i used to believe - the childhood beliefs site

When I first heard the word "lumberjack", I thought it was "Numberjack" like the TV show The Numberjacks. When I was corrected, I thought a lumberjack was a dude named Jack who lumbered around.

Anon (from grown-ups : work)

There was this one area of the local pool that I thought was called the "Disney Area". Why? Because I thought it looked like Mickey Mouse's head.

Anon (from neighbourhood : swimming pools)

When I was about twelve or thirteen, my mother was reading me The Odyssey, and at one point, Queen Penelope has these men who want to marry her because they think Odysseus is dead, and they say, "We'll draw lots". I didn't know what that meant, so I thought it meant they'd draw (as in sketch) a lot of Odysseuses.

Anon (from language : reading)

I used to believe that a 'wolverine' was the girl version of a wolf.

Jelly (from animals : general)

When we first got our cat, he was a claw and tooth ninja. I was also seven years old and going through the "pants are unnecessary" phase. So my mum tried to get me to wear pants by calling them "cat protectors", but I was worried that they'd make him run away.

Anon (from animals : cats and dogs)

I used to believe that if you swallowed gum, it would stay in your stomach for many years and you could not poo because it would block your poo hole. I used to be scared that i would accidentally swallow the gum every time i was given any

anonymus (from food : chewing gum)

When I was about eight or nine, my grandfather took me to a marina. The sea was so flat that I didn't think it could possibly be water and wanted to walk on it to check. When Grandpa said no, I thought that you had to be older to legally check if something was water or not.

Anon (from nature : water)

I thought dogs only peed on people in America! The reason for this is because there's a Garfield movie where they are visiting somewhere (I think Britain) and Odie plans to pee on somebody, but Garfield says, "Don't do the ugly American thing!".

Anon (from animals : cats and dogs)

I thought "Orange is the New Black" was about wearing orange to funerals.

Anon (from death : people)

I thought Bonnie and Clyde were fictional characters.

Anon (from the past : history)

I thought opium was an element.

Anon (from science : chemistry)

Up until I was like 7 or 8, I thought the lyrics to the song "Last Christmas" were, "Last Christmas, I gave you my harp..."

CocoaPoof (from music : misheard lyrics)

One time, I was playing in the living room while my mother was watching something and a character on the TV said, "Oh! I forgot to close the fridge door!", and so Mum turned to me and said something along the lines of, "Don't you ever forget to close the fridge door."

Then later, I saw an episode of "Spongebob Squarepants" (which is this wacky cartoon about a talking sea sponge) where Spongebob gets sick from leaving his fridge open.

Both of those made me think that every time you left the fridge door open, something random, but always very bad, would happen.

Anon (from science : technology)

I thought the Virgin Islands were owned by Richard Branson until I was 24.

LJ (from nature : landscape)

when I was little, I used to believe that no one should work in the summer. Everyone should rest from the first of June and return to work only in September))))

Maria (from time : general)

When my teacher told me to mind my P's and Q's, I thought she was saying "peas in queues" and I was like, "That doesn't make sense!".

Anon (from school : teachers)

When I was about 6 years old, I believed that a man wasn't allowed to get married if he hadn't been in the Army.

Tim (from grown-ups : marriage)

I used to listen to this song at school, and the lyrics were things like "Welcome back" and "We're proud of you". I thought it was about a girl (no idea why I specifically thought she was a girl) graduating a boarding high school, and it was sung by her parents.

Later, I learned that it was about welcoming soldiers back after a war, but I thought my version was better.

Anon (from music : songs)

I spent most of my childhood somewhere without any snow, and I read a comic where a boy explodes from getting a snow flake on his tongue.
The joke was because the snowflake was dangerous as it was the result of a nuclear winter but I didn't know what a "nuclear winter" was, so I thought that getting snow on your tongue would make you explode.
Thankfully, my father (who spent a significant amount of his childhood in Scandinavia) cleared that up pretty quickly.

Anon (from nature : weather)

I thought that the barber sign meant candy because I thought it looked like a candy cane.

Anon (from neighbourhood : in the street)