12 Remarkable Kids Who View the World Through Their Own Lens

For kids, the world is full of new experiences, and it takes time for them to grasp certain things. There are plenty of moments when they misinterpret situations or don’t fully understand how things work until they grow a little older. But watching them learn and figure things out is part of what makes parenting so special.

• I was five years old when my dad remarried, but no one explained to me what a stepmother was. One day, I walked into the kitchen and saw my dad give her a quick kiss. My eyes widened, and I burst into tears. “Dad! You can’t date my babysitter! What if she quits? Who’s gonna make my pancakes?!”
  Apparently, I thought that my new stepmom was just a really nice babysitter who cooked me dinner and read bedtime stories. It took a while, but I eventually accepted that my “babysitter” wasn’t leaving anytime soon.

• My stepdaughter was getting ready to go to a baby shower. Her 5 y.o. daughter was being uncooperative, so she told her, “We’re gonna be late for the baby shower.” 5 y.o. replied, “Why do we have to go? Can’t they wash their own baby?” © onegroovychic / Reddit

• My mom always told me, “The sooner you fall asleep, the sooner the morning comes.” I thought that if one person decided to stay up all night, the morning would be postponed for everyone. © kimininegaiwo / Reddit

• My dream job as a child was to be a supermarket cashier, as I assumed they got to take home all the money in the till at the end of the day. © ghibligirlgamer / Reddit

• I genuinely did not understand why my mom wouldn’t take the time to drive to the end of a rainbow for that pot of gold to fix her money problems. I thought people were just too lazy to go get all this free gold at the end of every rainbow. I would get so mad when my mom laughed off this idea. © Typicalgirl19 / Reddit

• I was out with my aunt when she casually commented that she had just lost her fingernail. We had just stepped out of the car when it happened, so she started to look for it on the ground. I was mortified and started searching frantically, baffled at how calm she was, and wondering what she would even do with it if she got it back. I didn’t know that fake nails were a thing. © cakeandbeer / Reddit

• My mother used to tell me, “If you don’t wash behind your ears, potatoes will grow.” As a kid, I thought my body was like a vegetable garden, and I could grow my own vegetables. So, I would go days without showering and told my parents, “It’s good for the economy if I grow my own food. Fertilizer helps plants grow and smells, so why shouldn’t I?” © Silerphix / Reddit

• I thought my paternal grandpa was also my mom’s dad. I never met her dad because he died before I was born. © ***_Blow / Reddit

• When I was 7, I took 3 eggs out of my grandmother’s fridge, then proceeded to place them in a “nest” made of clothes in a drawer. I was trying to hatch chicks myself. She stopped me an hour after, or else there would’ve been rotten eggs in her drawers. © cmu6 / Reddit

• My mom taught me how to make instant coffee. I misheard “a level teaspoon” as “eleven teaspoons” and subsequently made my mom THE strongest coffee she’d ever had. © Zerek_Doolander / Reddit

• I thought that I would grow up to be a hedgehog. I was obsessed with hedgehogs and took “you can be whatever you want when you grow up!” a little too literally. © sherlock2040 / Reddit

• I always believed chocolate milk came from a camel. They are brown, live in a brown-ish environment, and instead of having udders on the bottom like a cow, they have them on top. It made so much sense to me, I believed it until I was 13. © sander1095 / Reddit

Raising kids comes with its fair share of challenges, even if it sometimes seems effortless from the outside. Dive into the realities of parenting with 15+ Parents Who Know Firsthand That Children Are Not a Beautiful Picture but Hard Work.