Life with two kids: The eternal sunshine of the three year old mind

[andrewducker]

Sophia's memory surprises me.

I'd assumed that memories were lost as change happened. My working theory is that memories recorded on a mind that thinks one way can't be easily retrieved by a mind that thinks another, and that so as minds learn and change they find it harder and harder to remember the memories formed in the before times.

And that still seems reasonable, but I assumed that these changes happened slowly and that memories could be retrieved for at least a year or two.

And then I discovered, over the course of the last few days, that Sophia doesn't remember me hanging her out of the living room window (so she could run, giggling, round to the front door and be let back in again), and also doesn't remember me reading an interactive book with her dozens of times (because she kept asking me again and again, it was one of her favourites - "There's a monster in your book".)

And these things happened so many times, and within the last year (I showed her a Facebook memory of the window a few days ago) that I would have been absolutely certain she'd remember. And yet!

Children really are full of surprises.

Comments

[cmcmck]

What the memory retains (or not) can offer constant surprises.

I still recall locking myself in the loo at my grandparent's prefab and having to be rescued.

I'd have been two going on three.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if she remembered some stuff from now.

I'm just surprised she didn't remember these things that we did lots and lots! Clearly just not the right kind of thing to put down long term memories.

[symbioid]

It's funny - I have a very clear sequence of events that were terrifying at about 2 years old, and it's pretty consistent with what was reported.

Then around the same age, I got locked in the bathroom at that house (haha), and apparently there was a closet near the door.

My dad used a hammer or something to break through the wall into the little closet by the door and reached around to grab the door handle and unlock it.

He told me this sometime in the past decade, when we were talking about old memories of mine at that place... He thought I'd remember because apparently I was so freaked out at this giant hand just crawling around the door as I'm trapped inside, thinking it was coming for me, and yet... I had no memory of this at all, but he was sure I'd remember because I was so terrified.

Then I remember a moment when I was in a crib of my mom and her church friends at a bible study and all of them looking in at me and cooing at me, and I asked my mom, because surely I couldn't remember this, but she said it was definitely quite possible, and that she did have the crib where I remembered it being.

[symbioid]

Do you think this is just due to different brains having different importance on things so you remember different things? Does she remember other things? Have you asked her what she remembers from the past few days? I think that would be interesting to find out what she remembers on her own compared to what you're thinking of. Maybe she remembers something you didn't remember, be curious to see what you don't recall that she does - or that you thought was too trivial and was important to her.

Brains.

[birguslatro]

I don't remember doing anything with my father that I enjoyed doing. Just stuff I didn't enjoy doing with him. Maybe negative memories stick better?

The saddest parenting advice: If you want to be an example to your children, be a bad one.