Childhood amnesia - will my daughter remember what she remembers now?

Factual Questions
41

My parents never spoke of it, but as a baby I was farmed out to the cleaning lady to raise or babysit. I was told there were no baby pictures of me because I looked the same as my four older sisters, and my mother would get angry when asked to remember anything specific about me as a baby.

As part of a school project, I rifled through a shoebox of family photographs. There I discovered the only baby pictures of me were on a couch with a man I did not know, propped up with pillows as I could not sit up yet. There were later photos on the same couch when I was able to sit up alone, and a picture of me sitting erect amongst a cluster of forest creature lawn ornaments. I recognized this scene.

One statue was a fawn laying down, and I remember reaching out to grab its ear and being deeply disappointed that it was cold and hard rather than warm and soft. I have no idea why a nine month old baby expected it to be warm and soft.

Prior to finding the photograph, I often recalled the memory, and even had dreams about it, but had no frame of reference to place it. As a child, I went traipsing through the neighborhood backyards seeking that cluster of woodland creatures.

I was returned to my family before I was old enough to crawl, and I remember that I first crawled the morning after my return, and thought I stood on my own. My “stand” was actually just a crouch, because I was still looking up at the screened portion of the radiator cover, and a toddler would be taller than that.

42

There’s a good chance that many of the previous posters remember this thread, even though it’s from about 20 months ago…

43

Well he certainly wouldn’t be as fat.

44

I have all sorts of memories from when I was very young. I can’t be certain of the age since everyone I could ask is dead, and no I’m not that old that I’m senile yet (of course what else would you expect me to say, right?), but definitely down into the 1-2 y.o. range with no problem.

I remember sucking my thumb because I thought it was something I was supposed to do then being told I shouldn’t so I stopped even though I had started getting into the habit (and you thought smoking was a bitch). I don’t think I was supposed to be able to talk but my grand mother apparently realized that I could understand.

I remember running into a grass fire that had been set to clear brush because I really liked the fire (yeah, yeah, issues, take a number) and almost getting trapped. This was well before pre-school.

I remember writing my name backwards and upside down because I wanted to show my father who was across the table. this was before kindergarten and the family thought i was fucked but they just didn’t realize what I was trying to do. I could have written it normally and then flipped the paper over, but that seemed like the long way around at the time - stupid adults.

Of course I did suffer serious neurological damage at age 7 which probably isn’t too surprising at this point in my monolog so I suppose some memories may have “frozen” to use the technical term.

45

I argued for 20 years with my mom over the age of an early memory.

The final time I recounted it aloud, she said "The sun couldn’t shine in your window in the afternoon because there was a screen of trees on that side of the trailer. And suddenly, she realized that it was possible several years before that, because our house was in another part of the yard and turned 90 degrees.

And it was a memory of no account. I had simply been placed in my crib for an afternoon nap.

I remember the afternoon sunlight casting orange over everything, but I had no concept of sun, or window, or wall, nor crib, nor of time. I vividly remember just looking at the world and not thinking about it… about anything. I remember scanning along the wall. There was a cross on the wall, but like all the rest, it just was. It wasn’t even a separate object, it was just part of the world.

It is my most cherished memory, a slice of life in the non verbal world. There were no discrete objects in my perception.

46

We moved from an apartment to a single-family house when I was somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3. I remember playing in the old backyard, and that our neighbor was an old man who talked funny, and one day I had a sucker, and he said “Hey, kid’s got a pipe”. I also recall walking down the sidewalk next to our building picking up plastic bags with my mother. I have a very vague recollection of playing with a neighbor kid there, and he was wearing sunglasses and I couldn’t understand him. (Muuuch later, my dad told me that that family spoke Spanish). I also remember saying that our new house was smaller than our old house, but that one could have been conflated with a story told to me later.

I have two fairly vivid memories of my great-grandmother, who died right after my second birthday. Once, I grabbed her hair and was startled that it moved (wig). Then there was an incident where she was taking me on a bus, and I had a hard time getting in. I think the door to the bus was at least as high as my knee.

