family

Used to believe that my little brother was literally a pest that came from the department of sanitation. I thought the garbage man was his real dad. One time when the garbage man came, I was 5 and my brother was 3, and I took my brother out yelling "Wait, you forgot something!"

Really wanted to be an only child

None of our family gets on particularly well with my dad's parents, and my mum has always called them the "out laws" instead of the "in laws" as a joke. Until I was about 10 - well, until I learned what "in-law" actually means - I believed that your mother's parents were your In Laws and your father's parents were your Out Laws.

Rebecca

My sister was born when I was 7. My parents asked me and my male cousin, who was a year younger than I was, to be my sister's godmother and godfather. I assumed and believed for years that this meant that when I grew up I'd have to marry my cousin (since obviously the godmother should be married to the godfather!).

Naive

When I was younger, both mine and ll of my friends' mothers had glasses. For quite a while, I used to believe all moms wore glasses.

Anonymous

I must have been around 7 or 8 years old when my mom informed me that she had "jewelry duty" the next day. I thought it kind of weird that she had to leave the house and go make jewelry, but hey, what the heck. When she came home the next day, I asked her to show me what she had made. She had a confused look on her face until I explained that I wanted to see what she made at "jewelry duty". She stifled a laugh and in her sweet southern accent told me that she had been called for J-U-R-Y duty, where she then explained about how people participate in the court system. Did I feel stupid? Absolutely not! I was just bummed that I didn't get any pretty jewelry from my mom! LOL!!

Karen

During the early nineties when when John Major was the Prime Minister, I used to see him on telly a lot. He was (and still is) a tall man with grey hair, wears sensible clothes, has a sensible haircut and wears glasses.

About that time, my father used to work away in France and Germany being away most of the week. My father is a tall man with grey hair, wears sensible clothes, has a sensible haircut and wears glasses.

I believed that they were one and the same man. I never felt it was necessary to mention this to my mother.

I now realise that one was a member of the conservative party and had an affair with Edwina Currie. The other was an alcoholic Scotsman.

Anon

At one time when my brother and I were misbehaving and getting on our parents' nerves, my father said "Oh, do what you want."

We thought he meant it - so of course we got in even more trouble.

Anon

I used to think that my dad was olser then my aunt (who is actually 20 yearsolder than him) becuase I thought all men had to be older then women. Ahh...so naive!

Clare, Ireland

Up until I was about 9 years old, I used to think my Dad was Superman! So I used to put my fingers behind my back and ask him to use his X-ray vision to tell me how many I was holding up. He got it right EVERYTIME! I used to think he was amazing! I mean... how many people's Dad is Superman? Of course, I didn't tell anyone because I couldn't let out his secret identity. It's only now I realise I always used to ask him in his room... right infront of the mirror...

Holly

My Dad used to tell me he was the heir to the throne of Denmark, and would one day have to leave us in order to fulfill his duty there.

Spike

When I was little, my dad told me that he was transforming into a welk after he pricked his finger on a thorn in our garden. Me and my sister got really upset about it and started crying. We used to make him little "I love you" presents just in case he turned into a welk any time soon.

Fridgy

I never met my father, so when i was little, even though my friends had dads which i met, i used to assume that there was only like 5 dads in the whole world who fathered us all, and we all belonged to one of the 'dads', but that they gave us away to our actual mums and 'stand in dads'. I used to believe that one of these 'dads' was a statue of a fat butcher outside my local butchers, and that at least two of them were probably psycho killers, and that mine was probably either the butcher or a psycho killer, and I really hoped that it wasn't the later because I would be doomed to take after him since i was nothing like my mum, i must naturally be like my dad.

Anon

When I was very small, since both of my grandmothers were named Clara, I used to believe that all grandmothers were named Clara.

Amie

My father's side of the family has a Portugese background, but I was never taught to speak the language. I did however, have to call women on that side of the family Tia so-and-so (Tia Norma, Tia Evelyn etc). I always wondered why I never had to call them auntie, and why they all had the same first name.. that is until my 8th grade Spanish class when I learned that Tia means aunt in Spanish, and I figured out it does in Portugese too!

Amy

When I was young I had this wierd irrational fear that my dad was going to kidnap me and take me away from my mom--no parents were not divorced. he used to take the "senic route" everywhere and I would panic when I didn't recognize where we were and ask repeatedly "where are we going?" This fear lasted unitl I was about 12 I thought I was nuts but I finally figured this one out. when I was very young my dad used to listen to books on tape in the car. There was one particular story by Mary Higgins Clark called "Little Lost Angel" where a little girl is kidnapped by her dad....

A. T.

I used to believe all old men with white hair (like my grandpa had) were my grandpas. My neighbor growing up was an older man with white hair, and every time I saw him I'd say "hi grandpa!!" He always said hi back. I never believed that all old women were my grandmas, because I had 2 grandmas and a great grandma and they all had different colored hair.

Brianne

I'm a preschool teacher and one day I mentioned something to a child about my mom. He looked at me funny and said, "you can't have a mom Miss Kelly, you're a grown up, grown ups dont have moms." HOW CUTE!!

Kelly

When I was about six, my grandfather told me he had the last pet pterodactyl on his block, and it got old and he remembered the day it died.
How silly of me to fall for that!

Ashen

my dad would always tell us that he knew everything. whenever he'd tell me something new, or answer a question I had, I'd ask him, "how do you know that", or "how do you know how to do that?" and his answer was always, "because daddy knows everything". I really believed he did. I admired him so much and felt so safe knowing he knew everything so I didn't have to worry about anything.

Gina

My mother told me when I was little that they had forgotten to pay the bill at the hospital and if I made too much noise the hospital bill collectors would come and reposess me.

Anon