The simple things we misunderstood as children are pure comedy! Recently, we shared some great tweets about funny thoughts people had as kids — and the BuzzFeed Community had a lot of hilarious childhood thoughts that they wanted to share as well. So let's get into these stories:
1. "When I was younger I thought that having sex was just kissing under the covers since that’s what usually was shown on TV shows."
2. "I was about four years old when I asked why there were commercials on the TV. My parents told me that they paid for the shows. So then I wondered why it would take so long to hand money over. I literally thought that there was a break in the show just so they could exchange money, and pictured a bunch of people in suits exchanging bills."
3. "As a child, I hadn't heard of seniors being a word for elders just yet — I only knew of high-school seniors. So, I wondered for a long time what was so special about seniors that they got to get all these discounts at the shops."
4. "I would be singing 'Ring Around the Rosey' when I was little, just like everyone else. Then grew up to find out that it's about The Great Plague and the ashes of all the people who died."
5. "When I was little, I thought 'only in theatres' meant you could only ever see the movie in the theatre. I would be pleasantly surprised when I saw the VHS of an 'only in theatres' film at the store a few months later."
6. "I used to think that you would be able to reach the different levels of a pool based on your age. So I thought that once I turned four, I could reach the 4ft deep water since at three years old I was reaching the 3ft section. Imagine my surprise a few weeks after turning four when I was almost drowning in the 4ft area."
7. "As a child, I thought that if a film was set in a certain time period then that was when it had been made. I couldn't work out how the dad from Mary Poppins hadn't aged a day when he showed up thirty years later in Bedknobs and Broomsticks!"
8. "At four years old, I thought un-popped popcorn could get a person pregnant because I knew that getting pregnant had something to do with 'seeds'."
9. "Growing up I always thought that if someone was taking a picture of you while you were walking, you froze for that moment. I thought this because in movie scenes, people always stood still from the point-of-view of the one who took the picture. So my dumb younger brain was sure that no one ever took a picture of me without my knowledge because I never froze."
10. "When I was a kid I believed that your 'birthday suit' was a fancy outfit you got for your birthday party."
11. "I thought that pregnancy was all by chance and that if you spend enough time holding hands or sleeping next to your spouse, the woman's body would naturally make a baby. I thought that was why people always looked so surprised or shocked when they found out they were pregnant. Growing up religious didn't really help my case either."
12. "For some reason, I believed that everything on TV was live. I would be like, 'why are all these other kids up at 2:00 am filming a show?'"
13. "My mom told me when I was young that dust was mostly dead skin cells and that we shed them all the time. She, however, neglected to tell me that we do grow new skin cells. So, I was completely mystified by the fact that old people still had skin, and was very concerned I would lose all my skin before I got old."
—BuzzFeed User
14. "I genuinely thought that 'feat.' on a song was the name of some sort of singer and was super surprised by how many songs they were in. It took me years to realise that wasn't the case."
15. "When I was a kid I thought that the TV shows in black and white, like The Addams Family, were the actors in black and white make-up and the sets all painted in those colours as well."
16. "I was convinced that when people were drinking alcohol it meant that people were drinking rubbing alcohol."
17. "When I was younger I thought that once an episode of a show ended, the lives of the characters would continue, but just not be broadcasted. I’d wonder what the characters were up to until the next episode premiered."
18. "I used to believe marshmallows were the inside of a cattail plant that had been peeled and cut. I thought this meant they were technically a vegetable. I was about twenty-eight years old before I realised that that wasn’t right."
19. "It made me sad but I believed that when you turned off the TV, the actors just froze there and stayed put until you got back and turned the TV back on again. I would feel so bad when I turned off the TV for anything because I didn't want them to be waiting forever."
20. "My dad got pulled over once when I was little and he had a big cup of soda in the car that he’d been drinking. Cue tiny me hysterically crying thinking that the cop was going to take my dad away for 'drinking and driving'. The cop thought I was funny enough to let my dad off without a ticket though!"
21. "I was convinced as a child that if it was 'acid raining' and I was caught outside that I'd melt away. It caused me a lot of unnecessary panic early on."
22. "On old school TVs, the screen would go dark when you shut them off but there would still be a little blurry like hole of colour in the middle for like two seconds before fading away. I used to think that if I peeked through it fast enough I could still watch the show."
23. "You could not convince or tell me, as a child, that there wasn't a human inside an ATM machine handing out money. There were so many times that I would accompany my parents or a relative to the bank because I needed to know. I would try to look into the little slots to see if there was a person in there. I'm in my 30s now and while I now know there is no human in that machine, a part of my brain refuses to accept that knowledge."
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.