Tv and movies when I was a kid had themes that terrified me.
The first irrational fear was quicksand. There were so many dramatic moments in Westerns and jungle movies where someone falls into quicksand. And slowly sinks below the surface.
I wouldn’t walk through puddles on the way to school after seeing a few of those.
Newspapers had stories of guerilla fighters causing death and chaos. I felt so much better when I found out that gorillas and guerillas are different things.
Then the news and shows like David Suzuki’s The Nature of Things had me believing that acid rain was going to burn the skin off us in the future.
Next up was shark attacks. I gave up swimming in the ocean for a good number of years after Jaws.
And the commercials and public service announcements on tv for War Amps had me avoiding heavy equipment.
Also, while “stop drop and roll” when on fire has no doubt saved countless lives, I really believed that catching on fire was going to be a far more common occurrence than the zero times it’s happened to me in my adult life.
What childhood fears did you have that never really materialized?
