family

My 26 year old daughter revealed to me about a year ago (while discussing
her own 3 year old) that she had grown up in fear of the threat I used when she
misbehaved... of "sending her back to the Indians". She thought she really had
come to me from Indians and I would return her like returning something you didn't
want to a store. Now I am ashamed I warped my child. (well almost ashamed)

Granny

When my kids were younger I used to tell them that there was a "big book for moms" and whenever I e.g. wanted a hug or something i said"you have to give me a hug - it says so in the big book for moms - that all kids have to give their moms hugs whenever they ask for it." My kids believed in the existance of this book for many years!!! And I got lots of hugs from them, too! :-)

Anon

My mother told my sister and I that we were from our fathers previous marriage, since she obviously wasn't old enough to be our mother. Since both of us had blonde hair and green eyes like our Dad, I had no reason to doubt this was the truth. For a couple of years I wondered if Dad would replace her too when she got too old. I was quite confused when I saw pictures of her pregnant.

lost child

When my brother was little he was a very friendly, happy, panty-hose lover! For some reason he loved panty hose so much that when mom wore them he'd pet her legs and coo like they were little kitties. Except they weren't panty hose...oh no..Acording to him they were " Ooooo... Poneytoes...!"

Sara Eichler

When I was little, I thought that Grandfather's were all missing fingers. Both of my Grandfather's were missing fingers on the same hand, one was missing one and one was missing two. I thought that according to how many Grandchildren he had he had to cut more off because the one who was missing two had 5 and the other one only had 3. My sister thought the same thing!

Elizabeth

When my mom put us to bed, she would of course always say, "Good night." This phrase became equated in my mind with the word "goodbye," and so I naturally assumed that my mother left every night after putting us to bed. Who knows, maybe one time she had said something about going to the store after we were in bed, and I assumed that she always left the house. I was at least 6 before I realized this wasn't true.

The strangest part is that this never seemed to bother me!

Dan

I used to think that my cousins on my mother's side were grandchildren to my grandparents on my father's side. What confused me was that one of my mother's sisters was one of my father's parents foster children. So it seemed logical.

Anon

When I was young, I heard that every fourth person in the world was Chinese. When my brother(the fourth kid)was born,I was positive for a long time that he was Oriental.

Charlie W.

when I was little, I didn't understand that my grandparents were my parents's parents. I thought they were just two people called grandma and grandpa. And I didn't know the difference between the two grandmas when mom would say that grandma's coming over. I would ask which one? The grandma with the white hair or the grandma with the dark hair!

Grandma Pat

I used to believe if you and an other person stepped with the same leg at the same that both of you were related. Apparantly I had a lot of relatives!

Rosie

Until I was well along in years I always thought our family was Irish because my dads birthday was March 17th

Gladys

I used to believe that my mother was a robot. She would always know when I was doing something wrong, no matter how quiet I was!

Scott

My Dad died when I was 1, but his mum, my Nan, used to visit regularly. My mum called her "mum", and she also called my Granny "Mum". As I couldn't remember my Dad, for years I puzzled over how my Mum could have two mothers! It was finally explained to me when I was about 8 and asked if one had given birth to half of her, and the other to the other half. It was only then that I clicked as to why my Nan talked about my Dad a lot and had pictures of him up everywhere!

Yvonne Relf, Leeds.

I was brought up in New Zealand where there was a non-littering campaign telling us to 'be a tidy Kiwi'. My father brought us an icecream at a children's park and lifted us all up, one at a time to put the wrappers in the rubbish bin. The bin had a sign on it which said 'look at the tidy Kiwi' and in the bin was a mirror so you could see yourself being a 'tidy kiwi'. To this day my sister (now 35 years old) believes that my father was showing her that she belongs in the rubbish bin.

Hilary

once, my mom and my older cousin went fishing on the mountain without me. i was jealous, and i suspected them to have an affair, in spite of their age difference and family relations. silly me!

little miss from norway

when i was little, i used to believe that if i, somehow, got away from my mother, nobody would ever care to find me again, and that strangers wouldn`t care either, even if they had seen a kid alone in the city.

little miss from norway

In my young days I believed that all people are related to me and irrespective of caste creed or colour, I considered them all as my superiors and I almost bowed before them, with the result that some of them thought that I was making fun of them.

anon