# At what age do we lose interest in our childhood photos and why **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 10, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210 "2021-01-10T22:24:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Nansbread1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Nansbread1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nansbread1)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/1 "2021-01-10T22:24:40Z")
By childhood I mean ages 1 day to 10 years old. I am in my late 50s and have no interest whatsoever in the few photos of me at that age. I catalogue and store all my other photos and those of my children from their childhood, but my own images from childhood do not interest me at all. Why is that? ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/2 "2021-01-10T23:26:33Z")
No idea. I can tell you that it’s not universal, this phenomenon. ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/3 "2021-01-10T23:33:00Z")
Agreed; I still enjoy looking at pictures of myself, and my family, from that age. I don’t do it _often_, but I don’t look at photos of me as a teenager, or in my 20s or 30s, that often, either. Perhaps a better question for the OP is, “I have no interest whatsoever in looking at photos of me from 1 day to 10 years old. Am I unusual in this regard? And, why don’t I have any interest in those pictures?” Also, to the OP: do you have many (or even any) memories from when you were that young? Speaking for myself, I’ve discovered that I have fragmentary memories going back to age 2 or 3 (when I’ve described those memories to my parents, they have told me that those memories seem to be accurate depictions of locations and events), and pretty solid memories from when I was age 5 or so, onwards…but in talking with friends and relatives, it seems like I may have more memories than others from that age. If you don’t remember much, if anything, of your early childhood, that may be why photos from that age don’t interest you ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/4 "2021-01-10T23:33:25Z")
Never lost interest in childhood photos. Not that I view them often, but I often reflect back on where I was, what I was doing and thinking. ---
**Author:** ![Si\_Amigo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/si_amigo/32/2877_2.png) [@Si\_Amigo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Si_Amigo)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2021, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/5 "2021-01-10T23:37:59Z")
I still look at mine, usually around the holidays with family and it occurs to me what a long strange trip its been. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/6 "2021-01-11T03:16:55Z")
All of my childhood and most other family photos were lost long ago. I had not thought about if I’d lost interest, but I guess I have since it’s never bothered me much that they were gone. I have a smattering of photos in my 20s and some in my 30s on up, but those are all stored in Bangkok now. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/7 "2021-01-11T12:14:07Z")
The only time I may have lost interest is when I was entering teen years and didn’t want to see myself as so young, but that ended in the teens as I gained a sense of myself. Just curious how does the OP feel about children in general? ---
**Author:** ![Keeve](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f07891/32.png) [@Keeve](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keeve)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/8 "2021-01-11T12:59:49Z")
Regardless of your interest in those photos, keep the next generations in mind. If you have kids now, or might in the future, they will certainly be interested. And then their kids, and so on. Just last week, my grandchildren were fascinated by baby pictures of my grandmother and her siblings. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/9 "2021-01-11T14:05:53Z")
Just the opposite here - when I was in my late 50’s I inherited all my dad’s photo collection which had never seen the light of day for several decades. It was more of a nostalgia trip, what cars looked like, what my parents and grandparents, uncles etc. looked like over the years. It also gave me something to do digitizing all those pictures, especially black and white pics from the 1950’s. But I suppose that was because I had never seen these - they mostly got packed away during moves and never unpacked. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/10 "2021-01-11T14:20:55Z")
This is more suited to IMHO than GQ. Moved. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/11 "2021-01-11T14:29:50Z")
My mom just passed away, and the one thing I asked for was the album of my childhood photos. I’m in my 50s. I’m not sure your experience is universal. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/12 "2021-01-11T14:40:10Z")
I don’t really have any (many) pictures from my childhood. Apparently my phone back then had a lousy camera. ---
**Author:** ![TRC4941](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trc4941/32/6792_2.png) [@TRC4941](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TRC4941)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/13 "2021-01-11T14:43:31Z")
I love looking at childhood photos. I like to study the fashions, the backgrounds (furniture, etc), I like to try to remember the day it was taken. I also love looking at my mom’s and dad’s childhood photos. It’s all history, things that will be forgotten if there weren’t any pictures. We are a picture-taking family. My mom has volumes of photo albums going back to when her parents and my dad’s parents were just married (30s). I also have MANY photo albums of my kids’ lives. Family photos are precious to me. I would be devastated if something happened to them. ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/14 "2021-01-11T14:48:48Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > My mom just passed away, and the one thing I asked for was the album of my childhood photos. I’m sorry for your loss. When my mom died a few years ago, my sister wanted all the pictures. It seemed really important to her, so I didn’t object. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/15 "2021-01-11T14:50:55Z")
I remember the exact day I quit playing with toys. It was like a switch turning off. I remember the day I knew I liked girls _in that way_. it was like a switch turning on. But I’m 59 and I still look at old photos. I hope that “switch” never turns, ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/16 "2021-01-11T14:51:42Z")
I’ve spent the last year scanning 1000’s of photos going back to my great grandparents. I look at them every week. It’s certainly not a universal thing. BTW, I’m closing in on 60. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/17 "2021-01-11T22:14:04Z")
I’m waiting for the switch to flip and make me _start_ having an interest in looking at photographs. I’ve got an entire shelfload of photo albums that my mom has assembled for me because she’s into such things. I’ve never opened any of them. However I keep them because I have this nagging suspicion that at some point I’ll suddenly want to look at them, even though I have never felt any urge like that to date. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/18 "2021-01-11T22:17:16Z")
I only asked for the album with mostly me, and promised to make copies of any pictures my sibs wanted. I can’t imagine taking them all. ---
**Author:** ![carrps](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carrps/32/2957_2.png) [@carrps](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carrps)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2021, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/19 "2021-01-11T22:43:40Z")
> [@md-2000](#): > > Just the opposite here - when I was in my late 50’s I inherited all my dad’s photo collection which had never seen the light of day for several decades. It was more of a nostalgia trip, what cars looked like, what my parents and grandparents, uncles etc. looked like over the years. My mom moved thousands of miles away from her family when she was in her twenties. I hardly saw any of her early pictures until one of my cousins started scanning and emailing them. There was one of a bunch of us cousins when my family went back for a summer vacation when I was 11. It was fun to send it to some of friends and ask them to pick me out. I was surprised at how many got it wrong! As for the fashions, I have a snap of my older sister, me, and our family dachshund when I was 3-ish and my sister was 4-ish. The crazy hat I’m wearing in that pic cracks me up, so I’ve framed it and have it in my living room. ---
**Author:** ![Brayne\_Ded](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Brayne\_Ded](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brayne_Ded)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2021, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210/20 "2021-01-12T15:02:15Z")
I never looked at mine for maybe 40 years. I knew they were, and I remembered them, but I had no burning desire to see them again. This changed after a house fire in 2011, and I then had to work on finding out what was still left. I am still working on it, since I want to make an archival photo record of the family. Since neither I nor my siblings had kids, it is in a sense a way to be remembered. My cousin is also interested in doing this project, and we have found that there is very little indeed to remember some of our ancestors by. Maybe just one old and perhaps slightly faded photo, usually a studio portrait. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/at-what-age-do-we-lose-interest-in-our-childhood-photos-and-why/930210.md?page=2)