Childhood misperceptions

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Aurelia

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When I was little, whenever I saw a statue of st. Anthony of Padua holding the Child Jesus, I thought St. Anthony was little Jesus’ baby sitter. After all, when my parents wanted to go out to the movies, they’d leave me with my grandparents. So I thought that when Mary and Joseph wanted to go to the Nazareth Bijou, they left little Jesus with St. Anthony.
What did you believe as a child?
 
I thought that a waistline was an actual line drawn around your waist. My mom would lament about her expanding waistline, and as I was a fairly literal child, I assumed that there would be a physical line. I remember working myself up into tears when I realized that there was no line around my waist. I thought I was defective. :o
 
I thought I might be the next mother of Jesus. I survived a serious childhood illness and my mom told me that I must have an important mission. I knew Jesus was coming back, so I thought, “hey, what is more important than that?”

I was really disappointed when I learned that Jesus was coming back as he left in the Ascension.

Also, as a kid, I thought should probably keep a journal so when I was famous some day, my biographers wouldn’t have to guess about my childhood thoughts/events. Isn’t that funny?
 
My younger Brother thought the Statue of St. Catherine Laboure was a Statue of the “Flying Nun”.
 
I thought the priest celebrating Mass was God. After Mass one Sunday as my father was shaking the Father’s hand I blurted out “are you God?” He just chuckled and said no.
I can remember thinking that, and I can remember the incident but I can’t remember what that answer meant to me.
 
When I was quite young, I had some interesting ideas about what we were singing in Church. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the mass part…

Lasagna in the highest!

Despite my home parish being Italian (I’m not), I’m fairly sure that most of the parishioners were not worshipping pasta, even if I was. (No, I have never confessed this obvious violation of the 1st commandment.) Clearly, I learned the mass parts by hearing them, and hosanna was not a word in my vocabulary. Thus, when trying to match what I was hearing to words I knew, the only one that was close was lasagna.
 
I had a very literal interpretation of “We lift up our hearts to the Lord.” I remember sitting in mass and picturing God at a big assembly line of paper hearts, one of which had my name on it, Annie, and he picked up each heart and inspected it as they went by.

On a non-religious note, I also had a serious fear that I had sprung a leak because once when I was looking at my tongue in the mirror, spit popped out of my mouth. I was terrified to go to the doctor’s office the next week for my checkup because I was afraid he’d have to do surgery to repair my “hole.”
 
Hmm… Maybe St. Anthony could also be the Patron St. of babysitters.

I thought that babies were born out of a womans belly button.

I thought sperm slithered across the bed and invaded a woman while she slept. It scared the heck outta me! I thought it was creepy! I thought they were smart and knew who she was, like they had a mind of their own! That was until I was in 5th grade. Something actually does a mind of it’s own but…

Anyway,
The Our Father confused me because I thought it said “Our Father who* aren’t* in Heaven.” I would change it to “is or lives”

The confessional in our church was shaped like a tunnel, it was dark and the walls were red. I think it went under a stairwell. All I would see were these glowing red walls when people opened teh door to walk in. I thought that the devil lived in there. I went with my mom to confession and my grandma sat with me as she went in by herself. I was terrified! Another time she took me in with her and I thought I was going to see the devil :eek: and as we turned the corner I saw our priest sitting there. I was so confused. I thought you were supposed to go in there and battle the devil. I guess in reality we are, but not in the way my 3 year old mind thought.

When I was in 3 year old Sunday school class, we had a small convent at our parish back then. (1978) We went to visit the nuns and they gave us each a cookie. I put an extra one in my pocket for my little sister. After Mass we were walking to our car and I said "Mommy today we went to the nums house and I got this cookie for Sissy. She chuckled at me calling then nums and thought it was sweet that I was williing to take an extra cookie for my little sister. I was insulted that she laughed at me calling then nums. I can clearly remember saying "MOMMY, they are called NUMBS because the hats they wear make their heads NUMB! They wear then to show they love JESUS! They love Him so much they don’t even care if their heads are numb…

At age 3 or 4 I thought when people said “tornado” they were really saying “torn tomato” I envisioned tomatos exploding in the sky and tomato juice everywhere. Any time I saw anythign about ppl throwing rotton tomatoes I thougth it was a “torntomato” I figured it out around age five, when my mom explained it to me.

I loved clowns when I was little because of a captain kangaroo episode about a clown going to the dentist. Anyway. I wanted to grow up to be a clown… seriously. Only problem is I didn’t realize that clowns wore makup, I thought that if I said I was going to grow up to be a clown that I would just start to look like that naturally. I thought that whatever kids wanted to be when they grew up that they just became that, not knowing that there was training involved, etc. So I just imagined my skin would turn white, my hair would turn bright red and curly and my nose woudl turn into a big red ball. Seriously, and I was actually ok with that.
 
