reproduction

I used to believe that if you had sex underwater you would give brith to a mermaid.

Anon

Not wanting to discuss reproduction with me, my mother told me I was adopted from a band of gypsies. I believed her until I was 12 years old and she broke the news. I was kind of sad. I mean, come on, how many people do you know that are adopted by gypsies?

PeanutLuLu

When I was a tiny girl I had the fortunate experience of witnessing a cat giving birth to a litter of kittens, but rather than it helping me understand the birthing process it only confused me more. For a long time I believe that all an animal had to do to have a baby was lick it's poop until it turned in to a baby, which really made my parents seem absolutly disgusting to me.

Anon

When I was about six I overheard my dad telling my brother about sex. I just remember standing there with my hand on my stomach, thinking, "I have *eggs* in there? Can I break them if I jump? Do I have to lay them? How do they come out?"

Rachel L Hansen

I once asked a friend if test-tube babies had bellybuttons or not.

I was eighteen years old.

Anon

In first grade, our teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up, and I said a mom. Then one of my classmates said, "eeww! You're going to have sex!". I replied, "You don't have to have sex to be a mom. You can just go get a baby from the hospital. That's where everyone gets theirs."

Rhonda

When I was very little I asked my mom if women who didn't have sex could still get pregnant. She paused for a moment, and then said "Sometimes."

Today, I'm fairly certain she'd meant the Virgin Mary was the exception. For years, however, I lived in mortal fear of spontaneous pregnancy.

Calico Koi

I knew that babies were made with girl and boy private parts... but I thought that if my brother peed and didn't flush then I peed that a baby could grow in the toilet if you didn't flush fast enough

Angella

I used to believe that birth control was for deciding to have either a boy or girl babies.

Anon

My friend's sister was born when she was 5. Her Dad told she is 7lb. My friend was crying as she thought she had to pay £7 for seeing her and she didn't have that money

Helen

When I was around 3 years old, I was sitting in my high chair eating lunch when I said to my mum, "I hope you didn't hurt me", and kept on eating.

She asked what I was talking about, so I proceeded to say to her that if I came from her tummy, she must have eaten me, so I hoped that she didn't hurt me while eating me.

My mum had to try very hard to keep from laughing... after that, she proceeded to explain the basic mechanics of reproduction to me. I wasn't very interested at the time, but I have never had misconceptions about reproduction since, and I was able to clarify some very creative ideas my school friends had gotten into their heads upon attaining school age.

Cyra

i used to believe that if you put a piece of pop corn in water, in the morning there would be a baby.. i think it was because of something a friend told me..

jen

I thought that if a black man and a white woman (or reverse) had a baby it would be stripped!

Bec

Before my grandma told me about the birds and the bees, I believed that babies were born wrapped in blankets. I got this idea from watching shows where a female character was having a baby. They never showed the icky stuff, they would always cut to the the woman holding the baby wrapped in a blanket. So....that's how I got the idea that babies were born with blankets.

Jaycee

I was told the "facts" of life by a mother who believed that if I was told about sex, I would immediately take up the hobby (at the ripe old of 9, if I remember right) so my introduction to the subject was sketchy at best. Until I was well into high school, I believed that, just as a woman ovulated every so many days, a man only got an erection once every so many days as well. So, I did the math: if I ovulated once every, say, 30 days, and my future husband (heaven forfend I have premarital sex!) would get an erection once every 20 days, our "paths would cross" every 60 days; ergo, we could only have sex once every three months and each intercourse would result in pregnancy.

Susan

When I was very little, my older sister told me over and over again that my parents had found me in a huge tree stump that was a little distance from our house. I didn't like that idea too much because I visited the stump quite often & all I could see there was wood rot and bugs. It made my skin crawl to think that I was once in there too somehow... but the big question then was what form was I in at that time? My conclusion was that I must've started off as a small red bug that somehow got transformed after my family spotted me and took me home! Sharing that story with my children through the years (all 50 of them... years, of course) has always given us a great chuckle.

Joan Muir

I was around 8 or 9. My mother was pregnant and I had questions! My Dad was doing the best he could explaining everything but he couldn't quite bring himself to tell how the sperm got from the man to the woman.

So, after MANY sessions going into all the anatomical stuff on each side and all the gestational stuff about the baby's progress, I finally got a little impatient and asked the crucial question.

"Dad, I understand all this stuff but HOW DOES THE SPERM GET FROM THE MAN TO THE WOMAN?"

My Dad wasn't generally a smoker but whenever we'd have one of these sessions, he was smoking. After this question he took a drag on that cigarette that consumed about half of it in one go. He said,"Well you know the man and the woman sleep in the same bed and sometimes they roll over on each other ACCIDENTALLY!" He totally ran for cover!

I still smile about this 50 years later.

BK

I used to believe in my little analyitical, logical, mind that because Mothers made milk Fathers made water!

noah

When I was younger, my parents used the word "bunky" to describe mine and my sisters "bottoms". At 5th grade, during the first sex ed class I had ever been to, the teacher called out and said, "Can anyone here tell me what the name of the female reproductive organs are?" Well, of course, I raised my hand and proceeded to tell the class that we all had bunkies.

erica

Being a girl, I used to believe that all the children I'm going to have are inside my stomach, waiting for their turns. And that I used to live with my little brother in my mum's tummy.

Tex Taylor