Growing up I used to think everyone went to jail..

[katreedus]

I’m in the same boat, and sometimes I find myself watching jail shorts and going “thats a good tip.” Before being like “wait a damn minute”

[longrangeirons]

Working as a deputy in a jail I’ve learned how super common it is for some people to just be in and out of jail. Like their whole family will come at least once a year for various stuff and it’s super normal to them. Blew my mind having never known anyone who went to jail. Parents who normalize jail are setting their kids up for failure

[silablack]

When I was a kid, I used to think the same because I (and for real) actually believed that being a Super Villain was an actual profession and wanted to pursue it as an adult.

[Dathiscertain]

I didn’t realize how common it was to have a dad lmao

[kristyhoyt]

It’s crazy when we have the realizations that our childhood wasn’t normal.

[NomNomGirl]

Yes kids shows always had a jail episode for some reason

[nattie]

Realizing that verbal abuse is not acceptable and finding out that there are lots of people in the world who WON'T continuously criticise you 😢

[luca]

As a kid I thought everyone's dads worked until really late... I'd wait awake in bed for mine to get home around 1 am so I could at least see him. He'd be asleep in the morning, I'd have to leave for school, and he'd be gone by the time I got back. I remember being super confused whenever I'd go over to a friend's and their dads were home, having dinner with them and chilling. I only saw mine on sundays, it was the highlight of my week!

[CrustyUgg]

Going to prison saved my life. I was a heroin, fentanyl and crack addict for about 10 years. In 2019 I went to prison and when I got there that night I found out I was pregnant. After having my first sober thoughts in 10+ years, I decided I was going to keep my child and turn my life around. My son turned 4 in December and I have almost 5 years sober. Luckily, I was only six weeks along when I found out so prison also saved my son's life. I didn't have any morning sickness or swelling or breast tenderness or anything. I didn't even really start showing until I was five or six months along so if I hadn't been arrested, and if I hadn't gone to prison that night, I don't know how far along I would've been when I finally found out I was pregnant.

[isabellab-c]

Growing up I thought it was normal for parents to not be very romantic and sleep separately. I didn't really understand the concept of romantic relationships or marriage, because in my mind marriage was pretty much just roommates with a kid, which is what my parents were.
My parents did love each other, but they just fell out of romantic love, and didn't want me to grow up being split between two households or parents.
I understand why they chose to live the way they did, but I do think it's given me a distorted view of marriage and relationships even now that I understand they weren't actually together anymore.
Also, finding out that my dad was having relationships with other women outside of his "marriage" with my mum (they were still legally husband and wife) really changed the way I saw him, especially since my mum said she had still remained faithful to him and had been really hurt to find out he wasn't, even if she could understand why.

[jeanneelizabethsimons]

I know what you're saying is much more serious, but I had a bit of a similar shocker about depression. In a work discussion, I mentioned that it was normal to be depressed for three weeks at a time. I was informed that it was not. My record is, unfortunately, now far longer than that.

[julia.carr]

My older brother was in and out and my parents were SUPER strick with me cuz i "didnt want to end up like him" turns out, wearing a tank top wont land me in jail. I guess they didnt understand that i just naturally dont have a desire to rob gas stations, drive drunk, assault or run from officers or skip court 🤷🏻‍♀️

[emorainbow]

I didn't realize families actually like and care about each other

[bellyfulochelly]

Oh yeah that makes so much sense.
This is exactly what I felt about teen pregnancy when I was a little girl growing up in the hood. Like a pregnancy was just something you caught, like you just woke up one day, and you notice the bubble...welp, here we go! I was so nervous for my turn to come around lol

[berlyn]

It’s nice to see something once in a while that shows me, heck, my childhood really could have been worse

[pinkdiamond]

For a really long time I thought the same thing about foster care.
I thought that every kid has foster parents who they just went to live with for a while for some reason and it wasn't until I was 13 when I made a Facebook post about how I got back from visiting my foster parents and got a load of questions from my classmates that I realised it wasn't normal.

[CiciDisconnected]

When I was 5 I thought they didn’t feed the people in prison 💀

[autumnequinox]

It's easier than a lot of people think. However, its definitely NOT normal for it to be happening all the time. It sucks when you realize that some kids where raised that way. Parents always in and out of jail.

[bellesimmer]

I realized as an adult that it’s not normal to have memories of being 3 or 4 and no one coming out of their room to feed me but being so hungry in the morning. Crazy what therapy will make you realize about your childhood.

[babyree]

And this is how people get caught in the “cycle”. 😢 so sad. Happy to see you’re not in it though ❤