What was something that you thought was amazing as a kid but was actually a little/lot messed up?

[19magic]

One thing that comes to mind is diet coke. So my mother would never let me have any, not even a mouthful (around 6/7 at the time), and she brought it a lot. But she would never empty the 2L bottle, there was always some left over sometimes it was about half a teaspoon, other times she would reward me and give me a finger's worth, she used to make it so exciting. "Mummy's letting you have her dregs, remember I could have drank it all myself, but I saved some for you," I was so happy that she thought of me and saved me some. I remember keeping a bottle (small 500ml) in my wardrobe and over the course of two, maybe three months I would save all the dregs and it would be a full bottle. Over the course of a week I'd slowly drink that bottle, so proud that I had my very own bottle of coke.

When in actuality the reason she didn't drink it was cause its gone flat and she hated flat coke. She also brought a bottle every 2-4 days and it still took months to fill another bottle. I remember one time telling my dad about my achievement, and he got soo pissed and at the time I just couldn't understand why. But when he went into the shop and said I can pick whatever bottle of drink I liked, I gasped and said really? I still didn't believe it at first cause there's been so many times my mother said I can pick something out, then got to the till and said sorry baby I can't afford your drink or sausage roll, (while still affording to buy a pack of 20 fags and her 2L coke of course).

[Lliam]

When I was growing up, our next door neighbor had a flowering bush next to our driveway. An insect we called "H bees" loved it.

They aren't actually bees and can't sting or bite.
I didn't come up with the idea, I was little, but we would catch them and sometimes tie a piece of monofilament around their necks, hold the other end of the string, and walk around with a flying insect as if it was a pet. It always turned out fatal for the poor H bee.
I eventually realized that torturing them was a bad thing to do.

A friend had an ant farm.

We lived near an open field with ant mounds. He populated his ant farm with ants that he caught in the field.
Sometimes we would put a different species of ants in the ant farm and watch the two species fight.
Again, pretty messed up when I grew up and thought about it.

[AmeerX]

As a kid, we were led to believe that Doctors and Engineers are the best. Then when I grew up I realized that the Master is an economist. Someone who can understand and control the economy gets to rule it. Glad I was wrong about it in my childhood

[Kelly6]

Being a doctor.

I thought it’s nice, but doctors life is very hard busy and full of stress

[Kelly6]

thanks for MHO

[DryGermanGuy]

American 1980s TV series. Many are so badly done, with one-dimensional characters, silly stories and questionable messages.

[AviatorTom]

As a kid, I thought driving fast was cool. I've learned that it's dangerous... and dumb.

[jimmy2]

A big ass woman scared the hell out of me thinking she would sit on me

[DerekC321]

I used to play doctor with a neighbor.