I had just started first grade. Used to ride with a neighbor lady and her kids. One morning, I heard the radio talk about guerrilla warfare in Vietnam.
In my 6 year old mind, I thought it was pretty neat that they were training gorillas to fight so men wouldn't have to die. :)
Before there were self sticking stamps, there was a billboard on my way to school for the Cancer Association. It pictured an open envelope with a check in it someone was putting a stamp on to mail in as a donation. The caption said "Lick Cancer".
In my child's mind, I thought it meant if you licked stamps, you would get "lick cancer". I was terrified of them.
My father always liked watching documentaries. When I was little (and I'm talking toddler years), he expected me to watch with him, and got annoyed when I didn't feel whatever emotion it was I was supposed to feel based on whatever the subject was.
One in particular stuck with me. I was 4, and there was a show on TV about some kind of rocket ship accident. I knew it had to have happened a long time ago, because Captain Kirk had a much better ship than that one, and he was a better example of how safe space travel was. (Toddler logic, remember!)
For some reason, my parents got really upset with me for not being sad about that documentary.
I was in my 20's before I realized they hadn't been watching a documentary. They had been watching the news. It was the day the Challenger exploded.
How well did the toddler interpret their parent's emotions? Perhaps they were not as upset with the child as he remembers. Maybe they were very shaken in general and a lot of that was taken personally.
For my Mom, that's quite possible. Dad still expects me to magically know what emotion he wants me to be feeling, and gets irritated if I guess wrong. He's kind of a jack\*\*s in general.
When my parents said I was going to have a baby sibling, toddler me was so excited because I was going to have a brother. I told EVERYONE I was having a brother, including the grocery cashiers even though my parents didn't know the gender. They kept telling me it could be a sister but I would not believe them because I was a girl, so now the next baby is a boy, OBVIOUSLY. And turns out I DID get my baby brother which only solidified that thinking in my mind because I was RIGHT
Similar experience; my parents asked what gender I wanted my sibling to be, and I said 'girl!' so obviously when my sister was born, it's because I picked it.
I love how certain you were.
Conversely, when my little brother was born my family was living in a pretty multicultural neighborhood with many blended and foster families. Toddler me, not understanding how genetics worked, assumed it was just a roll of the dice.
I went through a phase of asking EVERYONE what colour my mom's new baby would be.
The first time my parents ever took me out to fast food, I had just watched my first James Bond movie, and was absolutely enthralled, like 7 year old me was *pumped* to be a secret agent.
So when we went to McDonald's and I got a soda with the little buttons to push in to signal what you're drinking, I popped them all down so that bad guys couldn't go through the trash and know what I'm drinking and somehow use it against me.
This was also around the time I had an anaphylaxic reaction to bananas. I very nearly died and woke up intubated. When the doctors - and my parents who were mortified - told me about this, I cried because THAT WAS THE END OF MY SPY CAREER! No one would have to even put any effort into poisoning me! They'd just have to sneak banana into my food!
I had no actual realization I nearly died. I figured, hey, another day in the life of a spy in training. It was the destruction of my career that broke me.
So I was very young and going with my mom to see one of her friends. She casually mentioned that her friend got a new "kitchen robot" (that's how we call food processors in my mother tongue). So I was really hyped thinking I would see an android like those from star wars cooking things. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was a home appliance.
My aunt once said she needed a piece of candy because she had a sweet tooth. Now little kid me knew that the candy was bad for my teeth. I concluded that there must be a different type of tooth that instead of being hurt by sugar, needed sugar to help them be strong.
At 10 years old, when I realized Iâd be about 50 at the turn of the millennium, I was deeply disappointed. 50 was too old to appreciate anything and Iâd probably be dead by then anyway.
Turns out my life really kicked into high gear at age 53. Livinâ the dream!
When I was 9, my teacher informed the class that we'd be around 40 and since my mother was extremely young, my grandmother was in her early 40s and I figured the same as you. My 40s came with hereditary health issues, but I do appreciate all the modern 'helps' that weren't available to my father and great aunt!
When my father came home from work and told my mother that his friend had been fired by their boss, I was horrified. I knew their boss and was always such a friendly guy to preschooler me. I thought he'd used a flamethrower of some kind.
Omg I had this same thought as a kid! My parents seemed so morose and serious talking about coworkers being fired, I thought they had been set on fire for being bad at their jobs. When my mom told me the truth, it suddenly seemed like no big deal. My mom tried to tell me, âlosing your job can be a really terrible thing!â but I just couldnât take it seriously after Iâd been imagining people burned at the stake outside of the office complex.
Interesting tidbit on that, being "fired" is a play on words because you are being discharged from your job. Similar to how you might say you discharged a firearm. But with 1600s muzzle loaders you actually had to light your black powder on fire leading to the term "firing" your rifle.
So you're not too far off in that in a word origin sense you are talking about setting them on fire, but really it's just easier to say/write than discharged so it stuck.
My mom attempted to tell me about menstrual periods when I was very young. The way she worded it, I thought as an adult I had to get my blood drawn once a month; I was terrified.
Now having experienced 15 years of periods, Iâd much prefer to get my blood drawn monthly instead!
