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50 Things People Considered ‘Normal’ While Growing Up, Only To Find Out They’re Actually Weird
For this post we'd like to rephrase the common saying 'It runs in the family' into one more fitting - 'Weird runs in the family,' and we have some solid proof, thanks to some funny kids, for that below.
During our early childhoods, we've picked up most of our day-to-day habits and even some weird things from our parents and guardians, learning to adapt to the world by observing and mimicking our surroundings. Most of the time, those routine practices are universal, so it's small wonder that people just assume them to be normal and expect everyone to be on the same page. However, there are times when your world suddenly collapses as you realize you're the only person in the room to call slippers 'fuzzy-footsers' or that you were the only crazy kid in the world to eat bananas whole, skin and all.
Did you have any mind-blowing weird stories from your childhood? Share your revelations with other bored pandas to feel less kooky about being lied to or told a plethora of funny things that you firmly believed in your whole life!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
When I was little I was terrified spiders would eat me while I was sleeping on the top bunk, so my parents had this cool contraption that was a 'spider-trap-setter'. They’d bring it in at bedtime, I’d point it around the room, and click the handle to set a ton of spider traps each night so I could sleep.
Fast forward to my fiancé and I registering for wedding gifts – he scanned a wine bottle opener (with the corkscrew and the arms that go up and down) and I immediately recognized it as a spider-trap-setter. It only then dawned on me that I’d been LIED TO,
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#2
In my family, it is a tradition that if somebody bends over they are going to get a swat on the behind. I figured out pretty young that this wasn't "normal" but continued the tradition anyway. At least until my son was about 4 or 5, and we were at the grocery store. A lady in the aisle in front of us dropped her can of pears, and I'll be damned if my lil' rascal didn't run up all excited and swat her on the butt. She spun around with a shocked expression while I made apology after mortified apology. She was cool though. She laughed and said, "It's okay, honey. That's the cutest guy that's swatted me on the butt in a long time." Props to her, but we still discontinued the practice at home after that.
Final score:
131points
#3
Growing up, whenever I would eat bananas my mouth would always hurt and sometimes go numb. Kind of similar to how it feels if you eat too much sour candy. It wasn't until I was 18 years old that I say to my mom 'Man, I hate the way bananas make your mouth hurt.' She then brought me to understand THAT'S NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. So yeah, turns out I'm allergic to bananas.
#4
When I was a kid I had a tiny Sony stereo for cassettes. I really loved listening to music - and still do - and children's stories. I would however only listen for like an hour or so a day, because I thought people inside the cassettes would become to tired and upset with me.
Final score:
130points
#5
I was probably 12 or so before I realized that not all kids spend their entire summer vacation farming. I spent my summer days weeding, picking veggies, tending hogs, cattle, chickens and I enjoyed every minute of it!
Final score:
130points
#6
My mom and aunt were identical twins. My aunt lived with us from the time I was born until first grade. I never realized until I started Kindergarten that not everyone had two moms that looked exactly the same and one dad. What a shocker.
Final score:
123points
Annika Hanson-Carlson 6 years ago
my mom's dad was a twin and my dad is a twin, so many twins!
#7
For the first two or three years after I was potty trained, I thought that everyone peed standing up. So there I was, a little girl with impeccable aim.
#8
On long road trips, my parents would tell my brother and I that if we closed our eyes, we'd get there faster. Believing them, we would close our eyes and eventually fall alseep. Magically, when we woke up we were almost there, and parents got a nice quiet drive with no kids fighting! Well played parents. Well played.
Also used to think the windshield wipers magically knew when it was time to clear the windshield. Wasn't til I started driving that I learned about intermittent wipers.
Ladies and Gentlemen 6 years ago
Well, i could have used that, but my kids are now armed with mobile and gps and what not, they have outgrown me!
#9
My family poops big. Maybe it's genetic, maybe it's our diet, but everyone births giant logs of crap. If anyone has laid a mega-poop, you know that sometimes it won't flush. Growing up, this was a common enough occurrence that our family had a poop knife. It was an old rusty kitchen knife that hung on a nail in the laundry room, only to be used for that purpose. It was normal to walk through the hallway and have someone call out "hey, can you get me the poop knife"?
I thought it was standard kit. You have your plunger, your toilet brush, and your poop knife.
Zori the degu 6 years ago
Well, nothing bad about that! In fact, I find toilet brushes much more revolting. At least, a knife is washable compared to the disgusting brush.
#10
We used to lift up our table and say "hrrrmp" every day before dinner as a family. I though everyone did it.... I found out it was only us a a friends place for dinner...
