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40 Of The Best Naive Beliefs That People Had In Their Childhood, According To This Twitter Thread
As children, we tend to believe a variety of things, from nonsense ideas to respectable concepts. And more often than not, those beliefs are based on some form of teaching, like something our parents told us not to do lest something bad happen. As adults, we know certain things as a given; it came with the worldly experience over the years. But for children, anything that's not in their immediate sphere of expertise (assuming they have any) will likely be considered as the unknown, and kids then look up to others to fill in the blanks or come up with original ideas why things are the way they are. A Twitter user by the name of @Kristen_Arnett decided to delve a bit deeper into the topic, asking people on Twitter what are some of the beliefs they had as children.
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"What’s something extremely bizarre you believed as a very young child?" was the question that kickstarted it all. Kristen Arnett wanted to know what, if any, believable theories users had as children—"believable" meaning not something about fairytales or zombies, but grounded in reality, with tangible reasoning behind it.
Me to though i thought i was the only one i felt so dumb when i found out i was wrong
I always thought that when people kissed, they were already married/dating in "real life".
There's a big power plant in our area with those immense cooling towers, and I thought the same about it.
Of course, even when they are reality-based, those beliefs still don't quite make sense to an adult because they have fundamental knowledge of the world. We know that clouds are naturally occurring, not made of fabric. We also understand certain intricacies of biology that might seem alien as a child. Basically, while grounded, the beliefs are leaning towards naiveté and inexperience, rather than ingenuity or fantasy.
The thread wasn't meant to make fun of anyone, far from it. The answers people gave highlighted the difference in thinking, with children tending to take things quite literally, but still using their limited understanding and experiences to form a worldview that makes sense. It's the first steps towards greater understanding, and the more inquisitive a child is, the faster they understand the world they live in.
I have dreamt in b&w and sepia for some strange, unknown reason.
I’ve had a longterm argument with my parents about the TARDIS (Doctor Who) being blue or not. They kept on arguing it was red back then. I even checked with the Whovian Community (fanbase for DW) since they are older than me so maybe I dídn’t have all the facts. They still wouldn’t believe me. Until I found a picture of all different TARDIS’ses through the years and they recognized one and I was like look these thousand images, it’s blue. It still took them a while to realize that the TARDIS has always been a blue Brittish police box and never a red phone booth lol. Oh my, the wonders of conception. Proof we never miss what isn’t known. And also proof that what we think it is, isn’t always right 😂😂
one time I asked my dad how it was living in black and white when he was a kid.
it was tho. back then it was all black and white until we invented to other colors
ohh mee and my mom and aunt (dads sister) thought this too...
My kids asked me if the world was black and white in the 'olden' days, after watching an old tv show.
I thought they didn't invent colour until the 1950's and the world was black and white. I was so shocked when I saw Gone With the Wind which was in colour!
omg me too I used to watch old b&w shows and would wonder when we went to color, luckily I was smart enough not to ask that question out loud and save myself the embarrassment. lol
When I was six I made up a movie where parallel universes existed and the way to get to them was through mirrors
That´s a beautiful concept (though I cannot envision Stephen King like this ... LOL)
There was a CGI short film about a boy that turned into a watermelon after he ate one. Don’t search it up.
I thought my dad was on TV because he knew one commercial by heart. One.
All the better to keep you from tasting them. Unfortunately I wasn't scared to taste them and ended up hanging over the commode with my mom forcing me to vomit.
That is what i would probably think as well tbh. and i would find out that it was an actual band when i complemented them and embarrassed myself.
Though to be fair, Roadrunners are not blue, nor are they 6-feet tall.
I might just have to try that one when kissing the booboo doesn't work.
"Bear Milk".... LMAO!! I found myself picturing a mountain man trying to milk a bear.
I wish I had thought this...*thinks of a moon made of honey*
For a second I thought this post was about MINORS as in underage people, not MINERS as in coal miners lol.
Note: this post originally had 50 images. It’s been shortened to the top 40 images based on user votes.