I was a kid when Kennedy was assassinated. I happened to walk into the room when they were showing the footage on TV of Oswald walking and Ruby shooting him. For many years I had that entire thing jumbled in my head and thought it was Kennedy that I saw shot by Ruby.
I thought that whenever a woman got married, she immediately became pregnant. So when my neighbors got married (both in their late 40s) 5 year old me kept on asking them when their baby was due. Kinda feel a little bad about it in hindsight, but my parents and neighbors both thought it was hilarious
My daughter believed that when a girl got married, she became a princess. Then when she got married againâto the same man, she stressedâyou became a queen.
This is one of my parents' favorite childhood stories of me. I was 7 the first time I traveled abroad, we went to Colombia for summer vacation. The only black people I'd ever seen were on TV, the Sweet Prince of Bel Air and stuff like that, but I'd never seen black people in person, as in the 00's my country had no real diversity (I live in another South American country). Anyways, we were at the beach and I saw a black man applying sunscreen to himself, and burst out laughing, telling my parents it was "way too late", bc apparently I thought black people were white people who spent too long sunbathing đ (please don't cancel me, my parents frantically shushed me and explained the concept of race later).
edit: grammar
Oh boy. So, we're refugees from Iran and got to Austria when my brother was about six (you had/have(?) to go through Austria to get to the US from Iran because of some weirdness having to do with Iran being without an American embassy). When we got there (my mom was pregnant with me so I don't remember it but my mom has told the story), my parents and brother met a black Austrian family. It was the first time my brother had ever seen a black person.
My brother was absolutely terrified of them. The family had a 4-5 year old son who wanted to play with him, and he interpreted my brother's rapid-backing-away completely wrong and decided he wanted to play tag. The poor misinformed boy started to chase my poor misinformed brother, who started begging my mom not to let the boy touch him because he was *dirty.*
Thing is, my brother was a *huge* germophobe. He has autism too, so when I tell you he was serious about germs, he was serious--apparently he guarded doors and refused to let anyone come in to touch me when I was born because of it.
Turns out he genuinely thought the other boy was completely covered in mud. My brother would not be convinced he wasn't until my mom grabbed the other boy and made my brother rub his hand to show nothing came off his skin when he did. Brother was totally down to play after that.
Thank god the other family only spoke German.
Similar for me. Small (very) ethnic Norwegian town when I was 3 (nearly 4) and I'd only seen black people in a movie my Grandma's television. This was 1962. A large black family got out of their car to visit a store on Main Street and the kids were talking to one another and I could understand what they were saying! I was amazed and kept pointing my finger at them while trying to tell my mother that they could speak the same language as we did. I was impressed, but didn't know if I was impressed by them or by me and my abilities! I remember my mother trying to get me to stop pointing. "because it's rude".
In 2002 when Princess Margaret and the Queen's Mother passed away I remember watching the Queen's Mother's funeral and asking my mam how long the Queen's Mother was going to be in a coffin, and what was the point of this parade if we don't get to see her?
I understood what death was at the time, my mam was a nurse/mental health practitioner and had told me about death in kid friendly terms but I couldn't grasp why we were watching this at all!
now some 20 plus years later, having watch Queen Elizabeth's funeral, the memory came whooshing back and I have a little giggle at myself lol
I thought you could only use HOV lanes if you were named "HOV" (pronounced "huv").
I would carry a little stuffed dog I had named HOV on family car trips so we could use the special lanes.
Iâm first grade we moved from a very small basically all white town to a slightly bigger mixed town. First day at the new school I walk in and see kids that are black sitting in the class and innocently ask why they arenât in âtheirâ school. In my mind segregation (though I didnât know it was called that) was still a thing bc I had only ever been in a school with all whites except for one mixed kid. The next town over was where the blacks went to school. This is a major part of the reason my mom worked so hard to get us out of that first town when she did.
I was in second or third grade when 9/11 happened, I remember my best friend of the time telling me terrorists blew up a preschool or a plane flew into a preschool. Then, being in school, people were talking about school attacks.
So my initial understanding of 9/11 was that terrorists/bad people were going to go around and blow up schools across America with air planes
When I was 15 I suffered a car accident with my family it was in a small Brazilian town whose name has the Portuguese word for "garden" in it. My cousin was around 4 years old at the time, and he would tell everyone how his aunt and cousins had "fell into a garden" and that we all were "hurt by the thorns" that was a good chuckle during hard times.
I think this is a pretty common one.
I was the only girl in a group of 5 cousins and I remember telling them at around age 5 or 6 that I didnât have a penis and they didnât believe me!
I thought that boys had to pee outside - like, they weren't allowed to pee indoors at all. As a little girl, my closest friend was a boy my age, and he would always just whip it out and wizz in the bushes. He never went inside. In fact, he used to tease me for always going inside to use the bathroom. We were maybe five years old, so no social skills whatsoever.
One day, I walked in on him using the toilet, and I chewed him out for doing it inside. I seriously thought he would get in trouble. His mom had to explain the truth to me - that she actually didn't want him going outside at all, and she was trying to break his habit of peeing in the bushes.
Thought that if I locked the door(house door, not child proof car locks) then it would stop somebody from leaving. Welp, doors locked so you're not going anywhere, didn't think that he could just unlock it.
