Shit I might be a little too young for this, but if it means correcting me and my girlfriends mistakes, shit sign me up.
I voted “no” and am amazed at all the yes votes. For me, the only reason to do it would be to answer the question “were my parents really as fucked up in the way they treated me as a child as I remember them being?” That’s an interesting question for sure (and it would be fascinating to see if I could sidestep their cruelty by virtue of having adult maturity and wisdom at age 3 and onward), but I am NOT willing to spend years under their thumb just to find out the answer.
Besides, I like my life as it is now. As stated upthread, I’d be terrified that I would not find my way back to my wonderful husband, or I’d be such a different person when we met that he wouldn’t fall in love with me.
This poll essentially boils down to “do you want to leave your wife and family for 25 years in hopes you’ll reconnect with your wife and have the same kids again?” which, nope, I’m a Chaos theory subscriber not a “History heals itself” guy.
If I go back in time with any adult knowledge, I’m going to do something different, from toddlerdom onwards, and it’s just crushed butterflies from then on out. Never meet my wife, hell, I’m older enough than her, that she might never be born because of something I do when I’m 3… Nope.
Plus there’s the living under apartheid again, without a child’s general ignorance, which would drive me nuts.
Yes, because it’d have major advantages in making my life happier - in avoiding major dead ends that brought me low grade misery for decades. (The lottery number/stock knowledge angle would be a bonus but I’d take the option without it).
Major hesitation only because the first decade or so, with an adult mind in a child’s body, would be very stressful.
This is where I stand, pretty much. The low grade misery I’ve suffered through boils down to one choice: getting involved with someone at age 16 and later marrying that same someone. That choice spun off several bad choices and long story short - I have no problem with the concept of a do-over. I’d be much happier if it started at age 15 or 16, but I’d still take the deal.
Nope. Ask me 3 years ago and I’d probably have done it, but Baby Bird will be 3 in October and there’s no way in hell I’d give him up, even to fix all my own mistakes or be a millionaire or whatever.
I thought I’d seen a poll like this awhile back. Turns out it was this one. Zombies everywhere!
My first memories are from when I was 3. (At least, I assume none of my early memories were from an earlier age than that.) I’m 60 now. So I’d gain an extra 57 years by going back.
But my answer from earlier is unchanged. I’m really, really satisfied with my life as it is. It isn’t always easy, but it’s good. It’s the life I’ve always wanted to be in. It took a long time to get here, and now that I’ve got the life I want, the hell if I’m throwing it away.
ETA:
Same motivation here. The Firebug just turned 7. Being his daddy is one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. This is the ride I want to be on.
zombie or no.
there are people that claim to have memories in inutero. do they get to be born again?
This.
Where do I sign?
I’d love to do it, if for no other reason than the chance to see the world I grew up in through adult eyes. I lived through a lot of stuff that pretty much sailed over my young head: the gas crisis, the end of the Vietnam War, Disco Demolition, and so on. It would be like a long, incredible field trip. I’d keep a secret journal, once I mastered the motor skills to write.
I’m tempted to say yes, since I wasted several years in a constant state of worry and insecurity. Having the wisdom I do now would have really helped me not to be in such a messed-up state.
But in the grand scheme of things, those years represent only a small fraction of my life. I don’t think it’s worth going through the tedium of childhood all over again just to be less of a weirdo nerd in college and graduate school.
Sure, I had a good childhood, but there was also some shittiness too. Low-grade, trifling stuff compared to what others went through, but nonetheless kind of shitty. Adolescence was worse. I wouldn’t want to go back there for all the money in the world. The twenties were one big kill-me-now. I’m loving my 30s, though. So if I can go back to, say, 29, I definitely would. But all the way back to age 3? HELL NO. Not unless I could be someone completely different.
For an excellent treatment of this subject, read Replay, by Ken Grimwood.
The protagonist doesn’t return to infancy or childhood, but the premise is close enough. I loved this book.
Exactly. I’d do it in a second without the guaranteed wealth. With it, I don’t understand why anyone would refuse.
Edit: Nuts, this is a zombie thread that I replied to years ago, and that response was much better.
No. My mom kept journals of the first few years of my life and has let me read them. Based on those and subsequent conversations, one of her greatest pleasures in life has been watching her children learn how to make sense of the world. The face we make when we eat a lemon slice for the first time, the moment we figure out how the bunny goes down the hole and around the tree to tie our shoes, the day that backwards R learns to face forward. If I retained my adult consciousness, I’d steal so many of those moments from her. I could never do that.