My mother was a nurse (now retired) when I was a little girl my mom would talk about work whenever she mentioned the 'head nurse' I pictured a floating head with a nurses cap on just floating around the hospital making sure everyone was doing their job. I was totally creeped out by the idea of a floating head.
wow... when I was a kid I thought that when girls grew up, they turned into men and when boys grew up they turned into women. I have no clue what made me think that, but its no surprise that I'm trans.
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So many bubbles were burst by this list.... My innocence (lasted until 53 years old) just faded away more and more the further down the list I read. I'll grab my bankey and curl up in bed now.
*hands you some oreos* do you want me to read you a book
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When I was a kid, I thought that every single episode of an animated tv show was made, right then and there, so I never rewinded the show so I didn't put the animators through any more pain XD
At the end of my Sleeping Beauty vhs they had a part explaining how the cartoon and coloring was made (cos was a huge deal, like first colored cartoon or something), in my mind was just wow, because of all the trouble, even though was early 90s I thought machines would do the drawings or something automated, not actual humans hands
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I used to think that automatic sliding doors had little mice people who lived in between the door and the wall and pulled them open when people got close. I always made sure to say hi and thank you to the little mice people when I walked through an automatic door.
that would have been a GIFT to have walked behind you as you thanked the mice.
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When we were children, my father worked third shift and about the time his shift ended the morning fog would roll in from the river. My mother would send us kids outside in our jammies to "break up the fog" which was basically running around in circle flapping our arms so dad could see to get home. We couldn't come in until Dad pulled into the drive and then we would go in and eat breakfast together. I believed my brothers and I were solely responsible for the coal miners getting home safely. In reality, mom found a creative way to wear us out so we would take a long nap in the late morning and she could have time to herself.
I thought bandaids magically healed wounds. I still remember the shock when an adult told me wounds heal by themselves.
When every time there was lightning i thought someone was taking a picture of the house(i thought it was the flash). That is why i hid. i didn't want to be filmed.
I used to believe that whenever a movie went "x years later" they actually paused filming to let the actors grow up (and yes I've seen Boyhood)
I thought that when you saw a sign on a house or building saying "to let" it was really telling you that it had a toilet in it, but they missed the i out of it because it wasn't polite to say toilet in public. In my defence I was about 7 and had never heard of renting houses only buying and my parents were very big on manners and being polite so I thought toilet was a rude word!
I once saw a movie where a lady was telling her parents she was going to have a baby or something, and then the montage showed her eating a lot with her stomach growing. My conclusion was that women can decide to form a baby by eating a lot.
When I was about 5 or 6, I was convinced that if you got in trouble, your parents would disown you... That was probably why I was such an obedient kid 😂
I always thought that while a record was playing that the "lines" would go under the label... I would spin the record backwards a few times so they would go back and I wouldn't have to buy another record. How to beat big business 101 from the mind of a 4 year old! (I have over 7000 vinyl records today, I'm 62 and have also worked on many albums!)
When I was a kid I used to think that getting shot anywhere on your body meant you'd die. I watched something where someone got hit with a arrow to the leg and I was upset because he was my favourite character and I thought he was going to die in the movie. I didn't matter how minor the wound was I though everyone who was shot with any type of projectile died.
Not only were cats female and dogs male but when they mate if the baby is a female it will be a cat and if the baby is a male it will be a dog.
For the longest time I thought someone was filming peoples lives, like Truman Show. Sometimes I would stop my friends jokes to correct them for it to be funnier for the sake of the viewers. So the cast in tv shows just lived their lives and someone was just filming and showing..
I used to think the 50’s and 60’s were the perfect time to have a family. Moms stayed home, dads read their papers at the breakfast table, kids played games outside, etc. I was sure that it was an innocent time. Families lasted forever, love was true and people were good, and honest. Oh how I longed for the life I thought was ideal as a young kid in the 70s. Then in the late 2000s DNA was all the rage. Let’s see where our ancestors come from. Fun right? Nope. Wives cheated on their husbands and vice versa and had no idea that years down the road their lies would be exposed. I wanted to know if we 5 kids were from Scotland or Ireland. Scotland.. 4 my sibs. England me. Suck it Happy Days and Leave it to Beaver! 😔
Is your mother still alive? Were you able to talk to her about what happened?