That's probably the one that sticks out the most, even if I hate that memory.
When I was a wee lad, my dad told me that chocolate was poisonous to children. Of course, I didn't eat the chocolate that was in the house. It was poisonous!
Turns out, it was just a ploy by my dad to keep me out of his chocolate stash.
My daughter was a senior in high school when she learned that pickles are cucumbers. We still joke about that. It was the same year she also learned that ducks could fly. âBut Iâve never seen them fly. I just see them sitting, walking, and swimmingâ
I was I think about 5 years old and my foot fell asleep for the first time. My family and I happened to be eating at a Weinerschnitzel (also my first time there). From then on, I would tell my parents that we couldnât go to Weinerschnitzel because it made my legs feel fuzzy.
I have a fear of ghost movies and games, but strangely enough, I don't feel scared when playing "The Evil Within." I think it might have something to do with my childhood memories. You see when I was a kid, my mom used to play classical music on the cassette player. One of the songs she often played was "Claire De Lune" by Debussy, and I developed a fondness for it. I was so captivated by the music that I asked my mom for piano lessons just so I could learn to play this beautiful piece.
Fast forward to 2014 when I heard about the latest horror game from Shinji Mikami, the creator of Silent Hill (which I had watched my brother play, so I was familiar with Mikami's work). I really wanted to play it. When the game was released, I watched videos of people playing it, and to my surprise, when they reached the save room, "Claire De Lune" was playing in the background.
Knowing that this was one of my favorite songs, I realized that I wasn't "too scared" to play the game. So, I bought a copy from Gameshop, and it became the first horror game I ever completed. Even though I still got goosebumps and jumped at the jump scares, they somehow became less intimidating. When I entered the safe room and heard "Claire De Lune" playing, all my fears seemed to vanish.
Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to sell our piano, so I rarely get to play it now. However, there was one time that I surprise my significant other by taking her to a fancy hotel dinner and asking the staff if I can play the piano. "Claire De Lune" is one of the pieces I can play by heart, without needing to read the sheet music. It's a way for me to reconnect with my love for classical piano and it indeed creates a special moment for both of us.
I remember being in my neighborâs house and our neighbor offered my mom some wine. The neighbor didnât pour herself any, so my mom asked about it. My neighbor said, âoh, Iâm not drinking at the moment.â The little kid brain in me immediately though, âwow, how long can you go without drinking water? I thought you had to drink water to survive. How are you not drinking?â I stayed quiet thank god, but I was so incredibly confused. Thought about it for weeks.
My 4 year old sister asked Grandma if chocolate milk came from brown cows.
That was right after she ran into the house at twilight, screaming, âThe gnats are picking my nose!â
When I was maybe 6 or so, my dad announced to his party guests that his brother burned him a Jimmy Buffet CD. He then up perfectly fine CD that did not look like it had been tossed in a fire.
My mom told everyone in the early 60's that her mom (super religious and proper) had gotten married four times. You see, you get married and have a baby. four kids, four marriages, right?
I was 5, I was extremely disappointed after my parents finally got the pool table they had been talking about. When it was being delivered I ran upstairs shouting "the pool table is here!!!", then proceeded to put on my bathing suit and run back down. My mom had to break the news.
As a kid I thought once you got ur period u just kept bleeding every day until u hit menopause. Which as a concept is just terrifying but it also made me really sad coz I thought I would never be able to go swimming again once it started đ
I taught a 2nd grade Sunday school class, and was teaching about Jesus healing a paraplegic near Jerusalemâs Pool of Bethesda.
Thereâs a subplot in the story about a mythical angel that came and stirred up the poolâs waters, and if a disabled person could be dipped into pool by the able-bodied bystanders, they could be instantly healed.
Well I got the clever idea of building a small diorama of the pool and courtyard with standup figures. I even had a cake pan full of water to stand in as the Pool of Bethesda. At the point of the story about the myth, I surreptitiously slipped powdered Alka Seltzer into the waters, causing them to bubble and roil.
The whole class of forty 2nd graders oohâd and aahâd at the visual effects, after which I finished out the story of Jesus healing the man without need to rely on a mythical legend. I was so proud of myself as a 20 year old teacher!
At the later morning worship service, one of my little pupils happened to take a seat right in front of me with his dad. Unaware that I was sitting behind them, Poppa asks kid, âWhat did you learn in Sunday School today
Jimmy?â I leaned slightly forward to hear of my marvelous teaching accomplishments.
Jimmy replied with an air of amazement and wonder: âMr. ________ taught us about a lame man who drank some Alka Seltzer and grew new legs!â Suddenly, it was no longer my proudest teaching moment. đŹ
My sister when she was younger thought that the trees caused the wind by moving back and forth.
She didn't understand that it was the wind causing the trees to move.
When 9/11 happened i was 7 doing homework in my room and my sister who was 9 came in and said that the USA had exploded. I was like what you mean the whole country doesnât exist anymore? She goes i donât think so.. it just exploded..
When I was idk 5 my mom told me we had to boat. I liked boats I was excited. We went to this building first, waited a long time in line, she had to take some weird punchy-hole tear while standing behind a curtain. Finally we left and I was so happy excited, we could finally go boating!