47

That is bizarre indeed. Perhaps the “everything is bad and weird about this day” cemented it. We’re you making a comment that your Mom remembered the day also (obviously), or that she remembers you mentioning this memory to her later and she confirming it?

Coincidentally, my earliest memory, from age four, is also on that day: that the TV was strangely showing only horses with carriages on every channel. Or that it was strange that the TV would have the same thing on every channel (ie the technology), and it just happened to be horses and carriages.

The next are less clear, but are also of emotions: the second esrliest (because i looked up the dates–I had to get a lot of blood drawn at the time–is crying so hard at a doctor’s office (not this memory), but the memory of my father’s hurt and sad face when he looked at his tear-stained tie, when he said something about having to go to work with that tie.

(Interesting psychological analysis could be pulled from that…)

The next memory is of being pulled out of line by Mrs. Lane in second grade because some girl tattle-tailed on me. And then I remember having a good time at my seventh birthday party.

48

Beautiful story. God bless that you can return to that place when things get rough in your life.

49

Thank you. It is indeed a refuge.

Ironically though, I consider it a factor in my non belief. If that cross, which was surely blessed, had been special in any way, I had the clarity of mind, the innocence, and the purity of spirit to have noticed. It was merely a feature between two windows. As a child remembering that event, I wondered why it didn’t stand out as special. It was disappointing.

I mean, there was no wall, no window, no curtains, no crib, no cross. The sunlight wasn’t orange, nor a glow, it all just was. All those things were there, they simply did not have identities.

My memory is a personal anecdote, but satisfactory personal proof that babies are only perceptive of the material world. I had no special connection to the divine if it exists. It was quiet and relaxed, and that was it. No angels sang.

I don’t remember feeling sleepy, but I must have fallen asleep right after looking around.

50

That’s my experience- I remember some things from my very early childhood, but the things I remember are NOT all that exciting! The things my Mom hopes/expects me to remember from my toddler days are never the things I actually remember.

My son, who’s now 9, has absolutely no memory of his grandmother, who died when he was just shy of 3. But he remembers small, odd things from that same time period that I never would have thought were memorable.

51

I have many vivid memories from when I was 2 - 5 years old, but like WhyNot said, they are mostly random. I also have a ton of strong memories from the rest of my childhood. Some people I know barely remember grade school; for me personally, I can recall more about 4th grade than I can about 9th or 10th.

Though my most intense early memories are around the time of my brother’s death and funeral, a few months before my 4th birthday, and I imagine because it was such an emotionally charged time for everyone. But they are still kind of random - I don’t remember finding out he was dead, though I was there when my mother did and she has told me what I said and did many times, and I don’t remember the actual funeral. But I remember getting a helium condolence balloon from the hospital, which I cherished, and that the neighbor kids were responsible for me losing it, and how furious and upset about it I was. And I remember exactly what I was watching on tv and what I was doing and feeling, while we were waiting to leave my aunt’s house before the funeral. Like it was yesterday.

Almost all my random early memories have been partially confirmed by my parents at a much later date, so I know I’m not just imagining things. I guess I have a fairly good long-term memory, which goes a little bit farther back than some peoples. I was also a very precocious, highly verbal child from a very early age, and an early reader, so that may have something to do with it.

52

I remember (what I believe) was my first helium balloon.

Damn. You had to bring that up. :mad:

:wink:

53

I remember rough-hosing with Timmy on a picnic table, and falling off, and although I was hurt, what I was most worried about was that Timmy would get into trouble and we wouldn’t be allowed to play together anymore, but the next day he came over with some Tonka trucks. Those two snatches of memory from successive days would be when I was three.

54

I have no problem with claims of early-childhood memories. Mine go back to age 2 and before; the house we lived in, being frightened by a bulldog barking at me, looking through the living-room window with my mother at a thunderstorm, moving to another house when I was 2.

I remember kindergarten, some of the other kids and their names, along with all my teachers’ names from kindergarten on up through high school. My memories are positively crowded from age 5 onward.