Load More Replies... private school sounded really weird to me because "private parts" and if you add private to school '_'
My uncle Ray told me that the little half moons at the bottom of my thumbnails would grow and cover the whole nail once I was grown up. I believed this until well into adulthood.
I have a few: Mountains were dead dinosaurs laying on their backs (big bellies = hills). All dogs were boys and all cats were girls. ...and Dad told me that cantaloupe was antelope poop.
me tooo (the mountain thing) but not upside down just normal and that's why there's ridges. (ridges = spines)
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I remember the first time a friend of mine in high school was explaining sex and they were confused when I always thought sex was that you both lie there hugging each other. I was quite confused when I learnt that so much activity was involved.
A neighbour-boy told me the doctor said he had a bug in his nose (a cold). For years, I pictured Oscar with a sort of wasp stuck up in his nose.
When I was about 6, I saw that in my baby book, my mom wrote that my hair was "fair." I was very insulted, as I knew from my report card that things were either good, fair, or poor.
My mom was pregnant with my little sister when I was six. I thought I was going to grow up and automatically have a baby. I remember crying about it because I didn't want a baby. I wish I could tell myself I would never have kids.
I got in a fight with my mom about racism as a child, I believed racism wasn’t real and was a thing of the past and everyone was judged on the character of their person, she told me I’d find out when I was older that everyone is racist in some form or another against someone that isn’t the same as themselves on the outside, I believe I’ve lived long enough to know she was right and my hope in humanity was misplaced and naive
I thought my little brother was from outer space. I found out in church. I was bored and going through my mum’s purse. I found a card with his picture and ‘Resident Alien’ printed on top. Screamed loud enough to pause the service. 😳
I thought that the high beam light on the dashboard was a bear claw, because of course you need your brights to see bears in road! Pretty sound logic at four!
When I was 5and younger: I thought my home made bear my mom made was far because it ate a lot of bees. I believed in the boogeyman and had to be home when it got dark. (1990, military base on my neighborhood...yes I was safe outside) When I was maybe 3 or 4 I thought if I got hit by a car I would squish like playdough. I also used to think people would be watching me singing along to the radio in my car and such thinking I was cool.
When I was a kid, I thought the world had no color until the first colored movie came out.
I first thought that a "coin laundry" was where people went to wash their coins. Then, as I was a little older, I thought there were money laundering places (I knew money laundering was bad by this point, but I still thought it was a place to wash money for illegal purposes) all over.
I thought every house came with central air conditioning, and when I was at my neighbors I asked why it was so warm and why they didn't have their air conditioning on.
I had a just dance game where the song was dead. Legit thought the cops would hear this and then show up to my house and arrest me. I was 4. Now I listen to songs about murder, so, kinda evolved outta that one.
As a kid - I thought that giants brought down rocks from the mountain and put them on the beach each morning - it was low tide
My dad told me people in movies weren't real. So I thought they were made of clay
A girl I went to school with thought chocolate milk came from brown cows, because her dad told her so. That guy... I like his sense of humour
When I was 5 I asked my dad what he did at his job and he told me he made the money, so I actually thought he worked at a mint and "made" money
I used to think moustaches were nose hairs that just kept growing out the nostrils
We were told all adults knew each other. Like if I was waiting for the bus (jr high) sneaking a smoke, someone would see me an know my parents. We were told to behave from very young because my sister an I were a year apart so it was easier to keep "all eyes" on us.
That is super dangerous :P "it's ok to join this man in a van, he probably works with dad"
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As a kid I thought that open air ice skate rinks were pools that froze at winter. I always tried to remind myself to go to check the pool at summer, but by then I had forgotten it, and again the next winter I wondered how the pool must look like at summer.
I've never been to a open air ice skating rink before. What do they use them for during the summer? Anything?
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That Jews believe in Hannukah Harry. I mean which christian thought we needed a santa? By the time we learn about him, we know that Santa isn't real, and by using common sense we deduct that Hannukah Harry isn't either. Either that or our parents explicitly tell us "Hannukah Harry isn't real".