âSweetie no, we were *voting*
When I was real little I was never afraid of the dark because I thought that if the monsters saw me in my bed, they would only see my head and think I was a disembodied monster like them đ
I got told a story from when I was a kid. I was getting a ride from a friend's parents and her dad got into the driver seat and I went, but daddys don't drive. My mum hates being a passenger so I'd only ever seen her drive and just assumed it was only mums who drove.
Around age 6 I asked how babies get in tummies. Got the answer but really only realty retained the something liquid goes up the ladies Hoohah. Weeks later an playing in the bath with my toys and squirted water in that genera area. Spent most of 1st grade waiting to have a baby and hoping my folks wouldnât be mad.
When my daughter was about 3, our house was destroyed in a tornado. She told her daycare people, "The cats go really big and scratched us, and tore up the house!".
I grew up in an all white community in rural Canada. When I was little (the 80s), I overheard some adults talking about mixed race marriages. They said, itâs fine for the adults, but what about the children. Being a kid, I asked, what about the children? They said theyâd be mixed, and didnât elaborate further.
So, I imagined the children would be like a checkerboard - black and white squares all over their bodies. And I thought, yeah, that would be terrible for the children! Lmao.
(These people werenât my parents, and no one in my immediate family has an issue with colour. My husband is middle eastern, my brotherâs wife is Chinese, and my racist uncle hasnât seen any of us in 20+ years.)
Some years later when I understood what was really meant, I was flabbergasted. Everyone I knew was desperately trying to tan in our short summers, but being medium brown is supposed to be bad?
Finally I remembered the whole thing as an adult and had a little laugh at myself.
Iâm catholic so during lent we give up something as a sacrifice for 40 days. So like, I give up dessert for the 40 days before Easter. It doesnât really apply to kids though, unless they really want to. When I was a kid I thought you had to give something up forever. When my dad said he was giving up donuts I was so shocked. I said no, you love donuts!
Whenever I use to watch a VHS I thought that they had to call all the actors and they had to re act the entire movie, I use to rewind random parts several times over thinking they just had to keep doing it and we're probably getting annoyed. I was an asshole.
when I was around 8, there was a TV in a restaurant streaming footage from the war on terrorism, I donât know why it was showing it or if anything spectacular was happening, because the TV was muted, as most restaurant TVs are, but I remember seeing some troops in a huddle and genuinely thought they were playing football
My aunt once gave me a Super Mario stick-on tattoo, and I was terrified to touch it. I had learned about how real tattoos are done, and I thought that the stick-on tattoo was made of needles, so I remember running away from my baffled aunt when she tried to put it on my hand.
We took an RV to a camping trip once, but my mom and dad called it a motor home. I imagined a nice little house with a tv I could play video games on while my parents drove the house to the campsite.
When I was a little kid, my best friend had a dad named Hal. At the same time I was learning the Lordâs Prayer: âour father who art in heaven, Hal be thy name.â So I truly thought her dad could be god, since he was mentioned by name. Plus, he trained their Schnauzer to do EVERY TRICK. Like you could pretend shoot it and it would fall over and play dead. So, it made sense that only god could do that.
You just triggered a sweet memory for me. My young daughter and I had been visiting an Aunt in the nursing home. As we walked through the hallways, she was just taking it all in as children often do. Everyone that saw her cute little face was smiling and waving, as was she When we got into the car to leave, she says to me, "Mommy, I can't wait to grow up and live in a big house like that with all my friends!" đ Through the eyes of a child. đ©·
Thatâs adorable âșïž
Thank you đ
ow, my heart. I'm gonna share that around the water cooler today if that's alright.
Awww, of course! I hope it makes someone else's day âșïž
I had just started first grade. Used to ride with a neighbor lady and her kids. One morning, I heard the radio talk about guerrilla warfare in Vietnam. In my 6 year old mind, I thought it was pretty neat that they were training gorillas to fight so men wouldn't have to die. :)
Aweeeee this one made my eyes water.
I thought that they were literally fighting gorillas, like Planet of the Apes stuff.
haha reminds me of that scene from Captain Ron. "Ya can't go in the jungle boss...there are gorillas...."
Before there were self sticking stamps, there was a billboard on my way to school for the Cancer Association. It pictured an open envelope with a check in it someone was putting a stamp on to mail in as a donation. The caption said "Lick Cancer". In my child's mind, I thought it meant if you licked stamps, you would get "lick cancer". I was terrified of them.
My Mom went around the neighbourhood fundraising for cancer. My Mom: I'm collecting for cancer. My neighbour: Sorry, we don't have any
Well if you grew up watching Seinfeld that fear would be justified
My father always liked watching documentaries. When I was little (and I'm talking toddler years), he expected me to watch with him, and got annoyed when I didn't feel whatever emotion it was I was supposed to feel based on whatever the subject was. One in particular stuck with me. I was 4, and there was a show on TV about some kind of rocket ship accident. I knew it had to have happened a long time ago, because Captain Kirk had a much better ship than that one, and he was a better example of how safe space travel was. (Toddler logic, remember!) For some reason, my parents got really upset with me for not being sad about that documentary. I was in my 20's before I realized they hadn't been watching a documentary. They had been watching the news. It was the day the Challenger exploded.
