Childhood Amnesia – a thousand days forgotten forever

“All that we ourselves are has been made by the child,
by the child we were in the first two years of our lives.”
Maria Montessori

Elwyn loves to run. He’s like the EverReady bunny and just keeps going and going. He starts each day by literally running out from his bed and sometimes even runs to bed, eventually, at sleep time. There seems a natural joy at the miracle and freedom of movement, despite the bulky nappy between his thighs.

When he’s outside he cranes his neck forward, scrunches his little hands into fists, bends his elbows and actively swings his arms to propel him around at speed. 

In the backyard we have little races (“ready, set, go!”) from one end to the other and run around and around in circles till we drop. He runs so often that I suggested his parents sign him up to the local running club (a bit tongue in cheek, after all he’s still only two).

He does stop running at times. He stops to look into garden beds along the street, curious to see when flower buds blossom. He’s distracted by sticks on the ground and Audis in driveways. And of course when a truck or tractor goes past he stops in his tracks to watch, enthralled, until they drive out of view. 

Aren’t our toddler years – when every day is filled with excitement and delight – a wonderful age? 

Can you recall the first tentative steps you took from the coffee table to your overjoyed mum? Or getting your first toy car? Can you remember how it felt when your grandma rocked you in her arms and sang you to sleep?

Wouldn’t it be lovely if we could remember those days?

childhood is like being drunk,
everyone remembers what you did except you
(internet meme)

The other day on our way to the playground, Elwyn ran off happily ahead of me. I called out to him and he stopped and turned to face me. I bent low and stretched my arms out wide; he bent too, and grinned so happily that I could see his dimples, and then he ran back at full pelt. No slowing down when he reached me, he just smashed into my embrace, almost knocking me onto my haunches.

“You missed me, Nanny!” he gushed, holding me tight, and his legs dangling in the air when I swung him high. I know he was repeating what he and his mummy say when they cuddle after a day at nursery, but of course when he says it to this granny she melts like an icecream on a tropical island.

Babies and toddlers, like puppies and lambs, are so cute and adorable (when they’re not pooping and fussing)! And not just in the eyes of their mums and dads. It’s easy to forget the world when a chubby cherub smiles up at you, and it’s hard to feel blue when you’re giggling with a cheeky toddler dancing around you. For me, having a little grandson has filled my heart and world with sunshine, especially through my sorrows.

Babies are such a nice way to start people
Don Herald

Sharing these precious days with Elwyn has got me musing: trying to remember the time when I was a bub. 

Apparently I spent a lot of time with my paternal grandparents (in Holland). We lived with them for a while and then when my parents got their own place they regularly babysat me. We spent a lot of time in their big garden. I’m told that for my Oma and Opa, everything was about “Claudia, Claudia, Claudia”. It was like I was their baby.

In my second year, my father went with Opa to watch football on Sundays, and my mum and Oma often walked with me and my baby brother in prams to the park to feed the ducks.

Was I an energetic toddler running around all the time like Elwyn? Did I help my Oma and Opa forget sad memories and did I make them giggle at my silly antics and cuteness? I wonder if the way they were with me – and the way my parents cared for me – helped shape me to become the grandma I am now today?

We all know that the experiences we have in the first few years of life are fundamental and powerful in shaping the adults we become. And our memory skills at that time are powerful enough to support our growth and our learning at the steepest rate of our entire lives.

Yet paradoxically those amazing and essential years are completely forgotten. 

We’ve probably all had chats about how far back we can remember. Some of us recall events from when we were three! Most of us can remember back to when we were around six. But it seems none of us can remember when we were one or two.

This profound memory loss of all our experiences before we’re three is called Childhood (or Infantile) Amnesia. It’s a well documented phenomena that’s been studied by neuroscientists, psychologists and linguists for more than a 100 years. A lot of causes have been proposed including brain development and the placement of the hippocampus, language development and memory mechanisms and cultural influences, and Freud had his typical take on it,  but it seems the science keeps expanding and the experts still haven’t come up with a definitive answer.

Because for sure our memories when we are babies are incredible. Not just for learning, but also for recall of events. Elwyn often tells me about things that happened months ago, and astounds me when he recalls his random observations from weeks ago.

I read about a study where 20 percent of children interviewed under the age of 10 remembered events that had occurred (and were verified by parents) before they even turned a year old. In some cases even as early as a month old. But as adults, that recall is lost. I wonder why?