My mom, trying to convince us to brush our teeth before bed, told us that if you don't brush your teeth, a spider will pee on your lips. Obviously we became really afraid of spiders and wanted to kill them. So she told us when you kill a spider, others will smell it and many more will come. 25 years later and we still hate spiders.
When I was a kid I thought every time someone has a surgery the doctors would take a whole organ out
I used to believe that turning on the car light was not only illegal, but would bring instant death unto the driver. To this day i refuse to turn on the car light out of fear of certain death.
I believed that you had a limited amount of love and to love one person more it had to one from another persons love supply. I was always comparing the test tubes I thought were in my heart to see who was up and who was down on any given day
I've always believed that it's a parent's right and responsibility to gently mess with their kids heads. I told my daughter from the time she was 2 that in her belly button there was a little silver screw and if it came unscrewed her butt wouldfall off. We caught her at about 3 with a screw driver trying to remove the screw. She was just too cute She's got an almost 2 year old now. I asked her if she planned to tell her the silver screw th9ng and she said oh yeah.
I thought until the age of eight or nine that I was going to Hogwarts. It was a sad day when I realized that wouldn't happen, but I still had the books and films, so it wasn't all bad. Fifteen or so years later, I still love the books and the films, and those memories of believing I would get my letter when I was eleven are still fresh.
I thought a white wedding meant getting married when it snowed. I thought free house on a pub meant you didn't pay for anything. I couldn't understand why my parents didn't stop at those for lunch on holiday.
I thought the reason we now our heads in prayer was because Jesus would appear and we weren't good enough to look at him
When my brother was a child, we went to the circus and he asked whether the clowns were real or whether they were just people dressed up as clowns.
When I was a child, I thought women gave birth to babies out of their butt.
I wasn't even very young but by age 12-13, I was convinced that if I ever had sex, I would be resopnsible for making the Mother of God, AKA Virgin Mary, etc., cry. Shock from anatomy, trauma from guilt, kept knees together till my husband....
My mother was a nurse (now retired) when I was a little girl my mom would talk about work whenever she mentioned the 'head nurse' I pictured a floating head with a nurses cap on just floating around the hospital making sure everyone was doing their job. I was totally creeped out by the idea of a floating head.
wow... when I was a kid I thought that when girls grew up, they turned into men and when boys grew up they turned into women. I have no clue what made me think that, but its no surprise that I'm trans.
Load More Replies... So many bubbles were burst by this list.... My innocence (lasted until 53 years old) just faded away more and more the further down the list I read. I'll grab my bankey and curl up in bed now.
*hands you some oreos* do you want me to read you a book
Load More Replies... When I was a kid, I thought that every single episode of an animated tv show was made, right then and there, so I never rewinded the show so I didn't put the animators through any more pain XD
At the end of my Sleeping Beauty vhs they had a part explaining how the cartoon and coloring was made (cos was a huge deal, like first colored cartoon or something), in my mind was just wow, because of all the trouble, even though was early 90s I thought machines would do the drawings or something automated, not actual humans hands
Load More Replies... I used to think that automatic sliding doors had little mice people who lived in between the door and the wall and pulled them open when people got close. I always made sure to say hi and thank you to the little mice people when I walked through an automatic door.
that would have been a GIFT to have walked behind you as you thanked the mice.
Load More Replies... When we were children, my father worked third shift and about the time his shift ended the morning fog would roll in from the river. My mother would send us kids outside in our jammies to "break up the fog" which was basically running around in circle flapping our arms so dad could see to get home. We couldn't come in until Dad pulled into the drive and then we would go in and eat breakfast together. I believed my brothers and I were solely responsible for the coal miners getting home safely. In reality, mom found a creative way to wear us out so we would take a long nap in the late morning and she could have time to herself.
I thought bandaids magically healed wounds. I still remember the shock when an adult told me wounds heal by themselves.
When every time there was lightning i thought someone was taking a picture of the house(i thought it was the flash). That is why i hid. i didn't want to be filmed.