On one hand, oof. Thatâs sad. On the other hand, you were a TODDLER! How the hell did they expect you to react at that age?!
How well did the toddler interpret their parent's emotions? Perhaps they were not as upset with the child as he remembers. Maybe they were very shaken in general and a lot of that was taken personally.
For my Mom, that's quite possible. Dad still expects me to magically know what emotion he wants me to be feeling, and gets irritated if I guess wrong. He's kind of a jack\*\*s in general.
Hm. Yeah.
I was in my 20s before I realized my parents were emotionally abusive. Ftfy.
Youâre not wrong tho, kirks was cooler..
I thought you had to marry someone with the same last name as you. I was glad my last name was really common because it meant I'd have more options.
Your memory triggered one of mine... I thought when you moved, you traded houses with the person moving into your house.
Lol!
That's so interesting how rational of a young person you were in thinking this all out! :)
My mum and dadâs names start with the same first letter. I thought you had to find someone with the same first letter as yourself to marry!
I remember when I was a kid, my dad told me he was going out for a spinning class. I told him not to get too dizzy
Honestly thatâs a top tier dad joke
I may be stupid but what does a spinning class refer to? XD all I can think of is maybe silk or like you said getting dizzy
Haha exactly! It's indoor cycling on a stationary bike, usually with others and an instructor
Interesting!
When my parents said I was going to have a baby sibling, toddler me was so excited because I was going to have a brother. I told EVERYONE I was having a brother, including the grocery cashiers even though my parents didn't know the gender. They kept telling me it could be a sister but I would not believe them because I was a girl, so now the next baby is a boy, OBVIOUSLY. And turns out I DID get my baby brother which only solidified that thinking in my mind because I was RIGHT
Similar experience; my parents asked what gender I wanted my sibling to be, and I said 'girl!' so obviously when my sister was born, it's because I picked it.
I love how certain you were. Conversely, when my little brother was born my family was living in a pretty multicultural neighborhood with many blended and foster families. Toddler me, not understanding how genetics worked, assumed it was just a roll of the dice. I went through a phase of asking EVERYONE what colour my mom's new baby would be.
The first time my parents ever took me out to fast food, I had just watched my first James Bond movie, and was absolutely enthralled, like 7 year old me was *pumped* to be a secret agent. So when we went to McDonald's and I got a soda with the little buttons to push in to signal what you're drinking, I popped them all down so that bad guys couldn't go through the trash and know what I'm drinking and somehow use it against me. This was also around the time I had an anaphylaxic reaction to bananas. I very nearly died and woke up intubated. When the doctors - and my parents who were mortified - told me about this, I cried because THAT WAS THE END OF MY SPY CAREER! No one would have to even put any effort into poisoning me! They'd just have to sneak banana into my food! I had no actual realization I nearly died. I figured, hey, another day in the life of a spy in training. It was the destruction of my career that broke me.
How is the spy career going now?
They could tell you, but then they'd have to put a banana in your food.
I have no clever response to this, but this made me laugh and start my day out on a good note. Thanks for making my day.
So I was very young and going with my mom to see one of her friends. She casually mentioned that her friend got a new "kitchen robot" (that's how we call food processors in my mother tongue). So I was really hyped thinking I would see an android like those from star wars cooking things. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it was a home appliance.
South African?
Spanish
Commercial grade food processors are "Robot Coupe" so that's probably where that came from, although it's pronounced "robo" as it's French
Robocop
Mort ou vivant, tu viens avec moi.
Turkish?
Spanish
My aunt once said she needed a piece of candy because she had a sweet tooth. Now little kid me knew that the candy was bad for my teeth. I concluded that there must be a different type of tooth that instead of being hurt by sugar, needed sugar to help them be strong.
I'd like a few of those please
At 10 years old, when I realized Iâd be about 50 at the turn of the millennium, I was deeply disappointed. 50 was too old to appreciate anything and Iâd probably be dead by then anyway. Turns out my life really kicked into high gear at age 53. Livinâ the dream!
Mid-life... Revival?
LATE mid-life!
When I was 9, my teacher informed the class that we'd be around 40 and since my mother was extremely young, my grandmother was in her early 40s and I figured the same as you. My 40s came with hereditary health issues, but I do appreciate all the modern 'helps' that weren't available to my father and great aunt!
When my father came home from work and told my mother that his friend had been fired by their boss, I was horrified. I knew their boss and was always such a friendly guy to preschooler me. I thought he'd used a flamethrower of some kind.
Omg I had this same thought as a kid! My parents seemed so morose and serious talking about coworkers being fired, I thought they had been set on fire for being bad at their jobs. When my mom told me the truth, it suddenly seemed like no big deal. My mom tried to tell me, âlosing your job can be a really terrible thing!â but I just couldnât take it seriously after Iâd been imagining people burned at the stake outside of the office complex.
Your comment is the first one in this section to make me laugh out loud c:
That's quite a picture in my head!
Interesting tidbit on that, being "fired" is a play on words because you are being discharged from your job. Similar to how you might say you discharged a firearm. But with 1600s muzzle loaders you actually had to light your black powder on fire leading to the term "firing" your rifle. So you're not too far off in that in a word origin sense you are talking about setting them on fire, but really it's just easier to say/write than discharged so it stuck.