Final score:
99points
#11
I grew up in the country and firmly believed that ice cream trucks were myths and that they only existed on TV shows.
Kori K. Warriner 6 years ago
Me too!! Hahaha! I have told many people about that belief! Imagine my surprise when I actually heard my first REAL ice cream truck.
#12
As a child I really loved Green Mint Ice cream sauce. Me and my brother and two sisters couldn't get enough of it and would always ask for more. It wasn't until I was about 25 that I noticed it was always stocked in the alcohol section of the supermarket. When I bought this up with my partner he found it really funny. My beloved "ice cream topping" was in fact Crème de menthe, mint liquor. My parents had been giving us booze, Maybe it kept us four kids quite for 10 minutes!. It will aways be Green Mint ice cream sauce to me!
Final score:
96points
#13
When I was in kindergarten, I wore my Batman costume to school EVERY DAY! Under clothes, over clothes, rain or shine. Since my mom wasn't the type to crush my dreams of saving Gotham City or to enforce gender roles on me, I was free to be Batman(without judgement) until the middle of first grade when the other girls stopped wanting to play with me.
Final score:
95points
Charlotte Brine 6 years ago
She didn't wanna be catwoman, she was BATMAN!!
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tuzdayschild 5 years ago
Unfortunately, if you get tagged as the kid no one wants to play with, it can last for years. Kids are mean.
BusLady 5 years ago
I wasn't popular, but I had all my siblings to play with, and a small circle of friends. I don't understand mean kids.
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Leslie Mallard 5 years ago
My daughter had a classmate in Kindergarten and 1st grade who wore a Sleeping Beauty costume dress to school every day. Her mother had multiples, and just decided not to fight it.
blue-stars 5 years ago
I mean, it’s probably better than the phase I went through in kindergarten where I’d pretend to be a puppy. At least Batman is still a human...
Philoslothical 5 years ago
"...And that's the story of how I became a furry!"
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Flash Henry 5 years ago
My parents were mostly absent so I was left to my own devices at a VERY young age. And decided to dress like either a princess or a cowboy (depending on my mood) most days in pre-K and kindergarten. Sadly, we had to start wearing uniforms in first grade.
Risner Kolton 6 years ago
I’m pretty sure this is girl that was wearing the costume so go find your robin
Miklós Áron-Szilárd 5 years ago
gender roles... another happy day given, feminism etc etc words
Naima Ivansdóttir 6 years ago
i had that quirk too. after seeing tim burton's batman i asked for a batman costume and wore it proudly!
#14
We lived right outside NYC when I was young and whenever I'd be watching a movie or TV where they can see stars in the sky at night I thought it was fake because, Duh, you can't see stars from the Earth!
We moved to North Carolina when I was 9 and it blew me away that you can actually see stars there. Another fun consequence of NYC light pollution was that I also thought rain and snow clouds were brown at night - because of the orange street lights.
Ivo H 6 years ago
This makes me sad... To think there is someone out there, who never look upon the stars, who never felt that feeling of amazement and immersion, when you lie down on your back and watch the infinite depth of the universe... Everyone should be able to try this. There are few better things than this.
#15
I thought every person who get's killed in TV actually dies on set. I thought people, who weren't happy with their lives, would volunteer to die for the movie.
I always wondered, how they could find so many suicidal people who were also good actors.
Final score:
77points
#16
I always thought that the menthol in cherry halls was what was making my mouth numb, but none of the other flavours did that. I am studying chemistry, and an instructor brought in a bunch of bottles of ketones and aldehydes for us to smell, all of which are used to flavour food like vanilla or mint. One of them was benzaldehyde, which is used for fake cherry flavoring. I took a whiff and my whole mouth went numb. I asked everyone else if it did the same thing to them and that's how I found out that it wasn't the menthol, I'm actually allergic to fake cherry flavour.
#17
As a kid of nursery school age, I got tired of dressing the same all the time, so I put my arms through my pant legs, wearing my jeans like a bolero vest, and I put my legs through my shirt sleeves and belted my shirt around my waist. I was so impressed with my newly invented way of dressing that I told mom I was going to teach everybody to dress that way when I went to class. She tried to talk me out of it, but finally gave in figuring I'd be embarrassed and change back.
Come the end of the day, she picked me up and there I was still wearing topsy turvy clothes, grinning and happy as a clam.
