grown-ups: family

When I was about 5, I was certain (for no particular reason) that someday my parents would abandon my brother and me during the night. Every night for quite some time I would wake up of my own accord, go down the hall, and peek into my parents' bedroom, and every night they would be there sound asleep. I would go back to bed and sleep soundly for the rest of the night.

Then one night I went and looked, and sure enough, they had done it. The bed was made and they were gone. Oddly, I wasn't afraid, because I had been expecting it. However, I had been told that if ever anything went wrong and my parents weren't around to help, I was to go to the neighbors' flat upstairs and ask them for help. So I did this, in my PJs (I was used to going up and down the stairs by myself) and told the lady that my parents had left us. But they hadn't. They were with her -- they had put us to bed and gone to the neighbor's for all of ten minutes for a drink.

Somehow finding them there left me permanently reassured, and I never "checked on them" again.

My mother used to tell me that when she got too stressful she was going to "Mother Mother Land". I used to believe that she went to this place via her closet, and when I imagined it I thought of many mothers kneeling down along this long red carpet with a head mother at the throne.

My uncle has been bald for as long as I can remember. When I was about six, I asked my dad why my uncle was bald. My dad replied that one day when my uncle was on his motorbike, all his hair had just blown off. I thought that my dad was the fountain of all knowledge, and believed this story for several years. Many years later I told my dad how I'd believed his ridiculous story for a long time, and he was amazed that I had believed it at all. I was so convinced by the story, that I told all my friends at school that my uncle's hair had blown off while he was riding his motorbike.

A few of my parents' cousins brought war brides back from Korea and Vietnam before I was born. When I was little, I used to tell people I was part Chinese because I had oriental aunts...so I MUST be part Chinese. I didn't even figure out they weren't Chinese until I was about 10.

When I was bad, my mother used to threaten to sell me to the Gypsies. I didn't know really what Gypsies were, but somehow I mixed them up with Jewish people. I lived in an area that had a LOT of Jewish people and whenever Saturday came around and they were walking to temple, I used to hide so they wouldn't come and get me.

my brother and sister (6 and 7 years older than I) convinced me at age 5 that I was an insta-baby. they said that mom had gone to Brookshires (a local grocery store) and gotten me out of the gumball machine. They went into great detail telling me how she put me in the bathtub and added water to make me. Then they told me that she had forgotten to add water to the insta-brain and it fell out. Needless to say, they told me that I would never know as much as them because I had no brain. Being the impressionable child I was, I used to say " It's not my fault! I don't have a brain! Carrie and Rick told me!"

When I was very young, my Dad was in the Navy. Naturally I spent a good deal of time asking where my Daddy was. My mother put a big picture of him onthe coffee table, so I could see him all the time, and told me "This is your Daddy." When my dad finally returned from his cruise, and we met him at the docks, I refused to talk to him, saying only "This isn't MY daddy. MY daddy's at home, on the coffee table." I believe that the picture itself was my dad.

My father used to tell me he had rubber legs. I was at least 10 at the time and knew it couldn't be true, but because I regarded him as an absolutely reliable fount of all knowledge, and because he stuck religiously to the story (and was completely deadpan), I was never quite sure!

When I was little my father would tell my sister and me that if a boy kisses you your nose would fall off. I learned he was lying when a oy kissed me on the chhek

When my sister and I were younger I would tell her she was adopted because she was dark skinned and I'm fair skinned. She finally learned the truth at age 10

I was three years old when JFK was assassinated. Though I don’t remember it, I knew it made an impression on me.

My uncle Joe was about 15 years older than me and he lived at my grandmother's house. Joe was kind of a wild fella back then, always getting into trouble. He also had hunting rifles in the house. I was afraid of the guns, but was fascinated with the big scope attached to one of them.

Once when I was five or six I got up the courage to look through that scope. I was totally amazed and intrigued with the crosshairs that I saw superimposed on what I looked at through the scope.

Some time after that I was reading through a book my parents had about the Kennedy assassination. To my absolute horror, the book contained (what I later realized was) a photographic re-enactment of the shooting as seen by the assassin. The picture showed a limousine from behind, with people in it and a man I knew was supposed to be Kennedy. The photo was shot through a scope like my uncle’s, and the crosshairs were aimed directly at the back of Kennedy’s head.

In my young mind, I could only draw one conclusion: My cousin Joe had killed President Kennedy.

I feel really stupid now.....but when I was in the second grade, my mom had been in the hospital so many times and came home with a baby every time. This time my father was in the hospital and I thought for sure he was going to bring home yet another baby.

When I was little, I believed my little brother looked the way every boy in the world should look, and if they didn't look like him, they weren't perfect.

boy that changed quick...

My husband had an old uncle with a wooden leg, and taht uncle told all the kids in the neighborhood that a little bird lived in his peg. My husband believed him.

i used to believe that my parents were really kidnappers. I believed that they had kidnapped me from my real family back in Denmark. I also believed that they, my parents, had taken me to Canada in order to hide and keep me safe from some sort of harm.

I used to think that my parents were aliens and I would block their thoughts by holding my breath. My mom looked at me al red-faced and asked me what was wrong and seemed to care, so I didn't think she was an alien anymore.