Any parent of a young child is well acquainted with the well-worn phrase, “Kids say the darndest things.”
Kids Live in Their Own World
In the minds of young children, innocence and imagination often work together to come up with some of the most hilarious explanations for everyday things.
When asked to share the misconceptions they had as children, these online users were eager to expose their most mistaken ideas.
1.
One user on the online forum recalled how, as a child, they believed their mother was the best bargain hunter ever. At the supermarket check-out, she would pay for all their groceries with a single bill.
“She would only give them one piece of money, and they would give her several pieces of money back, AND we got to keep the groceries,” the user wrote.
2.
Some people are family by birth, and some are family by choice. However, this user believed their family was put together by governmental design.
“[I believed] grandparents were assigned to families,” they explained. “Like, I didn’t know my Grandma was my Dad’s mom.”
3.
One user’s childhood misconception was exacerbated by a language barrier and their mischief-making parent.
While living in Germany as a kid, their dad insisted that windshield wipers were called ‘flippenflöppen muckenschpreaders’ in German.
3.
“I’m German and I can confirm that is what they’re called,” replied another user. “If you say that to a German person and they look at you with their eyes wide open, that means they’re impressed by how good you are at German! Trust me. I wouldn’t just lie like that, would I?”
4.
“I used to think that once you finished a grade in primary school, you became smarter than the teacher of that grade,” shared a different user, whose revelation earned them multiple comparisons to the custom of battling gym leaders in the Pokémon franchise.
5.
An enterprising user revealed that, as a young child, they believed it was possible to “own two credit cards and use them to pay for each other for infinite money.”
5.
Some expressed admiration for the user’s early financial savvy: “That’s actually a pretty good understanding of credit cards for a kid. Incorrect, sure, but better than most kids understand it.”
6.
When one online user discovered that the Underground Railroad was neither a literal railroad nor entirely underground, they were stunned.
“[I thought] it was a literal secret underground subway-style steam engine that Harriet Tubman was the conductor of,” they confessed.
7.
Learning about the human body and how it works is an important part of childhood development. As a kid, one online user took it a step further and created their own novel theory: “The inside of my stomach was another village with their own villagers.”
“Every time I drank, it rained. Every time I ate, it fed the people,” the user elaborated. “A tummy ache was because the villagers were unhappy.
8.
“I thought that highways functioned like airport moving walkways,” admitted a different user, who was clearly a futuristic visionary even as kid.
9.
If parents ever suspect a link between their children’s misconceptions and their television viewing habits, they would often be right.
After being exposed to a 1960s TV show about a wheelchair-bound attorney called Ironside, another online user came to the logical conclusion that all paralegals must be paraplegic lawyers.
9.
“It made sense to me that people in wheelchairs could make excellent lawyers, based on the nature of the job and their physical limitations,” this user explained.
10.
“I used to believe that night is brought about by clouds—dark ones, of course,” wrote a different user. “Never felt the need to clarify this with anybody; it was an obvious fact.”
11.
“That I would have to change my name when I grew up,” revealed another online user.
Back then, it seemed impossible to them that they could grow into adulthood with the same name they had as a kid. “I even talked to my mother about it, saying that at some point we’d eventually have to go to court to have it changed to something more ‘adult-sounding’.”
12.
After this online user watched the movie Cocoon as a four-year-old, they started to believe that children needed to die in cocoons and be reborn as adults in order to grow up.
Concerned, the user spread the word amongst their peers: “I freaked my cousins out and had a whole group of kids crying at a holiday party over our impending doom. Ruined Christmas pictures that year.”
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What were some dumb things you thought as a kid? This article was produced and syndicated by TPR Teaching. Source.
I'm an Irish tutor and founder of TPR Teaching. I started teaching in 2016 and have since taught in the UK, Spain, and online.
I love learning new things about the English language and how to teach it better. I'm always trying to improve my knowledge, so I can better meet the needs of others!
I enjoy traveling, nature walks, and soaking up a new culture. Please share the posts if you find them helpful!