indians.

 

My most recent (shall I say current) idea is that my cats understand every word I say and carry on philosophical conversations after I leave for work :-)

[theYoungerMrsWarde]

When I was young I was given some....human biological information that was inappropriate for my age, but not the right information when I got older, so until Sophomore year of high school I thought that a man's....you-know-what had to be exercised like a muscle to....perform it's non urinary function. I thought guys had to flex and exercise to make it possible to preform it's secondary function.

[Sisyphus]

I'm pretty sure that is true about the cats.

[Granny_Weatherwax]

Love these.  Thanks for sharing.

 

[Rosie_0801]

I remember being perplexed about the 'Form One Lane' road signs. How could it mean only people in year 7 could drive in them, when year sevens were too young to drive?

[coffeegal]

When Mom asked me if I wanted another little brother or sister, I seriously thought she was asking my permission to have another child.   I mean, my parents would NEVER make such a decision without my input, would they.  ;)  :smilielol5:

[melbotoast]

Dp

[melbotoast]

I used to believe that scarves were something cute to put on a snowman, but I couldn't imagine an actual person wearing one. I grew up in southeast Texas :)

 

I also thought that "mail-worth-mentioning" was one word for a long time because my dad would come home every day and ask if there was any mail worth mentioning.

[Melissa in Australia]

Mine is about s*x, too. I knew the very basic mechanics but I couldn't imagine anyone doing that voluntarily... so I believed that babies were only conceived in the summertime when it was too hot to sleep in clothing. Mom and Dad would roll a bit too close to each other and whoops -- baby on the way!

:lol:  funny thing is I remember thinking something very similar when I was a child.

[Chelle in MO]

I used to think there were people at the radio station performing into microphones for broadcast. And commercial breaks were there to allow the next band to set up.

 

Me, too!  I couldn't imagine how they changed bands so quickly!  And how the bands made the rounds from station to station so quickly!

 

[Melissa in Australia]

I remember thinking the soft edges road signs were soft eggs. I was always mystified about why they would have warning signs along the road for soft eggs.

[speedmom4]

I loved the show Little House on the Prairie when I was young. I remember my mom telling me that Laura was a real person and that the show was about a real family. I concluded from that conversation that camera crews must be following every person around so in case you became famous as an adult they would have a TV show or movie about you. I would do "entertaining" things so that my show would be super interesting if I became famous!

 

Elise in NC

[Guest]

When I was little, I used to think (and hope) that if I sang pretty outside, wildlife would come around to listen to me, like in Snow White. I remember walking around the yard, singing my little heart out, wondering why bunnies and deer and sparrows weren't gathering around.

[momto10blessings]

When i was 4 or 5 I totally thought I could fly when I used a bath towel as a cape. My parents never believed me, so now when one of my kids tell me they can fly, I believe them.

 

One of my brothers told me that snakes often come up toilets so I was nervous each time I'd sit on one.

[Miss Marple]

I never understood why "youth in Asia" was bad (euthanasia)

 

We traveled a lot when I was young. My parents drove a pickup truck with a camper and we camped out. My mom would insist they purchase a camper with a bathroom - just a simple one. But dad never let us use it. He made it seem that something horrible would happen if we used it. Many years later my sisters and I reminded them of this and mom informed us that dad despised emptying the tank...there was no inherent problem with using it. We girls felt very bitter about the whole thing -jk. There were times we were in agony with no place to "go" and the potty was off limits.

[Tree Frog]

I still have crystal clear memories of floating through the house on my back, about two feet of the ground.

 

I had to put my hands under my thighs (like I was sitting in a chair, but my hands became the support.) I, too, have clear memories of carrying myself from the car to the front door of our house one time.

[ChrisB]

One of my brothers told me that snakes often come up toilets so I was nervous each time I'd sit on one.

 

Someone once told me this, too.  To this day I always check before I sit.   :lol: 

 

I never understood why "youth in Asia" was bad (euthanasia)

 

Yeah, I had to figure this one out, too. 

 

Until sometime in grade school, I always thought that prostitute was the same word as Protestant.  One night we were sitting around the dinner table, image little me with mom, dad, and all my siblings (big fam), I asked my mom what a prostitute was.  While she was explaining what it was in "clinical" terms (she's good like that), I looked at her and said, "Oh, you mean a hook*r."  Imagine the silence...lol   :smilielol5:

[Caitilin]

My mother had me convinced for years, YEARS! that Pez dispensers were flashlights that were powered by candy. Imagine my embarrassment when I asked a friend once to "turn on" her Pez dispenser. :svengo:

 

(My mom was a VERY crunchy granola mama in my childhood, which is why this illusion was able to be sustained for so long--we never had that kind of thing in the house, so anything was possible!)