55

I suspect that to remember an early experience, it had to have been sufficiently unusual to make it stand out, and unique, so it didn’t get overridden by other similar events.

For example, our first day at school would meet the first criteria, but not the second, because it would be blurred by the hundreds of other days at school.

Back in 1947, when I was four, my father, an army officer, was posted to Freetown, West Africa. My mother, my sister and I followed by sea sometime later. I clearly remember being taken to a big (to me) old Victorian hospital and people sticking needles in me. I was vaccinated and inoculated against every disease for which there was one, and my arms and bottom were numb for days. However I do not remember the voyage, which must have been tremendously exciting at the time, but got blurred by many others later on.

56

I believe that all things are spiritual … she probably has a spirit helping her remember for the brain is just a funny place for spirits to remind us of things that we have forgotten.

That’s why they put some people into a trance to talk to them about what they remember.

Oswald Chambers says that the brain is just for processing thoughts and that it is the heart that gives us the inspiration.

Don’t forget that 90% of a child’s personality is formed by the time he or she is five years old.

I can never forget a cow chasing me home when the sun was going down back in Texas when I was just four years old, but that’s how memory works …

all things are spiritual :slight_smile:

57

I suppose a thread about memories deserves a necropost.

I’m surprised by anyone who says they can’t remember before age 7. I have a huge set of memories from then. We moved just after I turned 7, so I can say with certainty about that. Of course, most of them can no longer be corroborated since nobody else would have thoght the events were memorable. Some were, though.

My earliest memory is when I needed stitches in my forehead, which allegedly happened at age 3. I remember who was babysitting, how I hurt myself, and that the doctor was a woman (and I though she was very pretty, with black hair). I remember her jabbing my head quickly a number of times with a syringe (or something), and it hurt but was so fast I didn’t react. I remember that she drizzled anesthetic into the wound first, and then pressing the needle in to inject it (which didn’t really hurt). And getting the stitches (just 2 or 3), and the “butterfly” bandage on top. Pretty detailed, though no doubt modified by time.

About age 4 I remember getting a knot in my shoestring & asking a neighbor to fix it. She did and explained “Always pull the short string to untie!” I thought about that and figured it didn’t make sense, unless one loop was missing.

My mom once told me when she first figured I was smarter than average. My dad’s belt was somehow messed up; she and her mom couldn’t figure it out. I said “Let me try” and fixed it pronto. They were amazed. According to her, she asked me how I figured it out and I said “There were clues.” However, MY recollection doesn’t include that part, but does include the fact that I had been the one fiddling with the belt (feeding it through the buckle &c) and messed it up in the first place. That might be my earliest memory of intentionally dissembling. :wink:

I remember the first time my brother stood by himself. I can still see the joy on his little face, just where it was, etc. I would have been 5.

I remember the time I had an “accident” at age 4 and had been too interested in something and just didn’t quite make it to the john on time. I remember my father being annoyed at me for that at my age, and my mother saying something mollifying. I was mortified, of course.

I remember the time everyone was riding 2-wheel bikes in the neighborhood, all at once, like a super bike party, but I had only a 3-wheeler. My folks said "You have a bike to ride! but I wasn’t interested. Shortly after that a blue Schwinn 24-incher appeared. Can’t say what age, but probably 6. I was not an “early biker”.

I remember playing with my older sister and the older kids, and neighbor kid Bud said “Let’s play a new game! You wait here and count until we come get you!” I have no idea how high I counted, but I remember lying on the front lawn, looking at the sky, and counting for a long time. My mother came out and asked what I was doing so I told her, and she just laughed and said “Well, it’s time for dinner.” So, I really wasn’t that smart!

I have a lot more, though most are probably age 5 or older.

58

I have very vivid memories from the age of 2 on, and some limited memories from before that. I have always been very visual and was a really shy kid who didn’t talk much. I think I spent most of my time observing and taking things in.

59

Cool essay on this with lots of clues for further search.