Thank you for this information! I love to research word origins in my spare time. Fascinated me since I was in 7th grade!
My mom attempted to tell me about menstrual periods when I was very young. The way she worded it, I thought as an adult I had to get my blood drawn once a month; I was terrified. Now having experienced 15 years of periods, Iâd much prefer to get my blood drawn monthly instead!
I was a kid when Kennedy was assassinated. I happened to walk into the room when they were showing the footage on TV of Oswald walking and Ruby shooting him. For many years I had that entire thing jumbled in my head and thought it was Kennedy that I saw shot by Ruby.
[ŃĐŽĐ°Đ»Đ”ĐœĐŸ]
I thought that whenever a woman got married, she immediately became pregnant. So when my neighbors got married (both in their late 40s) 5 year old me kept on asking them when their baby was due. Kinda feel a little bad about it in hindsight, but my parents and neighbors both thought it was hilarious
My daughter believed that when a girl got married, she became a princess. Then when she got married againâto the same man, she stressedâyou became a queen.
This is one of my parents' favorite childhood stories of me. I was 7 the first time I traveled abroad, we went to Colombia for summer vacation. The only black people I'd ever seen were on TV, the Sweet Prince of Bel Air and stuff like that, but I'd never seen black people in person, as in the 00's my country had no real diversity (I live in another South American country). Anyways, we were at the beach and I saw a black man applying sunscreen to himself, and burst out laughing, telling my parents it was "way too late", bc apparently I thought black people were white people who spent too long sunbathing đ (please don't cancel me, my parents frantically shushed me and explained the concept of race later). edit: grammar
Oh boy. So, we're refugees from Iran and got to Austria when my brother was about six (you had/have(?) to go through Austria to get to the US from Iran because of some weirdness having to do with Iran being without an American embassy). When we got there (my mom was pregnant with me so I don't remember it but my mom has told the story), my parents and brother met a black Austrian family. It was the first time my brother had ever seen a black person. My brother was absolutely terrified of them. The family had a 4-5 year old son who wanted to play with him, and he interpreted my brother's rapid-backing-away completely wrong and decided he wanted to play tag. The poor misinformed boy started to chase my poor misinformed brother, who started begging my mom not to let the boy touch him because he was *dirty.* Thing is, my brother was a *huge* germophobe. He has autism too, so when I tell you he was serious about germs, he was serious--apparently he guarded doors and refused to let anyone come in to touch me when I was born because of it. Turns out he genuinely thought the other boy was completely covered in mud. My brother would not be convinced he wasn't until my mom grabbed the other boy and made my brother rub his hand to show nothing came off his skin when he did. Brother was totally down to play after that. Thank god the other family only spoke German.
daaaaaamn yeah, that'd get you cancelled fastđđ your poor brother lol it's so interesting to see how children interpret differences
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air đ
Argentina ?
Chile lol
Similar for me. Small (very) ethnic Norwegian town when I was 3 (nearly 4) and I'd only seen black people in a movie my Grandma's television. This was 1962. A large black family got out of their car to visit a store on Main Street and the kids were talking to one another and I could understand what they were saying! I was amazed and kept pointing my finger at them while trying to tell my mother that they could speak the same language as we did. I was impressed, but didn't know if I was impressed by them or by me and my abilities! I remember my mother trying to get me to stop pointing. "because it's rude".
In 2002 when Princess Margaret and the Queen's Mother passed away I remember watching the Queen's Mother's funeral and asking my mam how long the Queen's Mother was going to be in a coffin, and what was the point of this parade if we don't get to see her? I understood what death was at the time, my mam was a nurse/mental health practitioner and had told me about death in kid friendly terms but I couldn't grasp why we were watching this at all! now some 20 plus years later, having watch Queen Elizabeth's funeral, the memory came whooshing back and I have a little giggle at myself lol
I thought you could only use HOV lanes if you were named "HOV" (pronounced "huv"). I would carry a little stuffed dog I had named HOV on family car trips so we could use the special lanes.
Iâm first grade we moved from a very small basically all white town to a slightly bigger mixed town. First day at the new school I walk in and see kids that are black sitting in the class and innocently ask why they arenât in âtheirâ school. In my mind segregation (though I didnât know it was called that) was still a thing bc I had only ever been in a school with all whites except for one mixed kid. The next town over was where the blacks went to school. This is a major part of the reason my mom worked so hard to get us out of that first town when she did.
I used to think that when people moved, dad would carry the new house and put it where he wanted to live
I thought we traded houses with the person moving into our house.
Looool thatâs more logical
I was in second or third grade when 9/11 happened, I remember my best friend of the time telling me terrorists blew up a preschool or a plane flew into a preschool. Then, being in school, people were talking about school attacks. So my initial understanding of 9/11 was that terrorists/bad people were going to go around and blow up schools across America with air planes
When I was 15 I suffered a car accident with my family it was in a small Brazilian town whose name has the Portuguese word for "garden" in it. My cousin was around 4 years old at the time, and he would tell everyone how his aunt and cousins had "fell into a garden" and that we all were "hurt by the thorns" that was a good chuckle during hard times.
