What did you believe in when you were young that you later found out to be untrue?

I believed the usual assortment of childhood confusions. I recall being relieved to learn that “est.” meant “established” rather than “estimated”. Whenever I would see a town sign I thought they just never bothered to write down when the town was created, so they just estimated its founding.

Also santa & god.

I believed my parents could do no wrong. Now I’m older than they were when I was born, weird.

- Fairy tales are true.
– Santa is real.
– When people die they can choose a favorite animal to turn into.
– Ghosts are real and have superpower.

I believed that if Mom made me a black hole out of cloth I could jump through it, like Bugs Bunny.

I believed that people were basically good, innocent, and law abiding.
I believed love could conquer all.

That marriages lasted forever.

That having the title “mother” or “father” elevated you beyond normal, flawed people; and that a parent’s love was unconditional and selfless.

God.

God.

Heh…the irony of this question.

Well..lets see..I believed if one worked hard, did everything “right” and was honest, of high integrity and smart that life would provide the rewards of security. Now that this economy has tanked and I have lost everything in the last few years I realize what a crock of shit program that was. lol
From the American dream to the American nightmare.

My mom was (and still is) a Jehovah’s Witness, so I was steeped in the soup of their beliefs as a kid. At the time, JWs were still sure that Armageddon was just around the corner (1975 was the date being bandied about when I was growing up), and that “millions now living will never die”. All of us believers would go through a period of terrible persecution (I was scared to death about this), but then God was going to make earth back into a paradise, minus the bad guys. Those who made it through all of this would live forever, smiling and playing with lions and such (lots of pictures to that effect).

People really built their lives around these expectations. I once screwed up my courage and asked my mom what if 1975 comes and goes, and nothing changes?. She refused to even entertain the possibility. A whole lot of JW kids of my generation were strongly discouraged from going to college, or even pursuing any kind of career, because what was the point?

When it rained in my street, it did so all over the world.
People born in the olden days actually saw the world in black & white, not just on the telly.
Womens boobs were milk taps & anyone could ask for a drink if they wanted to.

@ucme – you mean they are not milk taps?

@thorninmud Well, obviously it couldn’t have been 1975 because George Orwells 1982 had yet to happen. That must have been some scary stuff as a child, and I’m so sorry you had to go through it.

As a very young lad I truly believed that I could have or do anything I wanted if I wished hard enough.

I also believed pea soup, which I love, was made from a different kind of pea because I so much hate the taste of cooked green peas by themselves.

That I would always be a kid, and Mom and Dad would always be my mom and dad and they would take care of me and that’s the way it was.

God, Jesus and all of that. Well on some level I think I always lacked faith, but I believed it because that’s what I was told by the people I loved and trusted most so it had to be true. I mean why wouldn’t it be true? They would never tell me anything that wasn’t absolutely true.

@Dutchess_III “Well, obviously it couldn’t have been 1975 because George Orwells 1982 had yet to happen.”

Is it just me or is anyone else having trouble making sense of this?

@elbanditoroso Only for nursing infants, for me they’re more like sexy love pillows.

Well, some factions were predicting that 1982 would be the end of the world, because of George Orwells book @Darth_Algar.

Ahem, 1984

Oh! Sry! You’re right. Thanks for the correction.

No bother

@Dutchess_III – Sry?

LOL! OK. I’m srsly sry!

Undifferentiated gonads? Sounds serious, gonads with identity issues. lol

That I can quit whenever I want to.

The first thing that comes to mind is religion. All that Catholic dogma that I was told and thought was reality.

The American dream.

That my family loved me.

:( @talljasperman….

I thought all planes crashed and all ships sank. I couldn’t understand why people would go on them.

I thought boys grow up to be men, not bigger boys.
I thought the bullfrogs in our pond were prehistoric frogs, which were now extinct everywhere but in our pond.

That the moon emitted its own light.

I believed everyone was kind and caring and had good intentions.

I believed that emperor penguins were human-sized. Apparently correctly assuming that the Happy Feet artists drew the leopard seal to scale, I incorrectly assumed that leopard seals were ginormous! I thought that the emperor penguins at the zoo were named that way because they looked like miniature emperor penguins. It was not until I saw one of those behind-the-scenes documentary videos that I saw a human standing near one, and had my mind boggled.