People Are Sharing Their Funniest Childhood Misunderstandings

Sometimes admitting your mistakes can be hilarious

Do you ever hear something and think to yourself, “Wait. How have I not known that was actually how that was made/pronounced/worked?” It’s even worse as kids because you’re learning about everything and, well, all that new information can sometimes get confusing. And it can really be embarrassing to admit later on.

Author Jennifer Wright was reminiscing about her own childhood and some of the things that confused her as a child asked her followers if she was the only one. “What’s the weirdest thing you remember misunderstanding as a kid? I thought adultery meant ‘pretending to be an adult,'” she wrote on Twitter.

She then doubled down about her thoughts on clowns, which was only recently cleared up as an adult and may be one of the funniest things I have ever read.

Lucky for her, she was not, in fact, the only one.

I don’t know about you, but I feel a whole lot better. I have a few of these from childhood but probably the most awkward to admit is that that I thought the song, “You Make Me Feel Like A Natural Woman” was in fact, “You Make Me Feel Like A Man, I’m A Woman.” It wasn’t until college that I was corrected.

Judging by some of the other misunderstandings people had as kids (and adults), it’s a wonder we made it out of childhood without being completely scarred for life.

With all that is wrong in the world, sometimes it’s refreshing to all come together and realize how collectively weird we are. Luckily, it seems we’ve all come to a place of acceptance about our misunderstandings.

https://twitter.com/jetpack/status/971368739718467586

Of course anyone who’s a parent or spent time around a child knows they can come up with some hilarious ways of pronouncing words or hearing them incorrectly. My six-year-old still calls his slippers “flippers” and if anyone ever corrects him it will be their last day on this Earth.

That’s part of the fun of having kids, right? Being able to make fun of them behind their backs while we feel superior. This is also probably why so many of us come into adulthood never knowing we’ve been saying something wrong for decades.

Thank the lord for people like Wright whose simple question (and admission) can have us all laughing until we cry.