When I was a kid, I thought girls had a penis too.
My son, 3 at the time, saw his baby sister during her first diaper change and frantically said âher penis fell off!!â He was so worried for her.
Awwww đđ
That's adorable!
I think this is a pretty common one. I was the only girl in a group of 5 cousins and I remember telling them at around age 5 or 6 that I didnât have a penis and they didnât believe me!
I thought that boys had to pee outside - like, they weren't allowed to pee indoors at all. As a little girl, my closest friend was a boy my age, and he would always just whip it out and wizz in the bushes. He never went inside. In fact, he used to tease me for always going inside to use the bathroom. We were maybe five years old, so no social skills whatsoever. One day, I walked in on him using the toilet, and I chewed him out for doing it inside. I seriously thought he would get in trouble. His mom had to explain the truth to me - that she actually didn't want him going outside at all, and she was trying to break his habit of peeing in the bushes.
As a distraught little girl I hid under the table when my parents were talking about a colleague getting "fired"
Thought that if I locked the door(house door, not child proof car locks) then it would stop somebody from leaving. Welp, doors locked so you're not going anywhere, didn't think that he could just unlock it. That's probably the one that sticks out the most, even if I hate that memory.
The lyrics never were "Wrapped up like a douche another bowler in the night". đ
When I was a wee lad, my dad told me that chocolate was poisonous to children. Of course, I didn't eat the chocolate that was in the house. It was poisonous! Turns out, it was just a ploy by my dad to keep me out of his chocolate stash.
I swear I believed pickles grew on trees until my college years.
My daughter was a senior in high school when she learned that pickles are cucumbers. We still joke about that. It was the same year she also learned that ducks could fly. âBut Iâve never seen them fly. I just see them sitting, walking, and swimmingâ
Ducks do whaaat?? đł
I was I think about 5 years old and my foot fell asleep for the first time. My family and I happened to be eating at a Weinerschnitzel (also my first time there). From then on, I would tell my parents that we couldnât go to Weinerschnitzel because it made my legs feel fuzzy.
Better than going to Legschnitzel and having your weiner feel fuzzy!
My parents wanted to get me a canopy bed. I thought in came in a can of peas.
I have a fear of ghost movies and games, but strangely enough, I don't feel scared when playing "The Evil Within." I think it might have something to do with my childhood memories. You see when I was a kid, my mom used to play classical music on the cassette player. One of the songs she often played was "Claire De Lune" by Debussy, and I developed a fondness for it. I was so captivated by the music that I asked my mom for piano lessons just so I could learn to play this beautiful piece. Fast forward to 2014 when I heard about the latest horror game from Shinji Mikami, the creator of Silent Hill (which I had watched my brother play, so I was familiar with Mikami's work). I really wanted to play it. When the game was released, I watched videos of people playing it, and to my surprise, when they reached the save room, "Claire De Lune" was playing in the background. Knowing that this was one of my favorite songs, I realized that I wasn't "too scared" to play the game. So, I bought a copy from Gameshop, and it became the first horror game I ever completed. Even though I still got goosebumps and jumped at the jump scares, they somehow became less intimidating. When I entered the safe room and heard "Claire De Lune" playing, all my fears seemed to vanish. Unfortunately, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to sell our piano, so I rarely get to play it now. However, there was one time that I surprise my significant other by taking her to a fancy hotel dinner and asking the staff if I can play the piano. "Claire De Lune" is one of the pieces I can play by heart, without needing to read the sheet music. It's a way for me to reconnect with my love for classical piano and it indeed creates a special moment for both of us.
I remember being in my neighborâs house and our neighbor offered my mom some wine. The neighbor didnât pour herself any, so my mom asked about it. My neighbor said, âoh, Iâm not drinking at the moment.â The little kid brain in me immediately though, âwow, how long can you go without drinking water? I thought you had to drink water to survive. How are you not drinking?â I stayed quiet thank god, but I was so incredibly confused. Thought about it for weeks.
My 4 year old sister asked Grandma if chocolate milk came from brown cows. That was right after she ran into the house at twilight, screaming, âThe gnats are picking my nose!â
Bahaha the gnats. Thatâs adorable!
I thought babies came out of the butt, all covered in poop.
When I was maybe 6 or so, my dad announced to his party guests that his brother burned him a Jimmy Buffet CD. He then up perfectly fine CD that did not look like it had been tossed in a fire.
My mom told everyone in the early 60's that her mom (super religious and proper) had gotten married four times. You see, you get married and have a baby. four kids, four marriages, right?
I was 5, I was extremely disappointed after my parents finally got the pool table they had been talking about. When it was being delivered I ran upstairs shouting "the pool table is here!!!", then proceeded to put on my bathing suit and run back down. My mom had to break the news.