Final score:
71points
#18
I have Cerebral Palsy, so I grew up with excruciating leg pain, leg casts, speech therapists, and physical therapists. When you are a kid and have to be shuttled around by various doctors, see guidance teachers to assess your development stages, and take regular medication- you think EVERY kid also goes through it- until you finally realize that your normal ISN'T normal. And that was an eye opener. As a well functioning adult I never bring my CP up, because it makes some people weirdly uncomfortable.
Final score:
68points
#19
When I was growing up my dad would always yell out 'the phone’s leaking!' whenever the landline rang. I did not realise that this was not a common phrase until I yelled it across the room at work one day to a coworker. Everyone was so confused and worried about the phone.
#20
My whole family drank pickle juice out of the jar after all of the pickles were gone. When I did it at a party, people gave me dirty looks and made rude comments. Apparently, what my family did isn’t normal...
Final score:
66points
#21
My parents put out scotch and cookies for Santa instead of milk and cookies. They told me that they didn't put out milk so that Santa wouldn't get bloated. When I discovered Santa wasn't real I immediately put it together that my dad just wanted to drink scotch instead of milk.
#22
Growing up, my Dad did almost every repair and upgrade to the cars, house, etc. I'm talking remodelling, car repairs, plumbing, installing appliances, rewiring the house. He build his own central cooling AC. (He put it in the old dog house....don't ask.)
So, I actually, quite literally, thought that plumbers, electricians, handymen, and the like in the movies were a combination of made-up occupations and relics of the "old days".
When I bought my own house and was too tiny and unskilled to do all that my Dad did, I was baffled. People at work ended up telling me there was such a thing as a plumber I could call. And I was thrilled to learn there were handymen!
On the flip side, I did do a lot of stuff myself: Replaced a toilet tank, replaced toilet tank innards, stained many doors and baseboards in preparation for install, repainted my car, refinished my kitchen cabinets, and many other things, myself. Always cleaned my own gutters. I also fixed my car once with a good solid twist-tie :-)
Final score:
64points
Marnee DeRider (Submission author) 6 years ago
Just because I am proud, I will add that my Dad reshingled the entire house, added a roof extension over the patio with overhead lighting, and rewired the house with circuit breakers (replacing fuses) when he was in his late 70s. All himself. Now, I would have liked that he didn't HAVE to do it. And my Mom was terrified every time he got up on the roof that entire summer, but I am SO PROUD of him.
#23
when I was younger my mother and I used to eat onion and blackberry sandwiches. I didn’t figure out this wasn’t normal until a 5th grade sleep over with a couple friends. Imagine their surprise when I asked for an onion-blackberry sandwich.
Final score:
61points
#24
I grew up with people that I called grandpa _____ and aunt _____ ani I didn’t realize until early into my school life that other kids didn’t have three or four grandpas. My family was just big hearted. (The “extra” family members were friends of our actual family that had lost everyone else so we “adopted” them into our family)
Final score:
58points
#25
My parents and I used to play a game where I had to stop, drop and roll every time they say the word 'time', so I thought everyone does it until I was 12. I once went to my friend's house and they asked me what the time was so I stopped, dropped and rolled and hit my head on their bed.
Final score:
50points
#26
I am of European descent. My next-door neighbors were of African-descent (family here for 100s of years, mine for less than 100). Close by, there was a large community of Hmong, Vietnamese, and Laotian refugees from the Vietnam war (many of whom fought for the US, just fyi). In my teens, we also started having refugees from Somalia and Ethiopia. To me, growing up, this was just how all neighborhoods were. I was really shocked in my late teens to learn that the mother of my sister's roommate in college (from far up north in North Dakota) had almost never seen in person a person of African descent. I had to make my sister swear to me that it was true. And now, I realize that St. Paul, MN is unusual in that it has taken in a large number of refugees. (We are a very strong community, with generally much higher standard of living than the rest of the country.) But as a kid, I just thought it was how things were. When I am in a store and see people of all European descent, I feel out of place, even now at aged 50.
Final score:
48points
#27
When I was a kid I called freckles ferckels- (FER-calls) And I would say it every time and my parents didn't mind. I said this until I was about 7 when my friends older brother told me (while laughing) it was freckles. I was so embarrassed I turned red and climbed a tree and started crying.
and then I fell out...
Final score:
47points
#28
My dad never used to eat at normal times. It's been like that since I was little so I always thought it was weird when I went to a friend's house and their dad ate with them. Like, 'your dad eats?? Dads don't eat.
#29
I was rather sick as a little girl and after trying a lot of different options, my mom heard about the healing powers of garlic. So each morning we would start with a tea spoon of freshly squeezed garlic juice. I somehow thought that this was a normal thing people do, but turns out no one else does it...
