It’s their superpower. That’s what Marlee told Margot. And all the cartoons of the 80s and 90s came flooding back to me. Seeing mice nonchalantly walk into a herd of elephants that were sent shrieking away, sometimes picking up their baggy skin folds and tiptoeing swiftly away like prima ballerinas. Kids have such blind faith. They just believe whatever they see.

It got me thinking about all of the things we used to believe as kids. If you cross your eyes too hard, they’ll freeze like that. If you swallow a watermelon seed, a watermelon will grow in your stomach. If you step on a crack, you’ll break your mama’s back. (Maybe we weren’t convinced of that one but we believed it enough to be aware of all those sidewalk lines!)

I polled Instagram for things they used to believe as kids and got some hilarious ones to share with you: If you sleep with a bathing suit on, you’ll get pregnant. If you run the garbage disposal and the dishwasher at the same time, it will overheat and blow up. (I think I still believe this one.) If you sleep with shoes on at night you will stop growing. Draining the bathtub made a tornado in the fairy world. Quicksand would swallow you alive in an instant. Christians were required to have an angel on top of their Christmas tree. The algae in the kiddie pool would eat you “a la the sharp-toothed tube flowers in Mario.” Some of these made me laugh right out loud.

Here’s the moral of my story: we believed things that we no longer do. We grow, we learn, we experience. Sometimes it’s education that changes our beliefs, when we realize we just didn't have the facts right. (ie. that’s not how pregnancy works, even a little.) Sometimes it’s experience that changes our beliefs, when we live something out and see for ourselves that the outcome isn’t what we expected it to be. (I’d use the dishwasher/disposal example here but why don’t y’all try that out and report back. I’m sure it’ll be fine.) Maybe it’s maturity, when we see how naive we were about things we were convinced and certain of. (Fairies are magical…in childhood.)

We change our minds. We change our beliefs. And not only is it not a big deal, but it’s expected of us! Can you imagine if the entire world walked around trying to avoid cracks in the sidewalk?! We’d bump off of each other, jumping around erratically like Grandpa Joe emerging from that bed of four. We say “I used to think this but now I think that and here’s why.” Or, sometimes, “I used to believe this but I don’t anymore. And I don’t really have anything to point to for the reason why, I just don’t.” Sometimes it’s a feeling and sometimes it’s hard to put into words.

Sometimes you get pushback for changing your beliefs. Especially when it comes to religion, people groups, politics or history. Anything that has been deemed certain or factual will most likely result in pushback when you start digging in and taking a second look at things. Don't let that discourage you. It’s only the brave who are willing to lay down their pride and admit they have more to learn. It’s not easy to examine foundational principles you’ve probably - likely - built other beliefs on top of, but it’s also not wrong. So don’t let anyone lead you to believing otherwise.

The next time you feel shut down for questioning, just remember, you can’t pregnant from a bathing suit.