[hillfarm]

Regarding reproduction, I envisioned the baby inside the womb had to breathe air through the umbilicus and belly button, like sucking on a straw. So I got really worried every time I saw a pregnant woman swimming. I thought the baby would get a mouth full of water if her stomach was submerged.

 

There was a graphic of a grim reaper type character that our local tv news always used when reporting the traffic fatalities in the region. I was convinced that one of these days we were going to drive around a curve and there he would be, towering over the road, and that would be the end of us. It never occurred to me that he wasn't the one causing the fatalities.

[swellmomma]

 

 

My mom went through the Arby's drive thru for a Coke when I was about six, and I got upset that she was drinking it in the car. I was scared she was going to get pulled over and arrested for drinking and driving.

 

She still teases me about it.

My brother did this too when he was small. We were driving to gramma's in BC and my dad was drinking coffee while he was driving and my brother started bawling that we would crash and die because daddy was drinking and driving.

 

As for my own strange beliefs I can't think of any

[AndyJoy]

These threads always make me laugh, but I can't think of any weird things I believed!  My dad was a major kidder and I was a born skeptic, so by the time I was 3 my mom says I would come running to her all the time saying, "Is this for real or is Daddy teasing me?" if what he told me was at all far-fetched in my mind.  She had a big talk with him about warping my sense of trust!

 

My best friend in 5th/6th grade was very naive and gullible.  My favorite from her was that she seriously believed (thanks to an aunt) that if you swallowed your gum too many times it would cause your buttocks to stick shut and you would be unable to have a bowel movement.  I tried so hard to keep her from spreading this around school so she wouldn't be so open to ridicule but she was insistent.  She also was insistent that we all pronounced bologna wrong and it was really bow-LOG-nuh like it is spelled.

 

 

[mrsrevmeg]

For years as a small child I was convinced that Yosamite Sam was under my bed and would shoot me if my arms or legs were hanging off the side. 

 

I also thought my cat was really a prince that was under the curse of some enchantress and if I was kind enough to him when the enchantment ended he would take me to his castle in the sky to be his princess.

[Just Kate]

All of the pregnancy beliefs are making me laugh!!! I remember thinking that when a woman became pregnant, she knew the baby was ready to come out because a small flap would magically appear on her side. The doctor's job was to open the flap and take the baby out. That seemed so reasonable to me at the time...I mean, how the heck else could a baby come out of a human being???!!!  :lol:

 

My college roommate told me that when her family got their first remote control tv, her dad and brother didn't tell her that it had a remote and convinced her that she could touch her nose to turn the tv on and off. She said that their joke went on for a long while. She was in amazement of her new powers. 

 

Speaking of tv, when I was young, my big brother told me that tv shows that were available for closed captioning were worst than rated R movies (I had no idea what closed captioning meant). He prevented me from watching a lot of my favorite shows because I knew I wasn't allowed to watch things with an R rating...so I obviously couldn't watch anything CC. Big brothers are fun.  :glare:

[Jeannie in NJ]

For years as a small child I was convinced that Yosamite Sam was under my bed and would shoot me if my arms or legs were hanging off the side. 

 

I also thought my cat was really a prince that was under the curse of some enchantress and if I was kind enough to him when the enchantment ended he would take me to his castle in the sky to be his princess.

I love both of these.  I am really laughing at the thought of Yosamite Sam hiding under your bed.

 

also we have a king cat and several prince cats in our house.  For years our dc believed that when we could not find one of the cats that they had gone thru the back of dh's closet to Cat Island for a visit and would be home soon

[mamatohaleybug]

I thought you would die if you ate that little piece of fat in the pork and beans can. I SWEAR my mother told me that. She swears she did not. I KNOW I overheard her say my grandpa ate it. Guess what? He died. Hello!! Very logical! ;)

 

My initials were KK and we lived in Kentucky. I thought everyone had initials that matched the state they lived in.

 

Until midway into my 20s I had no idea there were professionals working at factories, just people working on the "line". I was so surprised to find that there are lots of other types of jobs in manufacturing. LOL

[Chelle in MO]

Growing up, my best friend told me that you had to wash your hair twice each time you showered--the first time got it clean, the second made it shiny.  She was 2 years older, so of course I believed her!