It did do the trick though, so I can second garlic's healing power :)
Final score:
44points
#30
We had a lot of places: malls, parks, schools, etc. named after Native American terms and phrases where I grew up. My dad took me to Neshaminy park often and would tell me "Indians" (now called Native Americans) still lived there and if I was quick enough I might see one running by. He never told me he was messing with me. Then in grade school in history class I made a total fool of myself by proudly announcing I knew where the Native Americans were and my dad was an expert at spotting them in the local park. So embarrassing!!
Final score:
43points
#31
We always hid a pickle on a Christmas three, and whoever found it first gon an extra present.
Final score:
40points
#32
I used to gather all the kids together to play a game I made up. We had to pass through the branches of this v shaped tree in our front yard. This was the passage to the afterlife. When you went through you laid down like you were dead and then you woke up in a new world. We would play the rest of the time like we were living in the afterlife. We all had fun and no one thought it strange. Thinking about it now that was a weird game.
Final score:
40points
#33
I was very lucky in that my Dad fixed all our cars himself, which made car repairs cheap. We always had a few cars around, though we were lower-middle-class. So, all of us kids (there were 5 of us) all had a car to drive once we got our licenses. Since we were poorer than most of my classmates, I thought all kids at school were like that. I was shocked in high school to learn that almost all my friends whose families were much better off had no car to drive, and that they generally had just two cars, one for their Mom and one for their Dad. I felt really lucky. The most expensive car my parents ever bought was maybe $2000. I drove hunks-of-junk, but was envied by many of my classmates. At one point, we had 5 cars, 2 vans, and a rickety old motorhome.
Final score:
40points
Jean-luc Picard 6 years ago
It's all about maximising what you have. I have friends in the same boat. Clapped out cars that they have fixed up that seem to outlast any other on the road. Always made the 'richer' kids jealous. Makes you wonder who is really the 'rich' one.
#34
When I was a kid, I didn't know the difference between perfume and spray-on deodorant. So guess what I was always giving to my mom as a Christmas present..
Final score:
37points
#35
Just a little thing, but you know how when someone's, e.g., pouring milk in your tea, or dishing you a helping of food, they prompt you, "Say when." Well, both of my parents would always respond with, "When." I'm not sure how old I was before I finally realized that, Duh!, you're supposed to say, "Enough" or "Stop" or "Now."
Final score:
33points
#36
Apparently it's pretty uncommon to like eating raw potatoes, but I kind of like it. Although, I've never tried to eat a whole potato (like an apple), but I've been eating little chunks of raw potato since childhood.
Final score:
29points
Zori the degu 6 years ago
Well, our ancestors probably ate them in this way until some idiot decided that it was the leaves you should eat, resulting in the myth that potatoes are always toxic.
#37
I get pins and needles REALLY bad. Agony. Excruciating. Exhilarating? Bad. Only when I was in my mid-20s did I discover I have Raynaud's syndrome - a circulatory issue. Whenever I got cold I would always turn purple/blue/white but I had no idea that for other people losing circulation somewhere was just a funny feeling and that's it.
Ranynaud's also makes for really painful breastfeeding as well, apparently :/
Final score:
29points
#38
Having lots of pets. I grew up with 2 Bernese mountain dogs, two cats, and sometimes a fish in a small suburban house. I was always baffled when my friends only had like a hamster or one dog. Obviously every person has their own pet, right?
Final score:
29points
d r e a m w o r l d 6 years ago
Lucky. I grew up without any pets, not even one measly goldfish.
#39
As a child, I couldn't stand a taste or smell of fish, so the only way of making me eat it was to let me have candies and cookies with it. Now imagine the eyes of my friends when I asked for cookies to go with a bowl of fish soup...
Final score:
29points
#40
When I was a child my parents were active members Social Democratic party of Finland. They also helped many different people. When Jehova's Witnesses built a new Kingdom Hall near my home my parents also helped them and talked very much about the Jehova's Witnesses. So for a long time I for some weird reason believed that also Jehova's Witnesses were a political party. I was over 15 years old when I finally realized that Jehova's Witnesses were actually a religion that is neutral to any political parties, they don't vote.
Final score:
27points
Bored Fox (Submission author) 6 years ago
Jehovah's Witnesses, sorry for the typos! I am not a native English speaker!
