Get Premium
Dark mode theme is available exclusively for premium users. Learn more about the benefits of subscribing.
Dark Mode 
No fees, cancel anytime 
Kids believe in a lot of weird things, what was your 'weird' thing?
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
I live in New Zealand, and when I was a kid my mother used to get the womens magazines from the UK. They were always out of date by the time we got them, and I truly believed that the UK was about three months behind NZ, so say it was April in NZ, it was January in UK.
Final score:
9points
#2
Santa and Christianity
Final score:
8points
Will Tiernan (Submission author) 2 months ago
When I grew out of one I grew out of the other. I can't recall which one I figured out was nonsense first though.
#3
That adulthood would be great!
Final score:
8points
#4
I thought SpongeBob was a chunk of cheese despite literally having the word “sponge” in his name? In my defense I never watched the show or I probably would have figured it out a lot sooner lol
Final score:
6points
#5
If I ate the breadcrusts on my sandwiches my hair would go curly. The adults around me would tell me this as an incentive to eat them. It had a opposite effect.
Final score:
5points
Apatheist Account2 2 months ago
They used to say it gave you curly white hair and straight black teeth...I may have misremembered that.
#6
When my Grandma taught me, at 3-4, to say bedtime prayers, she started with the one that said 'Hail Mary, full of grace.' We had a housekeeper named Grace, so in my mind Mary was a very sweet and very plump lady of color. Later on, the pictures in church were quite confusing.
Final score:
5points
DC 2 months ago
I wonder, as there are black churches in countries that abused their entire black populace, have they the same pictures on the walls like the obscene, rich, white megachurches have? That longhaired, unshaved crybaby of a hippie offering his other cheeks? Or is that more ... like ... dunno ... Little Richard?
#7
First I have to explain the background. In my language a padded cell is called "Gummizelle". You would translate it to "rubber cell". I thought that the bars were made of rubber instead of steel.
Final score:
4points
#8
That I received telepathic messages from Yoda
Final score:
4points
#9
I believed that countries were real things that existed in reality, and not ideas that people have willed into existence by agreeing to believe in them.
Final score:
4points
#10
My Dad had my brother and I believe that due to anti-pollution laws, Cars couldn't leave the state of Kentucky. When we finally saw a car with Kentucky plates, he claimed that it could never return to the state!
We finally realized he was spinning yarns when, on a cross country roadtrip, we actually drove through the state.
Final score:
4points
#11
When I was getting my tonsils out a family friend of my dads came to visit and convinced me when I was 7 that the surgeon was going to slit my throat and pull them out through my neck. It took a while for my parents to convince me it was a joke
Final score:
4points
#12
I thought the moon followed me. It made me happy!
Final score:
4points
#13
I believed that there was a significant difference between races. African here. I have now decided it's just cultural. Individualism vs collectivism is the biggest difference (westerners are indivdiualists).
Final score:
4points
Momo ONeil 2 months ago
Yes! My parents and elders all around me believed race was a determining factor in intelligence, capacity for violence, criminality, class, etc. When I was young teen I realized that my interactions and observations of the people around me just didn't line up with that thinking. There are a million different factors that decide what we become in life, and I believe that race only comes into play because it affects how we're treated and the opportunities we're given (or not given). There are geniuses and madmen and dumdums and criminals of every race. Different doesn't mean lesser.
#14
When I was in elementary school, our teacher told us that Antarctica was the world’s largest iceberg. And it stays at the bottom of the world because it is too heavy to float upward. Now whenever I hear something about Antarctica, I still initially think of it as an iceberg.
Final score:
4points
#15
That my mirror was evil
Final score:
3points
#16
That I could change the stop lights from red to green by saying the magic words: "Abracadabra AlakaZOOM!"
Final score:
3points
#17
I grew up in the last years of a ruthless communist dictatorship. You could end up in jail as an "enemy of the people" if you criticized the regime. Propaganda was intense and we were taught that the supreme leader could read our thoughts
Final score:
3points
#18
I was eight, and my cat at the time once swallowed a grasshopper whole in front of me. I was convinced after that that every time I stroked her back, and her spine moved (because she liked the feeling of it), it was the grasshopper still alive inside her jumping around.