When I was three, I watched the Brady Bunch every day. I wanted them to come live with me. I thought that if I broke the tv by hitting it with my blue whiffle ball bat that they would come out and be my brothers and sisters. I loved the girls’ room. Mine had dark wood panelling for walls. I figured that my room wasn’t good enough for Jan, Marsha and Cindy, so I took a pink crayon and tried to color my whole room pink. I spent a few days waiting for all the kids to be on the screen at the same time without any adults. I must have grown tired of waiting and moved onto the next great plan, because I never did hit the tv with my blue whiffle ball bat.

I loved Batman and the Incredible Hulk. I watched both of them on tv. I always wanted to be batman, and the fact that I was a girl didn’t seem to register… While my sister was choosing Daisy Duke and Wonderwoman Underroos, I was looking for Batman. My grandma said that they only make Batman for boys. I said "OK then I want incredible hulk under roos. She said they only made those for boys. I honestly thought that we would eventually find them for girls if I waited long enough. I never did own any underroos. OH well. I was a bit of a tomboy in the early years! Now I would rather *date *batman. I married a real life super hero. He is on a mission right now. Flying cargo into Iraq! He dresses a more like GI Joe, though. At least he flies and has lots of gadgets…
 
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urbana:
When I was quite young, I had some interesting ideas about what we were singing in Church. I’m sure you’re all familiar with the mass part…

Lasagna in the highest!

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OH MY GOODNESS! When we were kids our choir woud do the “Sing hosannah,” and my sister thought they were saying “Sing lasagna” We still joke about that in our family!
 
JMJ Theresa:
I
Also, as a kid, I thought should probably keep a journal so when I was famous some day, my biographers wouldn’t have to guess about my childhood thoughts/events. Isn’t that funny?
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I did the same thing. I kept a very detailed journal for the same reason. I also used to practice being on Johnny Carson and do a pretend interview. As I got older (11 or so) I started noticing how the ladies would walk on in slinky dresses and cross their sexy legs, So I would put on my tightest skirt and “heels,” if theywere tall enough to be called that, and practice walking on stage and crossing my legs. 🙂
 
little brother asked, because we responded to dominus vobiscum, “et cum spiritu tuo” if that was God’s phone number.
 
My mother once said something was “loud enough to wake the dead.” That scared the daylights out of me: I had visions of the dead crawling out of their graves in the cemetery to the west of us and marching zombie-like into town.
 
For the first nine to ten years of my life we went to a church whose pastor had a speech impediment. It wasn’t until we moved and started attending a different church that I realized the words to the Consecration were “When supper was ended” and NOT “When supper was in there” (referring to the chalice!)

My husband used to believe that all video tapes were the same. You would write on the label what you wanted to see, and it would show you that movie.

My cousin thought that bottle corks came from the stalks of mushrooms.

The 3-yr old girl who my son and I used to sit with at daily Mass thought my son was Baby Moses.
 
I grew up in a Chicago neighborhood populated by many immigrants of my grandparents’ generation. My own grandparents came from Italy and Lithuania. I assumed that when a person got old, he’d start speaking with a foreign acdent. I was quite surprised when a friend’s gramdmother came to visit and was speaking perfect English.
 
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Aurelia:
When I was little, whenever I saw a statue of st. Anthony of Padua holding the Child Jesus, I thought St. Anthony was little Jesus’ baby sitter. After all, when my parents wanted to go out to the movies, they’d leave me with my grandparents. So I thought that when Mary and Joseph wanted to go to the Nazareth Bijou, they left little Jesus with St. Anthony.
What did you believe as a child?
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That has GOT to be the cutest story ever!!!
 
I was under the very serious impression for many years that inthe US Navy, when its submariners wish to do laundry, they trail it on lines from the hydroplanes and DIVE!!!

I was set very straight a few years ago by a friend when I brought this up during a viewing of The Hunt for Red October.

:o

My father was in the Navy (Reactor Technician of some sort on the USS Enterprise, 1982 - 87), and I fear he may have told me that story when I was too young to know any better :o
 
My two brothers and I were Altar Boys. I became an Alter Boy at the youngest age, which I think was 3rd grade back then. I went to a Catholic school. My Mom insisted that we remain Alter Boys until we left high school. Since I was the youngest, my older brothers liked to fill my head with all sorts of junk. They told me that an Alter Boy was a Priest in training. I thought that I had no choice in the matter. They told me that Mom had sold us to the Catholic Church and that once she raised us through high school, we had to leave and go become Priests! It wasn’t until about 5th grade that I finally found the courage to tell my parents that I wasn’t sure I wanted to become a Priest. Once the whole story was out, my Dad laughed harder than I had ever heard. Then he punished my older brothers and it was my turn to laugh. I got over it. 🙂
 
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