#41
Up until I was about 7, whenever my family went to the beach, we brought snacks. Normal, right? Well, I used to pick out those cheddar and sour cream ruffle chips. Guess what I did with them? I didn't use dip, but i also didn't eat them plain. I would grab my chips, plop down on a very dry area of sand, and opened the bag. I grab a chip, scoop a huge pile of sand onto the chip, and eat it. For some reason, I thought this was normal. Wasn't until I was 7 years old that I realized nobody else did this...
Final score:
27points
#42
When I was younger (about 5) I would bite my toes because I thought it tasted good. When I went to my first day of preschool, I took off my shoes and started to do this. Obviously everyone was confused there and grossed out, but I learned not to do that because it was (obviously) disgusting.
Final score:
27points
Hamlets twin 6 years ago
its only disgusting if you've been walking around barefoot a lot. you be you! bite dem toes
#43
Apparently sour cream and cottage cheese dip is not the top choice for fried potatoes, but I've been eating them that way since I was a kid and will continue to do so, despite what people tell me.
Final score:
26points
#44
When I was a kid, my Mom would make us peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwiches. The two combine as well as toothpaste and orange juice, but we thought this was a "thing" and would actually request it at times. I cringe just thinking about it now.
Final score:
26points
#45
My family has always put cottage cheese on store bought pizza. It’s really good but imagine the look on my best friends face when I asked her for cottage cheese while we were eating pizza. Priceless!
Final score:
25points
Zori the degu 6 years ago
I see nothing wrong with that. I usually mix - half a pizza with some cheese and half a clean pizza.
#46
Being chubby. I was always happy with my bigger frame. I was told not to care and it was normal to be bigger than everyone else. Well middle school told me I was a fat pig and I wasn’t normal. Now I’m happy and losing weight but it still haunts me...
Final score:
24points
Betsy Knox 6 years ago
I'm so conflicted about this story so I was going to say nothing but I felt I had to say: love yourself because you're you the only you there is - big or small, short or tall
#47
This is super stupid but once when I was like 7 or 8 my sister took me to a baseball game between the Orioles and the Phillies. I thought that the Orioles and Phillies always played each other and no other teams.
Final score:
23points
Kylee bettencourt 6 years ago
Its ok i grew up in a Redsox house and when i was like 5-7 i thought the yankees and the white sox were the same team
#48
For the longest time, my little sis had hearing problems. She always was pronouncing things wrong (hurch for church, swapple for apple) because without much hearing, she couldn't pronouce hard consnants. She thought this was normal- until we took her to speech therepy. "But it's hurch! It's Hurch!" When we got home, she complained to our mom about "da wean wady who teach me wong wowds". (The mean lady who teaches me wrong words). She was furious when she was told this was going to be a weekly occurance.
Final score:
19points
#49
I thought everyone owned fish as an addition to any pet they have. I mean, I grew up always having a tank of 15+ fish by my side and if anyone asked me if I had a pet I just said "Nah, I only have some fish." At the age of 5, this belief was broken. Somehow it didn't fit, ever since some people thought it's cute but said they didn't have fish. Now I have other pets as well. But the emblematic fish are permanent residents in our household.
Final score:
17points
#50
When I was little, about 2-3, I had a rubber snake. It was one of the ones you'd get from a zoo gift shop. I bit off pieces of the tail, thinking it was normal, and ate it. I did this until I was about 5 when I realized it didn't taste that good. Now the snake has some of its tail chopped off.
Final score:
17points
What do you think ?
MoZ 5 years ago
I thought LMNOP was a single letter. It was my favorite letter and I still kinda miss it.
Merlyn Emrys 6 years ago
My family told me it was normal for boys to beat their sisters, attack them regularly, and have explosive tantrums escalating into threats of murder where the sisters all hide and hope that this time he doesn't go through with it and kill their mother. "that's how boys are." And since I had one brother and nearly all the boys I knew at school were regular hellions whose favorite pasttime was tormenting me if they noticed me, I assumed that this is how boys are. Then I got older and boys at school would "tease" and verbally abuse me and make disgusting sexual comments, because this is how boys are. And I'd hide in my room and tell mom I spotted a noose in my brother's room and in between threating to kill us with a knife he acted "fine". "that's how boys are". It is now that I find out there's a psychosis where you have intermittent explosive episodes, and that a few men and boys out there are actually not stalkers, attackers, tormentors or perverts...
Miss Cris 6 years ago
It happened/happen in quite a lot of families but must of the others don't say anything. You're brave and I'm happy that you're lifecis better now.