Final score:
3points
#19
My older brother told me that if I flushed the toilet when I was filling the bathtub with water, whatever I flushed down the toilet would come out of the bath faucet into the tub. I didn't flush while filling the tub for the longest time, long after I realized he had tricked me.
Final score:
3points
#20
Mother told me if i didnt add at LEAST 3 eggs, perferably 4, to my scrambled eggs, they would turn out disheveled and unappetizing. Turns out she was just trying to make sure her child, who wanted to skip lunch in favor of playing gnomes and fairies in the yard, got enough protien.
Final score:
3points
#21
My Dad used to tell me that this scar or that injury was a result of a myriad of different old wars, like the civil war or the war of 1812. Yep I believed him lol
Final score:
3points
#22
That different colored M&Ms tasted differently from each other.
Final score:
3points
#23
I am a white French woman and I grew up in the Northeast of France, in a place (the Vosges region) where there was historically significant Turkish immigration in the 20th century. In my small town, many businesses and restaurants are Turkish, I grew up with Turkish neighbors, and at school, many of my classmates and friends were of Turkish origin. When I was very little (between the ages of 3 and 6), I simply thought that “Turkish” was a kind of Vosgian, and that the difference between the “Turks” and my family was simply that my Turkish friends’ moms would bake cakes to bring to school. When I discovered that Turkey was a whole other country, I was astonished.
Final score:
3points
#24
When I was little, I was convinced that an owl's head could not only turn 360 degrees but it could keep going around and around. (Probably got that idea from my brother) I saw one sitting on a fence post in the pasture and decided to check it out by circling him. After my 6th time of crawling through the barbed wire, I pretty much figured it out.
Final score:
3points
#25
My parents convinced my sister and I ( we were like 5-6 ) that if a boy shook our hand we would get pregnant. So every time an older guy, one of their friends or church members, would try to shake our hands we got into trouble because we didnt want to get pregnant. Really messed us up, actually. They refused to teach us anything about the birds and the bees and because of it we had no clue what sex was. Im talking severely sheltered to the point we were not allowed to watch anything on TV for fear they might kiss or something. They also taught us that the devil had special demons our at night to catch little girls and hurt them. So we werent allowed outside at all past a certain point. Even if they were outside and could watch us. On top of that, we were taught to serve men. As in bring their shoes, the paper, food/drinks.. Didnt matter who it was if there was a male visitor we turned into servants and would get into trouble if we didnt serve good enough or spilled something, or took too long. Really screwed us up and now we are both in therapy and have been for YEARS because of this and other things...and they wonder why we barely have contact anymore...
Final score:
3points
#26
That there’s an all-powerful deity who wants a personal relationship with me, a weak, pathetic mortal by contrast, for some reason.
Final score:
3points
Damned_Cat 2 months ago
I could never figure out why my parents would say, "Jesus is always watching you!" With all the ugly things going on in the world why would Jesus care about a 10-year-old kid playing Barbies?
#27
As a young girl, I strongly believed anyone involved in politics
were very bad people. This I think came from early days of
television, however, I continue to feel the same.
Not my parents, they never discussed that subject !!!
Final score:
2points
#28
If a teen around 13 years old counts as a kid:
Cows. Despite having had actual Sex Ed in school I believed that cows somehow were an exception to the rule that only pregnant/nursing females from a mammalian species produced milk. I thought they just produced it constantly.
It took a late night documentary about farming to correct me about it.
Final score:
2points
Turbochat! 2 months ago
The majority of adults living in cities don't know how dairy products are made. Same with believing that there's differents cows for producting milk and meat.
#29
My mom would always convince me that the Cookies and Cream chocolate bars from Hershey's that I'd get on Halloween were poisonous, and would always take them out of my candy haul.
One day when I was 8, I caught my mom eating a piece, then I yelled "Mom, you're eating poison?!"
At that point, she knew the jig was up, and I realized she just loved cookies and cream chocolate bars. We still get a good laugh from it to this day.
Final score:
2points
Angela C 2 months ago
It took me way too long to realize that when my parents would "check" my Halloween candy they were really going through it and taking some for themselves. Also when they'd "fix" my ice cream cone (licking the dripping edges so they wouldn't make a mess). That was just them stealing a little bit of ice cream
#30
1. That there were actual lines marking up the Bermuda Triangle, like the sea just stopped and formed a triangle in that spot.