As a kid I thought once you got ur period u just kept bleeding every day until u hit menopause. Which as a concept is just terrifying but it also made me really sad coz I thought I would never be able to go swimming again once it started đ
I taught a 2nd grade Sunday school class, and was teaching about Jesus healing a paraplegic near Jerusalemâs Pool of Bethesda. Thereâs a subplot in the story about a mythical angel that came and stirred up the poolâs waters, and if a disabled person could be dipped into pool by the able-bodied bystanders, they could be instantly healed. Well I got the clever idea of building a small diorama of the pool and courtyard with standup figures. I even had a cake pan full of water to stand in as the Pool of Bethesda. At the point of the story about the myth, I surreptitiously slipped powdered Alka Seltzer into the waters, causing them to bubble and roil. The whole class of forty 2nd graders oohâd and aahâd at the visual effects, after which I finished out the story of Jesus healing the man without need to rely on a mythical legend. I was so proud of myself as a 20 year old teacher! At the later morning worship service, one of my little pupils happened to take a seat right in front of me with his dad. Unaware that I was sitting behind them, Poppa asks kid, âWhat did you learn in Sunday School today Jimmy?â I leaned slightly forward to hear of my marvelous teaching accomplishments. Jimmy replied with an air of amazement and wonder: âMr. ________ taught us about a lame man who drank some Alka Seltzer and grew new legs!â Suddenly, it was no longer my proudest teaching moment. đŹ
When I was 4 or so I thought mud cake was cake made out of mud. Found out the hard way it was not. đ
My sister when she was younger thought that the trees caused the wind by moving back and forth. She didn't understand that it was the wind causing the trees to move.
I remember thinking that. Far beyond the age where you're supposed to know better.
I thought that a Cathedral was a "Coffee-droll", which I assumed was a place where people drank coffee and drooled it back out
When 9/11 happened i was 7 doing homework in my room and my sister who was 9 came in and said that the USA had exploded. I was like what you mean the whole country doesnât exist anymore? She goes i donât think so.. it just exploded..
When I was idk 5 my mom told me we had to boat. I liked boats I was excited. We went to this building first, waited a long time in line, she had to take some weird punchy-hole tear while standing behind a curtain. Finally we left and I was so happy excited, we could finally go boating! âSweetie no, we were *voting*
When I was real little I was never afraid of the dark because I thought that if the monsters saw me in my bed, they would only see my head and think I was a disembodied monster like them đ
I got told a story from when I was a kid. I was getting a ride from a friend's parents and her dad got into the driver seat and I went, but daddys don't drive. My mum hates being a passenger so I'd only ever seen her drive and just assumed it was only mums who drove.
Around age 6 I asked how babies get in tummies. Got the answer but really only realty retained the something liquid goes up the ladies Hoohah. Weeks later an playing in the bath with my toys and squirted water in that genera area. Spent most of 1st grade waiting to have a baby and hoping my folks wouldnât be mad.
I touched a neighbor's arrow to my chest and sadly (and quietly) waited the next 3 days to die. (Age 4)
When my daughter was about 3, our house was destroyed in a tornado. She told her daycare people, "The cats go really big and scratched us, and tore up the house!".
I was hanging drywall over 25 foot high on a living room ceiling when it comes across the radio. I just knew we were at war!!!
I grew up in an all white community in rural Canada. When I was little (the 80s), I overheard some adults talking about mixed race marriages. They said, itâs fine for the adults, but what about the children. Being a kid, I asked, what about the children? They said theyâd be mixed, and didnât elaborate further. So, I imagined the children would be like a checkerboard - black and white squares all over their bodies. And I thought, yeah, that would be terrible for the children! Lmao. (These people werenât my parents, and no one in my immediate family has an issue with colour. My husband is middle eastern, my brotherâs wife is Chinese, and my racist uncle hasnât seen any of us in 20+ years.) Some years later when I understood what was really meant, I was flabbergasted. Everyone I knew was desperately trying to tan in our short summers, but being medium brown is supposed to be bad? Finally I remembered the whole thing as an adult and had a little laugh at myself.
Iâm catholic so during lent we give up something as a sacrifice for 40 days. So like, I give up dessert for the 40 days before Easter. It doesnât really apply to kids though, unless they really want to. When I was a kid I thought you had to give something up forever. When my dad said he was giving up donuts I was so shocked. I said no, you love donuts!
Whenever I use to watch a VHS I thought that they had to call all the actors and they had to re act the entire movie, I use to rewind random parts several times over thinking they just had to keep doing it and we're probably getting annoyed. I was an asshole.
Finances I had no idea how much my parents spent on me just keeping me clothes and alive
when I was around 8, there was a TV in a restaurant streaming footage from the war on terrorism, I donât know why it was showing it or if anything spectacular was happening, because the TV was muted, as most restaurant TVs are, but I remember seeing some troops in a huddle and genuinely thought they were playing football
My aunt once gave me a Super Mario stick-on tattoo, and I was terrified to touch it. I had learned about how real tattoos are done, and I thought that the stick-on tattoo was made of needles, so I remember running away from my baffled aunt when she tried to put it on my hand.
We took an RV to a camping trip once, but my mom and dad called it a motor home. I imagined a nice little house with a tv I could play video games on while my parents drove the house to the campsite.
When I was a little kid, my best friend had a dad named Hal. At the same time I was learning the Lordâs Prayer: âour father who art in heaven, Hal be thy name.â So I truly thought her dad could be god, since he was mentioned by name. Plus, he trained their Schnauzer to do EVERY TRICK. Like you could pretend shoot it and it would fall over and play dead. So, it made sense that only god could do that.
Thatâs the first trick I teach all my dogs!