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Daria B 6 years ago
Most of mine are really cultural differences rather than personal or family things, but they kind of feel the same. When you've been eating "milk rice" all your European life as a simple meal/snack and then you mention it to someone else from east Asia and their reactions are like... Well, weirded out.
Zori the degu 5 years ago
It still baffles me some people believed some of these things for so long, though. I mean, the banana and cherry allergies are understandable, but the mint ice cream sauce and the "time" game? How could you not notice there's something funny about those? Also, some were unusual, but by no means weird enough to be worthy for the reactions they got, like the cottage cheese pizza and the pickle juice. Ok, I guess it's not very appropriate to drink it at a party, but what's so odd about it? I guess most of those that persisted for so long were really cultural differences ignorance. Milk rice is delicious by the way, especially with a good dose of cinnamon. ;)
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Ivana 5 years ago
It was a few months ago when I was in the kitchen and took a bite of chocolate and I got that familiar sharp pain that spread across my mouth. So I turned to my friend and said "You know how when you first take a bite of something that has a strong flavor and it is painful and spreads across you mouth? I hate that." My friend was like "No, that isn't a normal thing." Turns out it is this thing called first bite syndrome that they think is caused by nerve damage from surgery or cancer. I have never had surgery...but if it is cancer, you would think I would have more signs after 30 years.
Bunzilla 5 years ago
I get that too! I wonder if it was from getting my wisdom teeth surgically removed, that would make a lot of sense. They had to put me out and drill into my jaw. I tried looking it up once, and all I could find was stuff about saliva ducts being blocked or having something wrong with them, but it never seemed to fit. Thanks for solving a mystery for me.
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James Wiske 6 years ago
It's mainly food ones for me too. We lived on the edge of a small farming town with nothing but wheat fields past our backyard, half of which was taken up by a veggie garden (we were on just about an acre of land). I grew to love eating vegetables raw or cooked including potatoes, which would freak out my friends. Also would eat lemons like they were oranges. Grossed kids (and one teacher) out with peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch at school. And every now and then would put peanuts into a bottle of 7-Up, Sprite, or Coke, and eat them as I drank my soda, which people thought was crazy.
Bunzilla 5 years ago
Wait, they thought PB and banana sandwiches were weird? I grew up eating those too, never saw anything weird about it. They go really well together. Teacher and kids were missing out!
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Crouching_Penn_Hidden_Teller@yahoo.com 5 years ago
when I was a really little kid I thought anvils only existed in cartoons (to get dropped on Wiley Coyote, etc.)
Angie Luck 5 years ago
I thought those lines in the sky (from planes) were the paper boy throwing the newspapers to people🤦🏻♀️
Mark Kelly 5 years ago
It's not the fact people believed weird stuff as a kid it's the face that even as adults some didn't figure it out.
thepotatogirl 5 years ago
I actually have three things, but idk if anyone else does them or not. Does anyone else: 1. Stir green beans into their Tuna Helper? 2. Have a wet rag to clean up with after eating? 3. Crush up their Ramen Noodles by hand before cooking them?
Person2638 5 years ago
Did anyone else notice that a lot of the comments have more upvotes than the actual post?
Melanie Peapell 6 years ago
I grew up in a geothermal area with a lot of hot pools. I was told by many adults in my life not to put my head under water because you can get meningitis or a load of other sicknesses. I thought it was all pools, so it took me a while to realise that in was only for hot pools.
Miss Cris 6 years ago
Thanks, I didn't know that for hot pools. You're lucky to having growing up surrounded by natural hot pools!
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DogGoneOlive 2 years ago (edited)
When I was younger, I thought Justin Bieber's name was Justin Beaver. My family just went with it. Now, when I say his name correctly they say "His name is Justin Beaver silly."
meow point1 4 years ago
I get angry, disappointed, frustrated, whatever, but never "at/with/in" someone. I mean, sometimes the emotions are caused by a person's actions, but I never feel the emotion towards them. I thought that this was normal and you could only feel an emotion "at someone" if they'd done something *really, really bad* like arson or something. So when my mum said she was cross "with me", I bawled my eyes out because I thought I'd committed some heinous infraction.
Crissy Evans 5 years ago
when i was little i was in my underwear and smothered myself in butter one time
JesT 5 years ago (edited)
When younger my family called the TV remote, the box. I believed this to be normal until my early twenties, while at a friends house I was asking for the box to change the channel. Everyone looked at me oddly and said we threw the box away when we bought the TV. I then proceeded to argue with them saying you can't throw that away you need it for basic functions of the TV, their counter, you mean the remote?
