Here are some of the best responses:
1. “My brother convinced me the white line around a stop sign meant it was optional. FYI, they all have white lines, and you’ll still get a ticket while a cop laughs at you.”
3. “My sister told me that if you count all the stones of Stonehenge you will die. I still don’t know how many stones there are in Stonehenge.”
“EDIT: I just called and told this to my sister… and she just laughed for about 2 minutes.”
4. “I was told that the police would pull us over — or we would straight-up all die — if I turned the lights on in the car at night.”
5. “That the draining sound of the water in the bathtub was a monster that would suck you in as well. A lie made to get me out of the bath.”
6. “I was led to believe that quicksand was going to be a HUGE problem later in life.”
8. “When I was a kid, I asked my dad if reading enough books really could give you telekinesis, like in Matilda. He said yes. I spent many years after that thinking I just wasn’t doing enough.”
9. “That the button on your armrest on airplanes is the eject button. I found out it reclines your seat embarrassingly late.”
10. “My dad told me TV hosts from live news could see me. And he said that’s why you don’t pick your nose while you’re watching TV.”
11. “When I was a kid my dad told me it cost 25 cents to change the radio station to keep me from messing with the radio in his car. I believed that until I was 14.”
12. “That the car had some magical GPS that automatically told us which turns to make via the little blinking light. I was always so amazed when the blinker came on, telling us where to go, and then my parents would follow it!”
13. “My dad told me pumice was whale poo. I believed him and took some to school for show and tell.”
14. “My mom used to tell me watching a dog poop would make you go blind.”
15. “I heard of parents telling their kids when the ice cream truck is playing music, it means they’re out of ice cream.”
16. “I remember believing that if I swallowed gum, it would stay in my stomach for seven years. It seemed pretty plausible to me at the time… each time I swallowed one I ended up crying for two hours.”
17. “Growing up, I was fully convinced that if I accidentally ate an apple seed, an apple tree would start growing out of the top of my head. My uncle used to tell me this, saying I’d have branches and leaves sprouting out of my scalp if I wasn’t careful. I remember being meticulously careful eating around the core, terrified at the thought of becoming a human-apple hybrid. I even had nightmares about waking up with a tree growing out of my head. It’s funny to think about now, but back then, I was genuinely scared and believed every word he said.”
18. “That if you don’t put your tongue through the hole from a lost tooth, you’ll grow a gold tooth.”
Have any lies you believed as a child? Let us know in the comments!
Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
