When I was little, I owned a Cinderella book in which Cinderella was referred to as a "maid." I asked my mom about that, and she said that "maid" was a shortened way to say "maiden." So, the next time we went on vacation, I referred to the woman who cleaned the hotel room as a maiden.

Barbara F.

when I was little my mom told me my father was an engineer. I though that we must leave the house in the morning in a suit and change into his train-driving outfit when he got to the station...

Elizabeth

When I was 5 or 6 years old, one of my favorite TV shows was the 1970's series 'Emergency'. A few times I saw the paramedic guys on there go to a call where a woman was 'in labor' and I always wondered why they took an ambulance for a woman going to work! I figured since they had uniforms like cops and there was a siren and flashing lights it was illegal for women to go to work.

Anon

No one ever talked about their jobs when I was growing up, they all just went to work. So I figured "work" was just a place everyone went during the day, with gray coveralls and lunchboxes. I figured the milkman and the mailman never went to work because I saw them every day. Ditto my kindergarten teacher and Huntley/Brinkley.

Dixon

From the ages of 2-8 my Dad worked away In Saudi Arabia.
I lived in a small village in Wales, UK, and my house overlooked a mountain that had a small coal mine on it.My mum told me was Saudia was that mountain and my dad was drining teh lorry that i could se etehlights of. Every night i waved goodnight to my dad working on the mountain!

Lisa

I once asked my parents to buy me something, and they said they couldnt afford it and they showed me how much money they had (a little pocket change)

I went to bed that night and cried myself to sleep, thinking that soon we'd be poor and living in the streets becuase we had no more money. It never occured to me that my dad going to work meant we'd get more.

Anon

When I was very young, I overheard my father quietly telling my mother that he was afraid he might be fired. I decided that that meant his employers would take him out the back door and shoot him dead. This really scared me for a short time until I figured out what it meant. I never did ask anyone or tell them about my fears.

Lunjo

I used to want to be a garbage man because I used to believe that garbage men went around collecting trash and, at the end of the day, used their magic wand and turned all the trash into gold, and they lived happily ever after.

Anon

In elementary school, I believed that every day, kids went to school and adults went to work, which meant the streets would be empty. I was shocked when I had to go to the doctor one day and saw cars out on the road. I thought for sure all these people must be playing hooky from work.

Anon

I once asked my mom what a "bimbo" was. This was around the time of the Bill Clinton/ Monica Lewinsky scandal. Anyway, when I asked this question, my mom replied, "Oh, just some chick who works in the white house."

From then on, until junior high school, when someone referred to another person as a "bimbo", I naturally assumed that the insulted person worked in the white house.

Diana

When I was younger my mom would take me to day care and always complain she would be late for work, and they would fire her. I used to believe that the 'firing' consisted of her being shot by her boss!

C.R.

Growing up on a farm, just outseide of a small farming town, I never knew that that science could be boring until I got into highschool (grade 7 for our town's highschool). Prior to that, I actually believed that scientists were all crazy inventors and mad-scientist types, as these were the only types of scientists that were ever shown on TV and in movies. Because of that, I always wanted to be a scientist, so's I could create monsters and time machines and cool laser guns and take over the world. It was a big disappointment when I learned that that wasn't what real scientists were like. My school guidance counceler and many of my family members still don't understand why I suddenly gave up on the idea of being a scientist.

F.B.

When my mother said the Venetian blind factory would be built in Fresno, I marveled that blind Venetians could construct anything.

Cambria Consuelo

When I was little I used to think that there was just one mailman for the entire world and that was why our mail always came so late in the day.

Amy

I used to think that Mormon missionaries were men who had received too many speeding tickets.

This came from a line of questioning when my dad had explained that "If you speed, a policeman might pull you over and give you a ticket."

Somebody giving me something for free, especially a "Ticket" (to a park? to a movie?) sounded like a good thing to me, so he had to explain further that "if you get too many tickets, you cant drive a car any more."

A few weeks later, I saw two men, dressed nicely with dress shirts, ties, and slacks riding bicycles.
I must have realized that they looked far to dressed up to be riding just for fun, and assumed they were going to work, but "must had received too many tickets" and couldn't drive in a car.

I didn't mention it for a long time, and would occasionally see pairs of men riding bicycles, and it just seemed obvious that, indeed, some people got too many speeding tickets and had to ride bicycles to work.

Matt Taylor

My dad works with computers, so when I was little I used to believe that the way he earned money was that the computer printed it out for him.

Anon

At the age of 4 & 5 I remember how very proud I was of my father who worked "graveyard" at the nearby underground mine. My impression that made me so proud was that every night he went to the graveyard and watched over and kept the dead safe. I was also somewhat concerned that something bad might happen to him because of the a scarry job he had.

Sherm

My mum told me that she was a brain surgeon and obviously I was adamant that she really was when asked by teachers and school friends (although in reality she was a house wife).

Caroline

I used to think my Grandma was a nurse because she wore those white nurse shoes. Actually she was the cafeteria lunch lady in a middle school.

KerryAnne

When i read in shops 'alcohol will not be served to minors', i used to think that all miners were banned from drinking.

Anon