Kids are super smart and super attentive, that is proven fact. But kids can be also just as dull as driftwood sometimes. The things we believe before we're adults, heck, the things we believe as adults is stunning. When dealing with the young mind one must be specific and detailed. When we're kids we take in everything literally; then we figure out how that affects us. It can be a daunting process.
Redditor u/AcceptableParfait171 was wondering what in the hell we were all thinking when we were at an age when we believed everything and anything. I mean, there are somethings that at any age, you do know better. The question was posed.....
What's something dumb you thought as a kid?
Sips Up....
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That drinking and driving meant any kind of drinking.
I would get so nervous when my dad and I would get fast food that a cop would see him drinking his soda and arrest him.
The First....
I thought Barbara Bush was Eve from the Bible. The news said she was the first lady, and I didn't know what else that could mean. And she did look pretty old from my perspective.
This triggered a memory for me. I thought my mom was the secretary to President George Bush. I remember hearing she was promoted to be a personal secretary to the head of her company whose name was George. My five year old brain didn't really have a point of reference for the amount of people named George.
Get that paper....
My parents used to say they worked to make money, so I thought their job was actually printing money.
Me too. In kindergarten I had to draw my dad at work. My picture showed him sitting at a desk with a pile of coins on top.
the big chill....
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I thought the term "wind chill factor" was "windshield factor." Like the weatherman was letting you know if you needed to scrape your windshield in the morning.
Fibbers....
My brother is quite a few years older than me and liked to tell me little fibs all the time. Some of the more memorable ones include him telling me that our uncle invented hamburgers, and that lemonade has a little bit of pig pee in it.
My dad used to tell fibs like that. He used to tell me that when you sprayed a fly with bug spray it didn't actually kill the fly. It just blinded it so it would crash into the wall or if it was on the table it would just walk off the edge of the table and that's what killed them.
Step Slowly.....
Escalators would consume me if I didn't step off fast enough.
Ya I watched a guy get his shoe sucked into the escalator and a bunch of people had to pull him out of the mechanical jaws of death before he was some kind of happy meal for escalators.
Careful Dad....
When I was a little kid and my parents were driving I would see the car in front of us have these rear blinking lights and generally speaking, they always lit up pointing in the direction our car would be turning. How did it always know? I didn't understand what they were for so I thought they were there to give instructions on where to go to the car behind it (us).
After all how did my dad always know which road to take get to McDonalds, ToysRUs, etc? Obviously he was following the instructions provided by the car in front of us.
Hence, I'd always get concerned whenever my dad ignored the instructions the car in front of us was giving with it's little blinking rear light. But I figured my dad was just taking a shortcut because he was my dad and dads know everything.
*Edit*
For people asking/mentioning our car's dashboard blinkers I had a simple explanation for that. I thought the car in front of us was also transmitting a signal to also show the arrows in case it was raining or snowing and it was difficult to see the car in front of us.
Blanketed....
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That people would come in the night and cut off any appendages not covered by blankets.
I conveniently convinced myself heads didn't count (because that would be too gross).
"I HATE YOU DAD!!!"Â
My dad convinced me that before Kodak invented color drops for your eyes, the world was all black and white and that's why old films are in black-and-white.
Edit: I forgot the best part! Shortly after learning this, a classmate at school asked the same question I asked my dad. (why there's black and white films/photos).
So I answered with my new knowledge and the teacher laughed SO HARD.
I went home after school and waited on the couch for my dad to get home. The moment he walked in the door I screamed "I HATE YOU DAD!!!" and ran to my bedroom.
Damn you Poke!!!
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That when I turned 10, I would be able to see Pokémon in the world.
My tenth birthday was a little disappointing.
Lucky little monsters, when we were kids, finding a Pikachu meant your best friend was on all fours screaming
pika pi PIKAAAAAA.... as you yelled commands at them and threw toy poke balls at their heads. Rainishernameashes to ashes.....
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Being fired at work meant you were actually incinerated.
Only if you're fired from the Church.
Floaties....
An island was a giant piece of land floating in the ocean.
My wife thought that until a few years ago. She's 39 now, so probably 35 when she figured it out. I told her mom that story, and her mom looked at me and said 'wait, they don't float?'. So I know where she got it from.
Size Matters....
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I thought my TV was too small to see adults in shows like Tom and Jerry and the Powerpuff girls.
Thats a first!Â
I was just thinking about this today actually. I don't know what reminded me but I'm even a little embarrassed today at how dumb I was.
When I was like 7 or 8 I was on a competitive swim team. I was pretty bad at it. I got a lot of participation ribbons, I'll put it that way. One day I dove in the water and thought "I should try swimming fast today!" So I did and when I poked my head out of the water my coach was standing there looking at me like wide eyed.
She yelled "Thats a first! You got first place!!!" I won the race. Or whatever you call winning at swimming.
Anyhoo, I randomly remembered that years later and it hit me. Like, wtf was I doing before that? Did it just never occur to me to try to win? What did I think swim meets were for? Just for fun? And why did I never try this new trick of "swimming fast" again? God I was so dumb.
Talk to me God....
I went to a Catholic elementary school. I was giving a presentation in front of my second grade class regarding how God created the heavens, the earth, the mountains... I never really understood how the timeline worked around all that, I just knew the basic bullet points of the creation story.
But then I go on some tangent about how upon the creation of Earth (remember, I didn't understand the timing around it and just winged it), God must have been a big fan of prominent historical figures. George Washington. Abraham Lincoln. Jefferson. Roosevelt.