Childhood Amnesia occurs in all people all around the world. I found it interesting to read that Maori adults have the earliest childhood memories found from all studies. They can recall back to the age of two and a half, believed to be due to Maori parents’ elaborative style of telling family stories.

It’s beautiful that we humans are so dependent as babies and that we are (mostly) blessed to have the first years of our lives being loved and tended to so completely and so adoringly. It’s wonderful to have that time being free to play endlessly with toys and sticks and balls. And to run around for no particular purpose at all. Those simple times when even the daily bath, in a few inches of water, was a delightful ritual because we could splash about and play happily with bowls or boats and little yellow ducks.

So there were a thousand days, at least, when I probably received a thousand cuddles and kisses from my parents, and when I was rocked to sleep and bounced on the laps of my doting Oma and Opa.

But no matter how hard I try, I can’t recall even one of those thousand days. 

Musing on all this reminded me of something odd that happened many years ago when my children were toddlers. Their nana (my mother-in-law) was staying with us on one of her long visits from Sydney. I had enough Flybuys points from our grocery shopping to go to SeaWorld for free. We didn’t have a lot of money and were never going to accrue the points needed to actually fly anywhere, so I was really excited at the opportunity of a family day out. And to create special memories. I thought it was nice that Nana could join us to share in the joy of her only grandchildren. 

But when I told her my plan, her response floored me.

“Oh why bother,” she sulked. “The children won’t even remember the day.”

I was so bewildered that to this day, some 26 years later, I can still see her sitting across from me at my lime green kitchen bench, and I can still feel the sting of her gloomy words.

I wondered if she thought we may as well do nothing with children until they reach an age that they’ll end up remembering when they’re adults?

Should we not bathe them in our bubbles of love and affection when they’re babies? Should we not encourage their freedom to run around in the garden? I do understand happiness in simplicity. And I know children don’t need amazing toys and extravagant days out, but if her premise was correct, it’d mean we shouldn’t ever bother to go on special outings or take children on adventures, and instead simply provide their basic survival needs only.

At the time I was too shocked to respond to her or have that conversation. I pushed ahead with my plans anyway and we all had a fabulous day out, splitting the time between the animal shows and the fabulous water-play park.

I hope the day gave her lasting happy memories. Given my poor memory, I hope I don’t ever forget the fun we all had.

My children, though, can’t recall the day. They don’t remember being enthralled with the dolphins and seals. They’ve forgotten that they had a ball splashing in the water fountains and slides all afternoon.

I’m sure my daughter must remember when she was 11 and sometimes I didn’t really listen fully when she told me something that mattered to her, because I was too busy or stressed or tired and, regretfully, inattentive. And no doubt my son remembers some days when he was 15 and I yelled at him to get out of bed.

I find it bittersweet that our first two or three years – those thousand amazing and essential days – are forever forgotten. Wouldn’t it be beautiful (and perhaps helpful, when we’re feeling blue?) if we could recall those days, to give us the authentic felt sense of what it was like to be wholly loveable and entirely loved by our parents and grandparents (and other relatives and ‘the village’)? To remember what our life was like when we could be free and silly?

Here in Wales, when it’s my evening to give Elwyn his bath, I sing All the Fishes to him (as I did to my children and I think my mum did to me), and I scoop handfuls of bubbles and blow them so they fly everywhere and land all over him. His eyes sparkle at the cheekiness of that. Then we laugh together as he tries his best to blow bubbles back at me, and it reminds me of the thousand nights I did the same with my children.

I wonder if Elwyn – and all the children raised in this smartphone era – will one day be able to remember back to an earlier age than we can? He’ll have the help of hundreds of videos – easily accessible recordings of him moving, chatting and laughing, and of all his most precious experiences – that he already watches on repeat from time to time.

When he’s a grown man will that technology help him recall the many times he snuggled into his mummy’s lap and cradled her face with his tiny hands, and cooed “I wuv you, mummy”? Will the videos help him recall all the days his nanny softly sang the gayatri mantra to help him sleep?

Or will all these videos be the same as our ‘memories’ we have from faded photographs. Will this Childhood Amnesia thing prove to be too strong, making his first thousand days become purely the most valuable imprints he will no longer ever see.

 

**I dedicate this blog to my mum
as my heartfelt gratitude for the selfless love and devotion,
laughter and teachings she shared with me
in all those forgotten precious days
when I was an adorable wee schatje.**