Basil 5 years ago
I was home-schooled (non-religious style) until fifth grade. And that's when I finally learned what school actually meant to most other kids: no several hours a day art classes, science class wasn't dissecting flowers and restarting pigs' hearts (it's worksheets), recess was half an hour now and everything was PAVED, you didn't actually get to read in school anymore (especially never about girls/women ever again), and you surely didn't get to listen to records anymore, and also no one will ever, EVER, care about you as much as they did in those first ten years of your life. Some tough lessons in there already, but also just so much about how absolutely s****y the U.S. school systems are about the subjects that actually make life worth living- the arts and sciences.
Melinda Stanley 5 years ago
My family and I grunt when we hug. Do others do this? It started when I was really young, about 4 years old. My Dad asked for a hug. I did and he said, "Hug me like you mean it!" and so I did – naturally with a grunting noise. It became a thing and even though my Dad has been gone for 15 years now, my mother sister and I, even when we lightly touch cheeks, it's often with an audible "Argh!"
Beto Galindo 5 years ago
When I was 5, we used to watch a tv show called "La hora marcada" very similar to "twilight zone" where they used to portray "death" as a woman dressed in a black dress with a hat with veil. My mom's boyfriend once said "when women wear hats with veils it's because they're about to die" (talking about the tv show). Every time my mom went shopping I was so scared she would buy a hat with veil and wear it.
Maddie S 6 years ago
I grew up in a small midwestern town, apparently not everyone calls it a refride....
Merlyn Emrys 6 years ago
If more peopel told me that domestic violence isn't always partners or adults attacking kids, I might not have PTSD today, so yeah, I do want it taken notice of. How selfish of me huh?
Load More Replies... MoZ 5 years ago
I thought LMNOP was a single letter. It was my favorite letter and I still kinda miss it.
Merlyn Emrys 6 years ago
My family told me it was normal for boys to beat their sisters, attack them regularly, and have explosive tantrums escalating into threats of murder where the sisters all hide and hope that this time he doesn't go through with it and kill their mother. "that's how boys are." And since I had one brother and nearly all the boys I knew at school were regular hellions whose favorite pasttime was tormenting me if they noticed me, I assumed that this is how boys are. Then I got older and boys at school would "tease" and verbally abuse me and make disgusting sexual comments, because this is how boys are. And I'd hide in my room and tell mom I spotted a noose in my brother's room and in between threating to kill us with a knife he acted "fine". "that's how boys are". It is now that I find out there's a psychosis where you have intermittent explosive episodes, and that a few men and boys out there are actually not stalkers, attackers, tormentors or perverts...
Miss Cris 6 years ago
It happened/happen in quite a lot of families but must of the others don't say anything. You're brave and I'm happy that you're lifecis better now.
Load More Replies... Daria B 6 years ago
Most of mine are really cultural differences rather than personal or family things, but they kind of feel the same. When you've been eating "milk rice" all your European life as a simple meal/snack and then you mention it to someone else from east Asia and their reactions are like... Well, weirded out.
Zori the degu 5 years ago
It still baffles me some people believed some of these things for so long, though. I mean, the banana and cherry allergies are understandable, but the mint ice cream sauce and the "time" game? How could you not notice there's something funny about those? Also, some were unusual, but by no means weird enough to be worthy for the reactions they got, like the cottage cheese pizza and the pickle juice. Ok, I guess it's not very appropriate to drink it at a party, but what's so odd about it? I guess most of those that persisted for so long were really cultural differences ignorance. Milk rice is delicious by the way, especially with a good dose of cinnamon. ;)
Load More Replies... Ivana 5 years ago
It was a few months ago when I was in the kitchen and took a bite of chocolate and I got that familiar sharp pain that spread across my mouth. So I turned to my friend and said "You know how when you first take a bite of something that has a strong flavor and it is painful and spreads across you mouth? I hate that." My friend was like "No, that isn't a normal thing." Turns out it is this thing called first bite syndrome that they think is caused by nerve damage from surgery or cancer. I have never had surgery...but if it is cancer, you would think I would have more signs after 30 years.
Bunzilla 5 years ago
I get that too! I wonder if it was from getting my wisdom teeth surgically removed, that would make a lot of sense. They had to put me out and drill into my jaw. I tried looking it up once, and all I could find was stuff about saliva ducts being blocked or having something wrong with them, but it never seemed to fit. Thanks for solving a mystery for me.