I used to believe that whenever a movie went "x years later" they actually paused filming to let the actors grow up (and yes I've seen Boyhood)
I thought that when you saw a sign on a house or building saying "to let" it was really telling you that it had a toilet in it, but they missed the i out of it because it wasn't polite to say toilet in public. In my defence I was about 7 and had never heard of renting houses only buying and my parents were very big on manners and being polite so I thought toilet was a rude word!
I once saw a movie where a lady was telling her parents she was going to have a baby or something, and then the montage showed her eating a lot with her stomach growing. My conclusion was that women can decide to form a baby by eating a lot.
When I was about 5 or 6, I was convinced that if you got in trouble, your parents would disown you... That was probably why I was such an obedient kid 😂
I always thought that while a record was playing that the "lines" would go under the label... I would spin the record backwards a few times so they would go back and I wouldn't have to buy another record. How to beat big business 101 from the mind of a 4 year old! (I have over 7000 vinyl records today, I'm 62 and have also worked on many albums!)
When I was a kid I used to think that getting shot anywhere on your body meant you'd die. I watched something where someone got hit with a arrow to the leg and I was upset because he was my favourite character and I thought he was going to die in the movie. I didn't matter how minor the wound was I though everyone who was shot with any type of projectile died.
Not only were cats female and dogs male but when they mate if the baby is a female it will be a cat and if the baby is a male it will be a dog.
For the longest time I thought someone was filming peoples lives, like Truman Show. Sometimes I would stop my friends jokes to correct them for it to be funnier for the sake of the viewers. So the cast in tv shows just lived their lives and someone was just filming and showing..
I used to think the 50’s and 60’s were the perfect time to have a family. Moms stayed home, dads read their papers at the breakfast table, kids played games outside, etc. I was sure that it was an innocent time. Families lasted forever, love was true and people were good, and honest. Oh how I longed for the life I thought was ideal as a young kid in the 70s. Then in the late 2000s DNA was all the rage. Let’s see where our ancestors come from. Fun right? Nope. Wives cheated on their husbands and vice versa and had no idea that years down the road their lies would be exposed. I wanted to know if we 5 kids were from Scotland or Ireland. Scotland.. 4 my sibs. England me. Suck it Happy Days and Leave it to Beaver! 😔
Is your mother still alive? Were you able to talk to her about what happened?
Load More Replies... private school sounded really weird to me because "private parts" and if you add private to school '_'
My uncle Ray told me that the little half moons at the bottom of my thumbnails would grow and cover the whole nail once I was grown up. I believed this until well into adulthood.
I have a few: Mountains were dead dinosaurs laying on their backs (big bellies = hills). All dogs were boys and all cats were girls. ...and Dad told me that cantaloupe was antelope poop.
me tooo (the mountain thing) but not upside down just normal and that's why there's ridges. (ridges = spines)
Load More Replies... I remember the first time a friend of mine in high school was explaining sex and they were confused when I always thought sex was that you both lie there hugging each other. I was quite confused when I learnt that so much activity was involved.
A neighbour-boy told me the doctor said he had a bug in his nose (a cold). For years, I pictured Oscar with a sort of wasp stuck up in his nose.
When I was about 6, I saw that in my baby book, my mom wrote that my hair was "fair." I was very insulted, as I knew from my report card that things were either good, fair, or poor.
My mom was pregnant with my little sister when I was six. I thought I was going to grow up and automatically have a baby. I remember crying about it because I didn't want a baby. I wish I could tell myself I would never have kids.
I got in a fight with my mom about racism as a child, I believed racism wasn’t real and was a thing of the past and everyone was judged on the character of their person, she told me I’d find out when I was older that everyone is racist in some form or another against someone that isn’t the same as themselves on the outside, I believe I’ve lived long enough to know she was right and my hope in humanity was misplaced and naive
I thought my little brother was from outer space. I found out in church. I was bored and going through my mum’s purse. I found a card with his picture and ‘Resident Alien’ printed on top. Screamed loud enough to pause the service. 😳
I thought that the high beam light on the dashboard was a bear claw, because of course you need your brights to see bears in road! Pretty sound logic at four!
