We asked members of the BuzzFeed Community, "What weird things did you believe as a kid that ended up being totally wrong?" Much to our delight, we received all sorts of silly submissions. Here's what people revealed:
1. "I’d only ever seen babies swaddled and carried, so when I was really little, I thought babies were born without legs like tadpoles."
2. "I used to think there was a tiny little man who lived inside each traffic light and could see all the cars through the colored glass. He would be in charge of switching which color lit up and which lane got to drive next."
3. "I thought each song on the radio was being played live by each band in the studio. I always wondered how they shuffled so many bands in and out so quickly."
4. "Whenever we’d be driving to go somewhere at night, I thought the moon was following me."
5. "My dad always told me that babies came out when your mom went poop. He had me completely convinced until about fourth grade. I used to get so freaked out when my mom went to the bathroom."
6. "I thought that actual greenhouses caused greenhouse gases. I couldn’t figure out why they didn’t just outlaw them if they were such a problem."
7. "Up until probably age six, I thought inanimate objects had feelings too. For instance, if I chose one glass in the cupboard, I thought I'd hurt the other glasses' feelings because I didn't pick them. If I thought a chair was ugly, I'd hurt its feelings. I grew up to be a very empathetic person."
8. "I didn’t find out pickles were cucumbers until I was 26. I don’t know what I thought they were. Maybe their own vegetable?"
9. "My parents had to explain to me what abortion was when I was 7 years old because I thought it was the name of a serial killer who targeted children. We drove past a group of protestors one day, and one of the signs said, 'Abortion kills children.' I was horrified and convinced that this killer named Abortion was going to get me!! I finally told my parents about my fears, and they explained that I was safe. I already understood the concept of pregnancy; luckily, they explained it to me simply and without bias. They didn't tell me it was wrong or immoral or explain how they felt about it. They were very straightforward about it!"
10. "When I was a kid, my older brother told me the tornado sirens came off a truck that someone was driving around town to make sure people knew there was a tornado. When I was 18, I told my then-boyfriend, 'It would be an awful job to be the person that has to drive around in the tornado truck to let other people know they need to get to safety.' That's when I learned."
11. "That laying down while eating would cause your food to come out of your ears. I now say it to my little sister and will tell my son when he's older."
12. "I thought you could sit on clouds (despite having been on a plane at a relatively young age)."
13. "My mother told me that when you ate your boogers, they turned into snakes once they got to your stomach!"
14. "I used to believe that women got pregnant randomly."
15. "That when you got 'fired' from your job, they'd take you out to the parking lot and set you on fire. No idea why I thought that, but 5-year-old me thought that!"
16. "I thought all cats were girls and all dogs were boys. I also thought that the people in the TV could see me!"
17. "My parents told me it was illegal to turn a light on in the car while they were driving."
18. "My parents told me if I mixed salad dressings, they'd become poisonous."
19. "I was taught if you eat in the bathroom (yuck), you were, in fact, feeding the devil! I was raised in a very religious home, so the devil got the blame for a lot of stuff!"
20. "I thought airplanes dropped you off at your house. We had to pick up my dad from the airport once, and I remember thinking, 'But it'll drop him off here! We're going to miss it.'"
21. "I thought that the sky was a big, solid dome above us that rocket ships broke through. I found out I was wrong in first or second grade!"
22. "I used to think that if you fell in the toilet, you’d be flushed and never seen again."
23. "I asked my dad how pilots could navigate planes, and he said they had instruments that told them what direction to go in and where to go. For so long, I thought that meant they heard musical instrument sounds in the cockpit: a trumpet flare meant to steer left five degrees, the trombone meant to head south, etc."
25. "My mom told me the crusties in my eyes in the morning came from bugs pooping in my eyes. My art teacher said that wasn’t true; she said it was the sandman who sprinkled sand in my eyes. Adults can be cruel. Either insects pooped in my eyes, or a weird stranger was throwing dirt in my face while I slept? Very creepy, either way."
26. "I used to think that when I looked at a map or globe and pointed my finger to touch a city, a giant finger came out of the sky and into that city."
27. "At a point in my life, I thought everybody had an older brother or sister. I remember asking one of my friends where her brother was. She told me she didn’t have any, and I asked why. I was around 5."
28. "I was told veal was from brown chickens. And it made perfect sense because I thought brown eggs meant veal. I’d always tell my parents I liked the white chicken better."
29. "I thought that reality TV confessionals were filmed in real-time. I used to be so confused about how they could be in a scene and then change clothes to explain their thoughts and return to the original scene."
30. "I thought 'paid vacation' meant you could pick anywhere, and your company would pay for your vacation! I couldn’t understand why people went to some random lake or whatever when they could have gone to see the Eiffel Tower or Hawaii."
31. "That a new day would begin immediately when I woke up. I didn’t really grasp the concept of time."
32. And: "This WHOLE time, I believed Canada was under us (geographically) because my PATRIOTIC GRANDFATHER believed America was ALWAYS above Canada (in politics, sports, economy, etc.), but I thought he meant as in geography. Imagine a proud little seventh grader standing before her history class and proclaiming that Canada was under the United States. Yeah, it did not go well."
What's something silly (and very, very untrue) that you believed as a kid? Tell us in the comments or share anonymously using this form.
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.