[Clear Creek]

These threads always make me laugh, but I can't think of any weird things I believed!  My dad was a major kidder and I was a born skeptic, so by the time I was 3 my mom says I would come running to her all the time saying, "Is this for real or is Daddy teasing me?" if what he told me was at all far-fetched in my mind.  She had a big talk with him about warping my sense of trust!

 

My best friend in 5th/6th grade was very naive and gullible.  My favorite from her was that she seriously believed (thanks to an aunt) that if you swallowed your gum too many times it would cause your buttocks to stick shut and you would be unable to have a bowel movement.  I tried so hard to keep her from spreading this around school so she wouldn't be so open to ridicule but she was insistent.  She also was insistent that we all pronounced bologna wrong and it was really bow-LOG-nuh like it is spelled.

 

I was...gosh...high school age or older before I realized that the lunchmeat that everyone called baloney was the lunchmeat I knew of as bologna.  Apparently my American parents taught us the British pronunciation of the word (buh-LONE-yuh).  I honestly thought that they were two different types of lunchmeat.

[Garga]

I checked the back of my closet more than once just in case it would open up to Narnia.

I'll see your closet and raise you a wardrobe. From England. My parents brought it back to America after a 2 year stint in England. I was positive that it would get me to Narnia. Just sure of it. I mean, think about it, a real, live English wardrobe in my very own room? It was destiny. I was ready.

 

It never worked. Sigh.

[skeeterbug]

My college roommate told me that when her family got their first remote control tv, her dad and brother didn't tell her that it had a remote and convinced her that she could touch her nose to turn the tv on and off. She said that their joke went on for a long while. She was in amazement of her new powers. 

 

:laugh: :lol: :smilielol5:

[jewellsmommy]

When I was about 5ish, I believed that some sort of creature could gain access to my room from under the bed. So every night I took a small drink of water and a cracker to bed with me. I would leave them in the floor beside my bed and speak outloud, "here is some food, please don't eat me." :lol:  I thought it worked because the cracker was always gone in the morning. Turns out that my mother just always picked it up when she came in to check on me before going to bed. This ritual went on for months before my mother finally asked why I would take a snack just to leave it on the floor. :huh:

[Erin]

Not mine, but my son's:

 

When you build barbed wire fences, sometimes you need to brace against the fence's "pull" by pulling in the opposite direction. The easiest way to do this is to put a wire from the top of the post to be braced, down to something that will be buried in the ground, to make it nice and strong.

The item that's buried (anything from old tractor parts, to cinder blocks, to chunks of old fence posts) is called a "dead man."

 

When he was little, DS thought the dead man was...well, a dead man.

Uncle Marvin perhaps, continuing to be useful, even into eternity. ;)

[Shamzanne]

I remember thinking that credit cards were full of free money. When my mom told me that we couldn't afford something I told her she could just use her credit card. I also confused things I was taught were immoral and things I was taught were illegal. When I was seven I saw a policeman in town smoking a cigarette and flipped out to my mom that he was doing it right out in the open and was not afraid of getting caught. She thought it was hysterical.

 

I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't think fireflies were real. I thought they were akin to fairies and trolls. It wasn't until I moved to Kentucky in my early twenties (seriously) that I saw one from a balcony and thought someone was playing a trick with a flashlight that I discovered they were real. I was so excited!

[Shamzanne]

Last week I was taking my friend's kids with mine on a day trip and during the drive was talking to her eldest about invasive species, specifically scotch broom. We talked about how it can take over and its almost impossible to kill or get rid of. I noticed her youngest was crying in the back and found out he was terrified of the yellow plant that will take over the whole city. He is still terrified of it. I'm afraid I instigated the first known phobia of scotch broom!

[WishboneDawn]

That's very X Files.

Not really. I have similar memories. I realized they were actually memories of dreams though and I was always floating around at a certain height because that was my eye level at the time of the dreams and just how visual information came to me.

 

I also remember thinking I could walk on air. I knew how to put my foot out and compress the air with my mind to make it dense enough to walk on. I remembered doing it. Again, another vivid dream.

[WishboneDawn]

I used to be convinced the Brady Bunch was a horror show.

 

We didn't get it on our two Canadian channels so I only saw it once as a child at a relative's in Ontario who could pick up an American station. In that episode one of the kids went into one of those boxes magicians use for their disappearing acts and...disappeared.

 

For some reason we didn't watch the whole episode and I thought the kid never came back. Very scary stuff..

