Things you believed as children....

What kind of parents are we? We perpetuate lies, myths and fairytales to our unsuspecting toddlers and young children. My grandmother did it, mother did it, I have done it and my children are still doing it!

Why do we do it? To create magical experiences for our offspring, to prolong their childhood and to protect our children from the realities of adulthood.

Are we wrong? Who knows? But we keep doing it all the same.

When I was 5, my mother persuaded a friend 's 5 year old son to take me to the Odeon on a Saturday morning

We went by bus and there was no problem in buying a ticket.( I think it cost 6d)

I felt very grown up as the usherette showed Michael and me to a seat.

When we were settled after the singing bit and waiting for the film to start, Michael turned to me and said ' By the way, you have still got your ticket, haven't you. They won't let you out without it.'

I sobbed and started to crawl under childrens' legs in the darkened cinema, looking for the lost ticket

I was eventually rescued by an usherette who explained it was untrue and I never spoke to Michael again

My sister convinced me that if you swallowed seeds from apples that Trees grew in your stomach.

When I was young my uncle used to pass his film annuals to me. I was convinced that all the men in America were handsome and the ladies were beautiful.

My paternal Grandfather only had one eye, the result of an accident. Aged about 4 I was sucking the end of a knitting needle. Mum said " take that out of your mouth. You will poke your eye out" I spent ages ferreting about at the back of my mouth wondering how Grandad had got anything up there. I was a few years older when in desperation I asked! Duh! I must have been a gullible kid!

I seem to remember a lot more loose dogs around when I was young. I think owners just used to let their dogs roam free. Anyway I thought that white dog’s poo was from white dogs and brown dogs poo was from brown dogs. ( Actually now I think about it I still don’t know why it turns white with age). I hope that this is not too disgusting a comment for GNetters

Think it may have been in part due to the food they ate and bones Hilarybee

I live on one side of a Lough with a view over to the other side. At night all the lights shine and my parents told me that's where Santa and his elves worked away making toys for good girls and boys and he watched over to make sure I was behaving. Now in the daytime I knew it was Co.Down, but at night it was Santa's workshop when the lights came on.

Every year when I was little we went to a boarding house in Arran where for two weeks I would take my little lamb Baba around on a lead. Every year he looked forward to me coming. (So I was told)
I forgot about Baba until, living in New Zealand, in my sixties I suddenly realised it had been a different lamb every year.

When I became 21 years of age my father took me aside to tell me the facts if life.

He said to me that it was not Father Christmas who gave us toys etc. at Christmas. I was so disappointed.

Lucca

I though cats were the girls and dogs were the boys.

No I haven’t carried that into adulthood.

Me too

I thought you only had to sleep in the same room as a male to get pregnant which worried me no end when holidaying in a b&b with DP’s with us all sleeping in the same room ??! I slept all night in my single bed with my back to them. I didn’t take that into adulthood either!!

I just really bought into much of what was fed into us at my catholic junior school, and of course young children are very susceptible to believing what they are told, particularly by someone who is a figure of authority. In retrospect, as I grew older I realised much of it was nonsense, such as this, mentor nun preparing a group of us aged 7 for our First Holy Communion told us this "never put your teeth on the host when it's put into your mouth otherwise you will be biting Jesus' legs off" I dutifully followed that advice for quite a few years until it eventually dawned on me she was barking and much of what she imparted was a load of drivel!

I believed my father when he used to say he was going out ‘to see a man about a dog’, we never got the dog. We lived in Malvern for the first eight years of my life and I believed my brother when he told me to be careful at the top of the hills because it was the end of the world and I could fall off.

My dad was in the navy during the war, told me he was an admiral. I told teacher and she invited him to school to give a talk.
He did it too, but more from the pirate angle, I still didn’t know he was never an admiral until I was about ten.

Esspee, that’s so sweet.

At Sunday school we sang "Jesus will wash away my sins. I thought a sin was short for cinder. I decided not to play with cinders so I wouldn't need washing.

I thought if you had gas central heating it meant the radiators were full of gas. I thought that till a few years ago when it was explained to me.

I thought there was a tiny little orchestra playing in the radio. To my defense, it was quite a big radio, but it was not the size of a concert hall. When we moved house and my brother's rocking horse did not come with us, we were told it had run away to live happily on a farm.

I thought you could choose how many babies you could have when you got pregnant. I wanted triplets to start with, followed by twins.

I have also just been shocked at the little piggy at market scenario. I never even thought about anything but shopping either. ?

This is embarrassing. I was mad on adventure books when I was young, and used the local jumble sales to feed my habit. I went to one, and asked if they had any Gnid Blyton books - I thought that was her name because of the way it was written on the books. They laughed at me!

I was told that thunder was God playing football.

When I asked how we got our tummy buttons my Mum said it was after we'd come out of the oven from being cooked, God went round poking us in the tummy saying "your done"

I thought that adult Americans all slept in single beds. Whenever you saw a couple in a film or on TV, they were always in twin-bedded rooms. I was an adult before I realised that it was due to America's strict moral broadcasting code, and that Americans had double beds too.

Father Christmas.
Swallowing grape seeds would give you appendicitis.
That grown-ups always told the truth.
Going straight out after a bath would mean your pores were open and you could catch a disease.
You shouldn't have a bath or wash your hair when you had your period all of us put straight on that score aged 11 by the Senior Mistress.