My second grade teacher realizes what I'm about to do, and rescues me from the impending hurricane of ridicule I was about to summon from my peers. She hurriedly separates me from my execution panel, and in the privacy of the hallway, explains to me that Mount Rushmore was not a natural occurrence.
until then....
I thought up until like 3rd grade that we were only learning about one side of the earth and we'd learn about the other half in later grades. I didn't make the connection between the big flat roller map my teacher would pull down across the chalkboard and the round earth everyone kept talking about.
Coded
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To microwave something you had to put in a code that corresponded with the time. I was really confused when I found out you just entered the time.
Easter Days
I thought foie gras was the fake grass they put in Easter baskets. I thought this even when I went into high school. I thought people hated it because it was a messy and useless waste.
Like, I honestly just thought vegans were a**holes who hated Easter.
"Faux grass!" It makes sense!"
In the Womb
I was around 4 or 5, and from my understanding humans were monkeys in the very beginning. I got into a huge argument with a classmate because I was convinced we developed as monkeys in our mother's womb and eventually grew into humans before being born.
Humans do sort of develop in pretty weird ways in utero. We have both tails and gill slits for example.
This is my space....
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That I was the only one in the world with actual thoughts and feelings and everyone else was just part of my reality.
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U/lit3rallyuseless asked: What doesn't deserve the hate it gets?
​Film and media are probably the biggest contender for being hated on randomly. It may seem harmless, but not always deserved.
Actors are people too!
Actors who played characters that people didn't like.
Really if you hated the character then the actor did a good job (assuming that was the role).
The best cartoons.
nice day summer GIF by PBS KIDSGiphyChild cartoons. Some are actually really good, even as an adult.
I feel like watching cartoons aimed at generally a younger audience allows for you to be reminded of some life lessons, I know I forget some things, or didn't realise others, or it at least partially renews my awareness of something I should still like or appreciate
This doesn't deserve awards, it's just my opinion that is apparently shared by many.
This man did nothing wrong.
Guy Fieri, he literally is the nicest person in the world but since he looks like he was electrocuted by mountain dew people want to saw his head off.
Even before that, I was witness to his other charitable work. A few years back, Santa Rosa was hit by some terrible fires and he showed up at a few shelters and personally cooked up and served some killer buffet food. No cameras, no massive team of PR, just a dude with an assistant to keep him on schedule to hit up other shelters in the area. Guy Fieri legit earned a lot of respect in my book for that.
You know who DEFINITELY doesn’t deserve hate? Animals. They’re just living their best lives, and need to be left alone.​
The best cats.
Black cats.
We got a black cat for the first time last year. I've since formulated the theory that black cats might get some of their reputation from the fact that people can't see them well in the dark and so they seemingly appear out of nowhere and they might be instinctually cautious because they know people have a tendency to kick them while walking in the dark. Our black cat is the sweetest cat I've ever known.
They get a bad rep.
Discovery Sharks GIF by Shark WeekGiphySharks. They are beautiful, complex creatures, deserving of respect and, like any wild animal should be left alone in their natural habitat, but they get this reputation as vicious bloodthirsty monsters. This is only because every shark attack is news, and only then because they are so rare. More people are killed EVERY DAY by mosquitoes than sharks kill in a year.
Any apex predator that has remained evolutionarily unchanged for hundreds of millions of years, whose existance predates TREES, is deserving or our respect and admiration. Shine on, you crazy cartlaginous fish, shine on.
So cute too!
Opossums. They're neat little critters. They eat tons of ticks that carry Lyme disease, (mostly) don't carry rabies because their body temp is too low, and they're the only marsupial native to North America! They get a bad rap because their first defense is to hiss and bare teeth, but failing that, they just play dead.
If you don't have the predisposition to hate them, you'll find they're pretty cute too.
E: this is about /opossums/, the north American species.
Kiwis, I feel for you, but this comment isn't about your possums.
​Hating on other people for just living their lives also seems to be a big contender for things that don’t deserve to be hated on.
This is so true.
Unemployed people. A lot of people genuinely are looking for work and did not want to lose their last job/it was beyond their control (like a layoff) but they get so much hate and called lazy by most people. I know too many unemployed people that are actually really trying hard. They definitely aren't lazy. (Not saying lazy unemployed people don't exist, but to be fair, so do lazy employed people too lol)
Leave the weather man alone!
Fox Raining GIF by Family GuyGiphyMeteorologists. They try their best to predict the weather based on patterns, models, and data. They're not perfect because predicting the weather is insanely difficult. When they get it wrong, I think we should go easy on them. It was probably an outlier result almost no one could have foreseen.
I've seen people get angry over the meteorologists for getting it right. Like they control the weather - it is their fault we are having rain, that kind of BS. Never made sense to me, but hey, I have plenty of relatives I clashed with growing up.
Please stop being d*cks to these people.
Customer service associates.
I hate when customers think that I, the minimum wage person forced to sit there and listen to them yell, am personally responsible for every policy they disagree with. Like, ma'am, if I had that much power and influence, I wouldn't be sitting here on a Saturday evening serving you.
Wholesome and necessary.
People don't deserve hate they give themselves when they are not doing too good at the moment.
I'm in a weird place and I didn't know I needed to read this. Thanks buddy.
If you haven't heard it from anyone else today, I'm proud of you.
It seems like people hate on things simply because they think they're meant to hate them. But you can always be the change and make an effort to stop being an a**hole about certain things.
No matter what though, sometimes haters gonna hate