What misconceptions of the world did you have as a child?

When I was real little, I thought cartoons were real.

I thought the laughter track that they played during TV shows was actually people sitting in their living rooms laughing, getting picked up by a microphone in everyone's living room and sent to everyone's TV.

So I used to sit really close to the TV and laugh as loud as I could so everyone else could hear me laugh.

I was probably 8 years old when I figured out I was wrong.

I believed god was a thing.

I thought I was going to be a paleontologist (mostly because of watching Jurassic Park).

I thought Scribble Scrabble was a kind of animal

I thought Burger King was called Booger Kane

I thought God was real (until age 8)

I thought Santa was real (until age 8)

I thought ghosts were real

I thought all beef would give you mad cow disease

I thought AIDS was contracted when ANYONE'S blood mixed with yours whether they had AIDS or not.

I was a huge hypochondriac as you can see. I'm still kind of a germaphobe :\

@Jasta said:

I thought Disney films like Pinocchio and Aristocats etc, were released roughly around the time I was born (1990). I only found out Pinocchio was released in 1940, and Snow White 3 years before that in 1937 about 3 months ago.

Took me 21 years to find that out.

That's probably because Disney would re-release it's films to theaters every 6 years or so.So, You probably saw it in theaters and assumed that made it new. Also, The Aristocats was much later than the other two movies you mentioned (1970).

1. That if I studied hard, it would actually help me in life.

2. That my dad knew everything.

I thought I was indestructible. or at least I didnt think about it.

Sometimes I'll break out into cold sweats remembering some of the dumb things I did as a kid that somehow didn't kill me.

@sk8nob said:

I thought that once you graduated from college you automatically got a good job.

That and i also thought octopuses live in buses which is why i haven't driven on one til i was 8

I used to not know how to use apostrophes or know the difference between there, their, they're; then I turned 8. Wait, are the majority of people here 7-year-olds?

@BeachThunder: Maybe you'r a genius?

Oh, I also wanted to be an archeologist, because that's what Indiana Jones was and I thought what he was doing was normal archeology stuff.

@BeachThunder said:

I used to not know how to use apostrophes or know the difference between there, their, they're; then I turned 8. Wait, are the majority of people here 7-year-olds?

Shouldn't you have spelled out eight?

I knew a classmate from elementary school who thought chocolate milk came from black cow. He also thought that Cobra Commander turning in to a snake-the 80s animated movies- could happen in real life. I knew at that time something wasn't right about him when he constantly talked about New Kids on the Block.

One misconception when I was a kid is that I use to think that everybody was going to be nice to me and be my friend. As I grew older, I realized how naive and idealistic I was. By the time I was finishing elementary school and towards middle school. I lost faith in humanity. I never thought that people can be so cruel and awful to me. It's one of those life lesson I had to learn the hard way. In the end, people are people. They only do things that's in their interest.

@habster3 said:

I thought I was normal

Nooooooo your special... geesh are you like 10? Only people who have had little to no exposure to the world would say this.

I used to think people could overcome context and that parenting merely gave you a specific knowledge expertise... turns out, people only use context...

I used to think humans were good, and that intelligence inherently came with life experience.

I thought that women pee'd from their butts because they had nothing on the front.

Oh innocence.

@gamefreak9 said:

@habster3 said:

I thought I was normal

Nooooooo your special... geesh are you like 10? Only people who have had little to no exposure to the world would say this.

I was referring to my various psychological disorders, not some higher status. Presumptuous prick.

@habster3 said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@habster3 said:

I thought I was normal

Nooooooo your special... geesh are you like 10? Only people who have had little to no exposure to the world would say this.

I was referring to my various psychological disorders, not some higher status. Presumptuous prick.

I know what you mean, I thought I was normal too until I learned about my own psychological problems, so people like gamefreak9 annoys me because of his presumptious attitude...

I thought when you left school, finding a job would be easy for everyone.

I thought everybody sucked dick as a kid. I still think that now, but realize that's just a sexual preference and not a character deficit.

@Village_Guy said:

@habster3 said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@habster3 said:

I thought I was normal

Nooooooo your special... geesh are you like 10? Only people who have had little to no exposure to the world would say this.

I was referring to my various psychological disorders, not some higher status. Presumptuous prick.

I know what you mean, I thought I was normal too until I learned about my own psychological problems, so people like gamefreak9 annoys me because of his presumptious attitude...

yes because psychological disorders are very special... I am not being presumptuous... just by something be rare...its special? by that logic everyone is special which means your statement is unnecesary anyway, the "average person" is (probably) rarer than people with disorders.

I thought that every human had worth. Threads like this proved me wrong.

@gamefreak9 said:

@Village_Guy said:

@habster3 said:

@gamefreak9 said:

@habster3 said:

I thought I was normal

Nooooooo your special... geesh are you like 10? Only people who have had little to no exposure to the world would say this.

I was referring to my various psychological disorders, not some higher status. Presumptuous prick.

I know what you mean, I thought I was normal too until I learned about my own psychological problems, so people like gamefreak9 annoys me because of his presumptious attitude...

yes because psychological disorders are very special... I am not being presumptuous... just by something be rare...its special? by that logic everyone is special which means your statement is unnecesary anyway, the "average person" is (probably) rarer than people with disorders.

I never said I was special; I just said I wasn't "normal" (implying that I'm abnormal, a far more precise antonym than special). I never said I was special, so you might as well pull your head out of your ass and shut the fuck up.

It took me a little while to come up with something that wasn't depressing. On that note all I'll say is that I never thought any of the things that happened to me would happen. I didn't believe that things like that could happen just in general. :/

Non depressing - I was afraid that by the time I was old enough to legally view/buy pornography I would have already lost interest in it. :D

@Claude said:

Damn, you guys were dumb.

Yeah seriously, I asked about things I wasn't sure of instead of just believing random nonsense. I suppose it helped that I didn't trust my friends.

I thought that when a laugh track played, i needed to laugh. Also, that beautiful women didn't fart or poop, because they were too beautiful for that.

I somewhat believed in Christianity until I turned 9.

I thought that Falkor the Luckdragon was how everyone traveled around.

I thought 'writing a check' was a magical way to pay for things - ya know - on the honor system, only using a check if you were really broke. Actually, the US government still does that all the time!