[hmvaughan4]

I was convinced my contacts would melt onto my eyes if I wore them in the tanning bed. I was certain there was someone/something under my bed that would grab my feet when I got in bed. It was really bad when my brother hid under the bed and grabbed my feet. Until recently, I thought my grandpa fell off a cliff and died. My brother always told me that. I'm sure there are more, I was a gullible, nervous child.

DS3 thought fireflies were fireworks on the Fourth of July. He never stays up that late to see them!

[MommaOfalotta]

When my oldest was six, she LOVED The Wizard of Oz movie. Loved it. She especially liked the part when Dorothy opened the door and the movie went from black and white to color. We told her that the whole world was black and white and that was the moment that color was invented. For years she really thought the whole world was black and white until 1939.   

Whenever my mom would tell me about her childhood I pictured it in black and white. I eventually asked her "So when you go outside, is there like color in the grass and the sky? Or is that black and white too." :) She loved it when I asked her to "Tell me about the 'olden days'."

[nd293]

This one is my friend's, not mine: I was with her one day and she offered me some grapes. Later her toddler son offered me one of his raisins, and I replied, "No thanks, I prefer my raisins in grape form". There was silence, then she told me she'd never realised raisins were dried grapes. We never did get to what it was she thought her son was actually eating!

 

There were words I used incorrectly until I was quite old due to poor pronunciation habits. I thought one lived next to a 'neck-store-neighbour' and had an 'arm-pip' under one's arm (which really bothered me, because why was in called a 'pip' if it was a hollow?) I think I had been reading for a long time before I actually considered each of the words.

 

They don't have them in baths here for some reason, but when I was little, all baths had an overflow drain thing near the top of the bath to prevent overflow if the bath was overfilled. These connected to a pipe, so always sounded hollow. When I was very young I was sure these connected all the houses and that one day I'd hear someone talking to me through the overflow drain. No one ever did.

[clarkacademy]

All of the pregnancy beliefs are making me laugh!!! I remember thinking that when a woman became pregnant, she knew the baby was ready to come out because a small flap would magically appear on her side. The doctor's job was to open the flap and take the baby out. That seemed so reasonable to me at the time...I mean, how the heck else could a baby come out of a human being???!!!  :lol:

 

My college roommate told me that when her family got their first remote control tv, her dad and brother didn't tell her that it had a remote and convinced her that she could touch her nose to turn the tv on and off. She said that their joke went on for a long while. She was in amazement of her new powers. 

 

Speaking of tv, when I was young, my big brother told me that tv shows that were available for closed captioning were worst than rated R movies (I had no idea what closed captioning meant). He prevented me from watching a lot of my favorite shows because I knew I wasn't allowed to watch things with an R rating...so I obviously couldn't watch anything CC. Big brothers are fun.  :glare:                                                                

 

 

 

 

Mine convinced me I had another brother who was killed, by my dad. Looking back I really wonder how stupid I could be. He would always say things to me like they loved him best and stupid stuff ike that. We had a concrete basement floor and it had this huge stain. He told me it was blood from George. My supposed older brother. My actual brother is almost 7 years older so he was around quite a while before me. Anyway George kept getting in trouble for being mean to my brother so one day my dad supposedly lost his cool and axed him up. Match this with our dad being a violent drunk and I believed it. He didn't go to jail because he was sorry so they let him stay. But I had better never be mean to my brother or it would happen to me. We could never talk about it cause it would make mommy sad and dad very angry. I believed this for a long time and my brother would terrorize me about it. One night being a fed up child watching smurfs and the magic flute I totally lost it when he changed the channel and threatened to tell on me if I cried. I kicked him in the head. I broke all my toes but all I cared about was getting the axe. Needless to say I was hysterical and finally it all came out to my mom who promised me there was never another kid. I still dreamed of George well into my teens. This little boy that never was real. Yeah brothers are fun

 

[DawnM]

One of my kids thought this as well. I remember him asking if I grew up in color or black and white.

 

When my oldest was six, she LOVED The Wizard of Oz movie. Loved it. She especially liked the part when Dorothy opened the door and the movie went from black and white to color. We told her that the whole world was black and white and that was the moment that color was invented. For years she really thought the whole world was black and white until 1939.

[DawnM]

I grew up mostly overseas, but as an American citizen. The countries around where I grew up were much smaller. We had to change money every time we traveled. And on the way back to the States we had to change in each country we visited throughout Europe.

