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Childhood Beliefs

When I was young, I used to believe that I could fly.  Well, actually I could just hover.  It required intense concentration, and it varied between a few inches and a couple feet above the ground. 

 Childhood is when we learn about the world.  Being innocent and naive, we're bound to believe what we hear or get things wrong.  The twisted logic of schoolyard whisperings becomes gospel, and our parents' bold lies about Santa and the stork leave a permanent mark on our minds.

I recently found a site devoted to the collection of strange childhood beliefs. It's fascinating to read about what people believed about the world, life, reproduction, their bodies, and more.  Here's a great example of one kid's take on The Pledge of Allegiance:

Attach a lesion to the flag, of the United States of America,
into the Republic, where witches stand,
one nation, underground, and invisible, with liberty—and just this!—for all.

That's awesome. I'm sure

That's awesome. I'm sure glad we teach what it means to say the pledge.

I'll always remember that

I'll always remember that Calvin And Hobbes:

I pledge allegiance, to Queen Fragg, and her mighty state of hysteria.

As for the hovering thing, I'm with ya. When I was younger I believed, briefly but intensely, that people's feet didn't actually touch the ground, they actually hovered about an eigth of an inch or so. I have no idea where the hell that came from.

My weird childhood belief:

My weird childhood belief: If I thought hard enough, I could change the temperature of my surroundings. I still kind of think that would be a great Super Power.

My childhood falicy: Until

My childhood falicy:

Until the fouth or fifth grade, I didn't really know anything about pregnacy or how people got pregnant except that women got sick and threw up. So one day in the third grade, I got sent home because I was sick, and the whole way home I was terrified that it meant I was pregnant! (And before you think, 'oh my god, were you?' of course not!! I was in the third grade!)
And that Calvin and Hobbes is classic.

I couldn't figure out how

I couldn't figure out how people moved their eyes. See, every time I looked in the mirror, my eyes were pointing straight at the mirror. So obviously I hadn't learned to move my eyes around like everyone else could. When I asked other kids how they did it, they just gawped at me or (infuriatingly) rolled their eyes.

The benefit of this was that nobody could tell when I was looking at them if my head wasn't pointed their way. I was so sneaky.

I didn't know there was a

I didn't know there was a letter "N" until a few weeks into Kindergarden. I would just hold the "M" for an extra beat when I sang the ABCs.
I also used to wonder if everyone's lives were like people on tv, but then I would worry about what would happen if the person watching my family turned the tv set off.
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