If I could keep all of my knowledge and memories now, yes, I would. My childhood was terrible and scarred me badly. I had teachers that hated me and tried to make my life miserable, but I would go through all of that again to save my friend in a heartbeat. I had one good friend that I met when I was a child that helped me through it. I loved her and cared about her more than anyone else in my life ever. I had a special bond with her since the moment I first saw her. She meant so much to me, and I was on cloud 9 just to be around her and she liked me too. If I ever got married one day, she was the only one I ever thought about. When I got older, I became so shy around her that I could barely talk to her. I made choices at the time to try and be closer to her one day, but they were all wrong and kept me from her. I moved away to live with my dad to run away from my problems, and I always regretted that decision for the rest of my life. If I would have stayed and faced my problems, I would have been in the same school with my friend. Later in life, a very strong overwhelming feeling came over me that I had to reconnect with her right then. It was a feeling that it was urgent, the most important thing I could ever do with my life, and that she was in danger. I told myself that she had probably forgotten about me and didn’t need an old friend in her life. The way I felt about her hadn’t changed, but I thought I had no way to support her. I told myself, I’d reconnect with her when I got out of college and had a job. That turned out to be the worst mistake that I ever made in my life. That strong feeling wouldn’t let up, but I kept fighting it about a year later before I finally went to see her. I hear that she is getting married to a guy she met a few months after I ignored that strong feeling to reconnect with her. I meet her fiance. The feeling came over me again that she was in danger. I felt that something was off and something was wrong with him. I pushed those thoughts out of my mind, thinking that I must just be jealous that someone was marrying the girl that I loved and wanted to marry myself one day. My friend looked so happy, so I pushed those thoughts out of my mind and told them congratulations. I told myself that I shouldn’t reconnect or be as close to my friend again, because it wouldn’t be right given my strong love for her, which wouldn’t be appropriate, since she was marrying someone else. I decided not to stay close to my friend, but she was always on my thoughts. A very strong feeling overcame me again a few years later to reconnect with her, but I again fought those feelings. I told myself that she was probably happily married by then and maybe even had some kids of her own. My love for her had not changed, and I felt that it was not right of me to think about her that way. I found out later in life that she ended up getting married to that guy I had met her with. The feeling that she was in danger unfortunately was right and all of the dates matched up exactly. Her husband ended up being a violent man that begin beating my friend severely shortly after they got married. She finally ended up divorcing him. When the finally strong feeling hit me again regarding her, another friend of hers set her up with guy that turned out to be a creep. They ended up going to a party together. She had no interest in the guy in a sexual way and didn’t want a serious relationship after the horror of her first marriage. He got her a few drinks, and she blacked out. When she was blacked out, he raped her wearing no protection and she got pregnant from that rape. The rest of things that happened in her life were downhill after that. My friend meant so much to me that I would do anything to go back for a chance to save her, even if it meant having to go through my terrible childhood again.
Hey, my favorite zombie thread has reawakened!
Welcome to the SDMB, whocaresreally. One thing you should be aware of is that writing is more readable when it’s broken up into paragraphs. Seeing a huge unbroken block of text makes the reader’s eye want to just move on past.
One general thought, not directed at whocaresreally, but rather for the thread in general: as **Tarwater **said back in this thread’s original incarnation, you’ve reshuffled the deck by being different and doing different things this time. You’re on a new timeline that will diverge from the old one.
In particular, not only will the lottery numbers fall differently this time, but so will every sperm-and-egg combination that occurs after your return to your earlier life.
Not only will you not have the same children, but if the love of your life wasn’t conceived yet at the time you go back to, s/he never will be conceived. There will be no such person. Any friends you have now or have known along the way who are that much younger than you, you will never meet. Did you have younger siblings who were not yet conceived by the time of your earliest memories? Kiss them goodbye before you head back.
You would likely have different younger siblings, and would certainly make new friendships to take the place of the ones lost in the time slip. But that’s the tradeoff.
Wouldn’t going back mean that your kids don’t ever exist? I mean, even if I make it a point to meet my wife at the same time, have sex at the same time, etc. (which is nearly impossible) wouldn’t it be impossible for the exact same sperm to fertilize the egg? My daughter would never exist. If that part could be ignored in the hypo, I might be on board.
I think if that happened, we would be amazed at finding how many friendships and relationships were formed because of right place/right time. We may discover that our friend that has been there for us for 30 years won’t put up with us had we met +/- 5 years when we really did.
Yes, this is something that I’d absolutely love to do, although I’d prefer to go back only to middle school or so. Nonetheless, I’d enjoy being a child prodigy I guess although I’d probably try to make myself appear only moderately so that I don’t skip that many grades.
I get that most people can’t time their orgasms to the precise millisecond, so I agree you’ll have different kids.
But why should lottery numbers be any different? I can’t see any butterfly effects from my having a mature mind in a child’s body affect the outcomes of distant boxing matches or football games, on which I would bet heavily, or lottery numbers, which I wouldn’t remember well enough to bet on, but which should remain unchanged.
ETA: I just reread the OP, and I see that I am allowed to memorize lottery numbers and stock prices before going back. Woo-hoo! I’m not sure if there were any big lotteries, other than the Irish Sweepstakes, when I was an infant, but I’m pretty sure I could make a killing on Xerox or IBM.