 

I was about 7 when we were back in the States and traveled through several states. I was very upset that my dad didn't change money at the airport when we landed (flight from Chicago to Portland, OR). I was very hungry and he had promised to buy me something to eat. It had, after all, been almost a 5 hour flight!

 

My parents had to explain to me that ALL of the USA used the same money system.

[AlmiraGulch]

When I was really little I thought there were tiny people living inside the traffic signal that changed the lights from green to yellow to red.  They dressed like gnomes and climbed tiny ladders to go from one level to the next.  

[Hikin' Mama]

When I was in labor with my first child, the pain made me loopy and I was sure I was going to roll out of bed and crack my head open on the floor. I had just as much pain with the other two, but no crazy thoughts. :)

[Rebel Yell]

I never understood why "youth in Asia" was bad (euthanasia)

 

We traveled a lot when I was young. My parents drove a pickup truck with a camper and we camped out. My mom would insist they purchase a camper with a bathroom - just a simple one. But dad never let us use it. He made it seem that something horrible would happen if we used it. Many years later my sisters and I reminded them of this and mom informed us that dad despised emptying the tank...there was no inherent problem with using it. We girls felt very bitter about the whole thing -jk. There were times we were in agony with no place to "go" and the potty was off limits.

 

Yeah- we had a camper liek this, too....  Always had to walk across a gint field to use the nastiest outhouse, full of bugs and splinters- with the giant gaping hole into a pit of, well....  EEEEEW!  All when there was a nice modern flush toilet RIGHT IN THE CAMPER!  :cursing:

[Tita Gidge]

I shared a bedroom with several sisters.  A few of us were night owls, who'd stay up talking. Every so often the non-night owls would get cranky for all of our talking and laughing, so the few of us would take turns peering under the door crack.  We could barely make out the television in the family room.  Usually I was the last one standing, and once the sisters were sleeping I often felt brave enough to crack open the door for an even better view. 

 

During one of these occasions my older relatives were watching the movie Cocoon.  Having only seen and heard bits and pieces of it, and most of that through the eyes of a tired-but-resisting-sleep child, I became convinced that when we went to bed our relatives unzipped their human bodies to reveal their alien selves.  I was further convinced that I never saw them do this because they sensed someone was awake and they weren't allowed to Be Seen without their human shells. So sort of like waiting for Santa, I knew I'd never get to see my family in alien form BUT that never stopped me from trying. Over time I convinced myself that the sisters in my room were in on it, and I was the only non-alien in the family. 

 

I didn't tell anyone in my family, except my twin, and only when we were in our 30s and the movie title came up in a trivia game. 

 

I still haven't seen that movie since. I'm kind of afraid to LOL. 

[TexasRachel]

Dd once started crying at church because they tried to give her beer. It took awhile for us to convince her that root beer didn't have any alcohol in it and was ok for her to have. She was 4/5.

[Cricket]

I believed the girls at the school playground who told me that I should go home and pour pickle juice on my blistered hands to make them stop hurting.

My ds and the kids on his high school baseball team do this! They learned it from some former ball players. It is supposed to toughen the skin though, not make them stop hurting. Ether it is an old wives' tale that won't die or it is really true!

[sixpence1978]

Someone told me that a monster comes and eats your toes if they are not covered up by a blanket....I have never slept without a blanket on my feet even though now I know it is not true lol.

 

I thought that one too!  I've only been able to sleep without something on my feet in the last couple of years.

 

One theory I had when I was younger was that there was a slightly different time zone in water.  This is why you move so slowly while in water.  But when you are done swimming, your body needs to catch back up to the original time zone.  That's why you get so tired after swimming.

[mommymilkies]

I had a dream about a bunch of dead thumbs in the Mister Rogers trolley and I touched it (in my dream).  When I woke up, I thought I really had touched it (I was like 4-5) and wouldn't touch anything with that finger for like 3 months.

 

Until I went through CNA training, I had zero idea what a uterus was or how babies came out.  I knew what got them in. :p  But where they were in the abdomen, etc.  No idea.  Pretty shameful. That was even with ps sex ed.  

 

I was a very literal little kid, so there are probably a bunch more. 

[LostSurprise]

I believed wearing socks to bed kept your feet small. I was still fairly convinced of this in my teens. I had the smallest feet of anyone in my house, despite being very tall. I wore socks round the clock. Other people did not. 

 

I also believed that mustaches grew out of men's noses. Not beards, those grew from the skin but mustaches looked like they were growing out of men's noses. I think it helped that I didn't knew very many men with mustaches as a small child (weird, considering it was the '70s).