Load More Replies... James Wiske 6 years ago
It's mainly food ones for me too. We lived on the edge of a small farming town with nothing but wheat fields past our backyard, half of which was taken up by a veggie garden (we were on just about an acre of land). I grew to love eating vegetables raw or cooked including potatoes, which would freak out my friends. Also would eat lemons like they were oranges. Grossed kids (and one teacher) out with peanut butter and banana sandwiches for lunch at school. And every now and then would put peanuts into a bottle of 7-Up, Sprite, or Coke, and eat them as I drank my soda, which people thought was crazy.
Bunzilla 5 years ago
Wait, they thought PB and banana sandwiches were weird? I grew up eating those too, never saw anything weird about it. They go really well together. Teacher and kids were missing out!
Load More Replies... Crouching_Penn_Hidden_Teller@yahoo.com 5 years ago
when I was a really little kid I thought anvils only existed in cartoons (to get dropped on Wiley Coyote, etc.)
Angie Luck 5 years ago
I thought those lines in the sky (from planes) were the paper boy throwing the newspapers to people🤦🏻♀️
Mark Kelly 5 years ago
It's not the fact people believed weird stuff as a kid it's the face that even as adults some didn't figure it out.
thepotatogirl 5 years ago
I actually have three things, but idk if anyone else does them or not. Does anyone else: 1. Stir green beans into their Tuna Helper? 2. Have a wet rag to clean up with after eating? 3. Crush up their Ramen Noodles by hand before cooking them?
Person2638 5 years ago
Did anyone else notice that a lot of the comments have more upvotes than the actual post?
Melanie Peapell 6 years ago
I grew up in a geothermal area with a lot of hot pools. I was told by many adults in my life not to put my head under water because you can get meningitis or a load of other sicknesses. I thought it was all pools, so it took me a while to realise that in was only for hot pools.
Miss Cris 6 years ago
Thanks, I didn't know that for hot pools. You're lucky to having growing up surrounded by natural hot pools!
Load More Replies... DogGoneOlive 2 years ago (edited)
When I was younger, I thought Justin Bieber's name was Justin Beaver. My family just went with it. Now, when I say his name correctly they say "His name is Justin Beaver silly."
meow point1 4 years ago
I get angry, disappointed, frustrated, whatever, but never "at/with/in" someone. I mean, sometimes the emotions are caused by a person's actions, but I never feel the emotion towards them. I thought that this was normal and you could only feel an emotion "at someone" if they'd done something *really, really bad* like arson or something. So when my mum said she was cross "with me", I bawled my eyes out because I thought I'd committed some heinous infraction.
Crissy Evans 5 years ago
when i was little i was in my underwear and smothered myself in butter one time
JesT 5 years ago (edited)
When younger my family called the TV remote, the box. I believed this to be normal until my early twenties, while at a friends house I was asking for the box to change the channel. Everyone looked at me oddly and said we threw the box away when we bought the TV. I then proceeded to argue with them saying you can't throw that away you need it for basic functions of the TV, their counter, you mean the remote?
Basil 5 years ago
I was home-schooled (non-religious style) until fifth grade. And that's when I finally learned what school actually meant to most other kids: no several hours a day art classes, science class wasn't dissecting flowers and restarting pigs' hearts (it's worksheets), recess was half an hour now and everything was PAVED, you didn't actually get to read in school anymore (especially never about girls/women ever again), and you surely didn't get to listen to records anymore, and also no one will ever, EVER, care about you as much as they did in those first ten years of your life. Some tough lessons in there already, but also just so much about how absolutely s****y the U.S. school systems are about the subjects that actually make life worth living- the arts and sciences.
Melinda Stanley 5 years ago
My family and I grunt when we hug. Do others do this? It started when I was really young, about 4 years old. My Dad asked for a hug. I did and he said, "Hug me like you mean it!" and so I did – naturally with a grunting noise. It became a thing and even though my Dad has been gone for 15 years now, my mother sister and I, even when we lightly touch cheeks, it's often with an audible "Argh!"
Beto Galindo 5 years ago
When I was 5, we used to watch a tv show called "La hora marcada" very similar to "twilight zone" where they used to portray "death" as a woman dressed in a black dress with a hat with veil. My mom's boyfriend once said "when women wear hats with veils it's because they're about to die" (talking about the tv show). Every time my mom went shopping I was so scared she would buy a hat with veil and wear it.
Maddie S 6 years ago
I grew up in a small midwestern town, apparently not everyone calls it a refride....
Merlyn Emrys 6 years ago
If more peopel told me that domestic violence isn't always partners or adults attacking kids, I might not have PTSD today, so yeah, I do want it taken notice of. How selfish of me huh?
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