Life Upset

God. once my parents off-handedly mentioned "when you move out..." and I stared in horror before bursting into tears shouting, "you're going to make me leave?!" They had to reassure me that I'd want to move out one day. Little me was even more horrified by that.

Kaciimi

The 80s Wanted People To Believe This

There are several.

Killer bees from Mexico were on their way to the US and would attack and kill us.

Satanic Cults were kidnapping children and using them as human sacrifices in their satanic rituals.

Heavy Metal groups were putting Satanic messages on their albums that encouraged kids to commit suicide.

cpqarray

By The Light Of The Silvery Moon

When I was a kid I didn't understand that by full moon, the light was slightly bright enough for me to see without the lights on when the blinds were up. I thought I had a special gift, that lets me see especially good in the night. Then fast forward to the nights without a moon and me waking up in the night not seeing sh*t. I told my parents I couldn't see anything and they laughed saying "yeah because it was night." And then later I could see again when it was full moon. I legit thought I had a gift, but that it would come and go depending on.... well I never figured it out.

I didn't really realize my powers came from the full moon only because I'm an adult, but every time I wake up now and it's full moon and I can see, I smile thinking back to when I thought I had superpowers.

lividO96

There Be Dragons

Construction works are not caused by dragons.

When I was a kid, whenever we passed construction works, my dad would tell me it was caused by a dragon (usually the kind of construction where they dig a pit before building something upon it). As in, a medieval dragon came out of the sky, took out a building, and burrowed underneath it. He'd then elaborate that all the cranes and construction workers were a concentrated effort, to both restore the building, and to seal the dragon underneath it.

I believed a lot of buildings in NY had dragons underneath them. I also believed we had a real dragon issue in the US, even tho I had never seen one.

My Dad also told me there where velociraptors living in the woods, but idk about that one, on the offbeat he was right, I don't wanna get eaten.

JoeHanma

Slow On The Uptake, Quick On The Sand

My grandmother used to take my cousins and me to the bay when we were down the shore to see this little row boat. We loved it. She told us that you can't swim in the bay because it was quicksand. I believed this for years until when I was 12 my mom told me she used to swim in the bay all the time. I was like what do you mean ?!?!?!?!!

lunaysol

It's Real, But Is It?

Quicksand is quite real. I've fallen waist-deep in it twice.

It's perhaps not as prevalent as cartoons and movies led us to believe growing up, but it occurs in sandy/silty stillwater or environments with thin layers of moving water.

There was a rescue this year in Zion National Park where a man was completely stuck in it in the middle of winter. It took a search and rescue team hours to get him out, and he almost lost one of his legs and died because of it.

CaptainNoBoat

One Fish, Two Fish, No Fish, WHO FISH?!

I had fish when I was little. One of the fish had babies, and then within a few days i witnessed one of the adult fish eating a baby fish. I was disturbed and asked my dad why they would eat their babies. My dad thought it would make me feel better by telling me that when I when I was born, they had the option to eat me, but they decided to keep me because I was cute.

I was scarred for years.

Memelordjuli

It's Who Ya Know

That with enough hard work and perseverance, everything will work out for you in the end.

If you work hard and stick through tough situations, that's how you end up working yourself half to death in a low-level job. Really, it pays to get out of those jobs as soon as you can, and how hard you work doesn't matter at all as long as you know the right people.

ZipTheZipper

But Climate Change Is Real Tho

Acid rain. In the 80s it was the next big thing coming to kill us all. I even did a report on it for science class. Is it even a thing people talk about now?

Apparently it's still sorta around but mostly not due to science and governments listening and passing laws to try to prevent it. The exact same thing happened with the hole in the ozone layer. What is so drastically different now as opposed to then, where science is saying stop carbon output/curb climate change but government now says "yeah, no.. we're going to keep on doing what we're doing, no problems here.."?

AshlarKorith

Just A Macaroni Tree

F'ing macaroni trees. Back in primary school we had piles of school journals basically, thin paperbacks filled with short stories poems and non fiction articles written to a year 1-4 level. To differentiate between the stories and non-fiction there was a colored tag with the genre marked on it. Anyway one day I was given a journal for reading time and came across a story about macaroni tree harvesters and the macaroni beetles, it was written similarly to non-fiction articles but I missed the story tag and thought it was real. Anyway long story short I refused to believe anyone trying to set me right and insisted that macaroni trees were real and everyone else was trying to keep the secret.

Kaymish_