2. That wooly Mammoths still existed and that they were just male elephants, like how cows are female bulls
Final score:
2points
#31
My parents "gave" us the Sega Mega Drive and made us believe that the console didn’t work at night. Every evening, my dad and mom played Sonic in their bedroom after we had gone to bed. :)
Final score:
2points
Apatheist Account2 2 months ago
"played Sonic" is the best euphemism I've heard for a while...
#32
When I was a kid I believed that if I rubbed my eyes too hard they would fall back into my head. I had no idea how to retrieve my eyes and this stressed me out.
Final score:
2points
#33
When I was 4, our preschool had an activity where you stuck toothpicks in marshmallows to build balls. Pretty standard. The teacher told us that the marshmallows she had were "non-edible" and couldn't be eaten. I had moved from Korea to the US at the time, and had never seen a marshmallow. For *five years*, I believed that marshmallows were genuinely inedible.
Final score:
2points
#34
When I went grocery shopping with my mum I'd see her pay with money, then the cashier would give my mum her money back (the change). I thought that when you bought something you just got your money back. 😄 If only it was so....
Final score:
2points
Turbochat! 2 months ago
In France, checks are often used to pay for many things, including purchases in stores. My parents were poor, and their excuse (which wasn't really one) for not buying me what I wanted was, "I don't have any money." But I would respond, "Just write a check." I thought the checkbook was a kind of unlimited money reserve: you could write any amount on the check, and it would "create" money out of thin air.
#35
1. That there were actual lines marking up the Bermuda Triangle, like the sea just stopped and formed a triangle in that spot.
2. That wooly Mammoths still existed and that they were just male elephants, like how cows are female bulls
Final score:
1point
Bill Swallow 2 months ago
... And now I have this strange feeling of Deja Vu! (Cue the eerie music; "Today, on 'It's the Mind...")
#36
1. That there were actual lines marking up the Bermuda Triangle, like the sea just stopped and formed a triangle in that spot.
2. That wooly Mammoths still existed and that they were just male elephants, like how cows are female bulls
Final score:
1point
#37
My sister taught me if I stood on the yellow lines in the road I'd turn yellow, so I spent a lot of time jumping over lines.
Final score:
1point
#38
Not me, but my twin nieces. When they were 4 or so, their grandparents took them on a road trip around to visit several National Parks. At the time, one of my nieces refused to eat anything other than macaroni and cheese. She would have meltdowns, fits, and food throwing (at the extreme) if she was offered anything else. When the group of them entered Kansas, her grandparents teamed up, and stated matter-of-factly that "It is against the law to eat macaroni and cheese in Kansas." My niece (who has always struggled with the concept of breaking rules, even extremely benign ones), was therefore able to try myriad other foods, and discovered that she did, in fact, like hamburgers, chicken nuggets, vegetables, and many other items she shunned at home! The story only fell through when she was older and they visited a grocery store in Kansas, and she found the shelves full of various mac 'n' cheese brands! By then, though, she was fine with eating other foods. Granny and Grandad FTW!!!
Final score:
0points
#39
I believed that jelly babies shouldn't die alone and so insisted on eating more than one at a time. Actually I still hold on to this truth. And it's not weird. Sorry wrong place to post.
Final score:
0points
What do you think ?
Apatheist Account2 2 months ago
I used to believe that thunder was the sound of clouds banging together. My 100-year-old MIL continued to believe it: I guess people do until someone tells them different.
Igor914624 2 months ago
That's how the clouds get so wrinkled... they bang together and make thunder.
Load More Replies...
Danish Susanne 2 months ago
When I was a kid I was told in school that since the UN was formed, we would have no more wars. I believed it for many years, because it is so sensible, but alas the world is not sensible.
Apatheist Account2 2 months ago
I used to believe that thunder was the sound of clouds banging together. My 100-year-old MIL continued to believe it: I guess people do until someone tells them different.
Igor914624 2 months ago
That's how the clouds get so wrinkled... they bang together and make thunder.
Load More Replies... Danish Susanne 2 months ago
When I was a kid I was told in school that since the UN was formed, we would have no more wars. I believed it for many years, because it is so sensible, but alas the world is not sensible.
Related on Bored Panda