When I was 5and younger: I thought my home made bear my mom made was far because it ate a lot of bees. I believed in the boogeyman and had to be home when it got dark. (1990, military base on my neighborhood...yes I was safe outside) When I was maybe 3 or 4 I thought if I got hit by a car I would squish like playdough. I also used to think people would be watching me singing along to the radio in my car and such thinking I was cool.
When I was a kid, I thought the world had no color until the first colored movie came out.
I first thought that a "coin laundry" was where people went to wash their coins. Then, as I was a little older, I thought there were money laundering places (I knew money laundering was bad by this point, but I still thought it was a place to wash money for illegal purposes) all over.
I thought every house came with central air conditioning, and when I was at my neighbors I asked why it was so warm and why they didn't have their air conditioning on.
I had a just dance game where the song was dead. Legit thought the cops would hear this and then show up to my house and arrest me. I was 4. Now I listen to songs about murder, so, kinda evolved outta that one.
As a kid - I thought that giants brought down rocks from the mountain and put them on the beach each morning - it was low tide
My dad told me people in movies weren't real. So I thought they were made of clay
A girl I went to school with thought chocolate milk came from brown cows, because her dad told her so. That guy... I like his sense of humour
When I was 5 I asked my dad what he did at his job and he told me he made the money, so I actually thought he worked at a mint and "made" money
I used to think moustaches were nose hairs that just kept growing out the nostrils
We were told all adults knew each other. Like if I was waiting for the bus (jr high) sneaking a smoke, someone would see me an know my parents. We were told to behave from very young because my sister an I were a year apart so it was easier to keep "all eyes" on us.
That is super dangerous :P "it's ok to join this man in a van, he probably works with dad"
Load More Replies... As a kid I thought that open air ice skate rinks were pools that froze at winter. I always tried to remind myself to go to check the pool at summer, but by then I had forgotten it, and again the next winter I wondered how the pool must look like at summer.
I've never been to a open air ice skating rink before. What do they use them for during the summer? Anything?
Load More Replies... That Jews believe in Hannukah Harry. I mean which christian thought we needed a santa? By the time we learn about him, we know that Santa isn't real, and by using common sense we deduct that Hannukah Harry isn't either. Either that or our parents explicitly tell us "Hannukah Harry isn't real".
My mom, trying to convince us to brush our teeth before bed, told us that if you don't brush your teeth, a spider will pee on your lips. Obviously we became really afraid of spiders and wanted to kill them. So she told us when you kill a spider, others will smell it and many more will come. 25 years later and we still hate spiders.
When I was a kid I thought every time someone has a surgery the doctors would take a whole organ out
I used to believe that turning on the car light was not only illegal, but would bring instant death unto the driver. To this day i refuse to turn on the car light out of fear of certain death.
I believed that you had a limited amount of love and to love one person more it had to one from another persons love supply. I was always comparing the test tubes I thought were in my heart to see who was up and who was down on any given day
I've always believed that it's a parent's right and responsibility to gently mess with their kids heads. I told my daughter from the time she was 2 that in her belly button there was a little silver screw and if it came unscrewed her butt wouldfall off. We caught her at about 3 with a screw driver trying to remove the screw. She was just too cute She's got an almost 2 year old now. I asked her if she planned to tell her the silver screw th9ng and she said oh yeah.
I thought until the age of eight or nine that I was going to Hogwarts. It was a sad day when I realized that wouldn't happen, but I still had the books and films, so it wasn't all bad. Fifteen or so years later, I still love the books and the films, and those memories of believing I would get my letter when I was eleven are still fresh.
I thought a white wedding meant getting married when it snowed. I thought free house on a pub meant you didn't pay for anything. I couldn't understand why my parents didn't stop at those for lunch on holiday.
I thought the reason we now our heads in prayer was because Jesus would appear and we weren't good enough to look at him
When my brother was a child, we went to the circus and he asked whether the clowns were real or whether they were just people dressed up as clowns.
When I was a child, I thought women gave birth to babies out of their butt.
I wasn't even very young but by age 12-13, I was convinced that if I ever had sex, I would be resopnsible for making the Mother of God, AKA Virgin Mary, etc., cry. Shock from anatomy, trauma from guilt, kept knees together till my husband....
