what adults remember from childhood--questions (method, baby, pregnant, game)

[loves2read]

DH and I have two adult children--
we were at dinner with them friday night and we talking about something that happened to our son when he was about 8 or 9. He walked home from the local elementary school and on one particular day he was very late.
We were concerned--went to the school looking for him.
Drove around the area looking for him--could not find him.
He turned up safe, unhurt--he had walked home along the creekbed that ran through our neighborhood--behind our house...

We were really upset with him because there were numerous construction work crews building in our neighborhood at that time--and he had to cross an intersection (with a crossing guard) where there was a good bit of traffic...
we were worried that he had been kidnapped by someone who was an abuser--
we had had a child kidnapped out of her yard in another neighborhood we lived in and that was not some vague possibility to us...

He said that we were very angry and punished him by grounding him and not letting him walk home from school--said he remembered that his dad told him "I thought I would find you in a shallow grave"
My husband says he does not remember saying that==but (after 20 years)
I think he might have said that...

anyway---we started talking about other events we could remember from early days in their childhood and more times than not our son had remembered the incidents differently than my husband, me, or our daughter...

I am not talking about anything weird--just what happened at Christmas or on vacation or something like that--

has anyone else had that experience--where there was only ONE person with a memory that was fairly different from that of the others???

[AnonChick]

I have very vivid memories of my childhood, and most of my family doesn't remember the details. I remember when I was not 3 years old yet, sitting up in my crib and looking through the squared bars toward the hallway. I have no emotion attached to it - not a sad time, not a happy time. Just a visual memory flash. I know I wasn't three yet, because whem my sister was born she got the crib and I got a "big girl bed" in the other bedroom.

I remember when my sister came home from the hospital after being born and I sat in the plaid chair and mom said I couldn't hold her yet because they were afraid I might drop her. I remember feeling sad about that, but glad to have a baby sister. Looking back now, it's a good thing they didn't give her to me that day - I probably would've snapped her neck by holding her wrong or something. I was not exactly a graceful child.

I remember ballet lessons with Miss Legg (yeah that really was her name) and how she smelled like hard boiled eggs.

I remember the piano tuner who'd come to the house twice a year to tune the baby grand. I remember the sound of him testing the keys...over and over again.

I remember helping mom grind liver to make chopped liver, and the hand-cranked iron grinder that sat on the kitchen counter. I remember when my dad built the buffet and did the mosaic on top. I remember the cloud of sawdust in the cellar when my dad used to do his woodwork, which was a hobby.

I remember the texture of my bedspread, how it was hand-knotted and when I got mad at my mom and was sent to my room, I'd pluck the knots out.

I remember lots of things. All "photographs" of my life, from the time I was a baby to now, 49 years later.

[Mightyqueen801]

Originally Posted by AnonChick

I have very vivid memories of my childhood, and most of my family doesn't remember the details. I remember when I was not 3 years old yet, sitting up in my crib and looking through the squared bars toward the hallway. I have no emotion attached to it - not a sad time, not a happy time. Just a visual memory flash. I know I wasn't three yet, because whem my sister was born she got the crib and I got a "big girl bed" in the other bedroom.

I remember when my sister came home from the hospital after being born and I sat in the plaid chair and mom said I couldn't hold her yet because they were afraid I might drop her. I remember feeling sad about that, but glad to have a baby sister. Looking back now, it's a good thing they didn't give her to me that day - I probably would've snapped her neck by holding her wrong or something. I was not exactly a graceful child.

I remember ballet lessons with Miss Legg (yeah that really was her name) and how she smelled like hard boiled eggs.

I remember the piano tuner who'd come to the house twice a year to tune the baby grand. I remember the sound of him testing the keys...over and over again.

I remember helping mom grind liver to make chopped liver, and the hand-cranked iron grinder that sat on the kitchen counter. I remember when my dad built the buffet and did the mosaic on top. I remember the cloud of sawdust in the cellar when my dad used to do his woodwork, which was a hobby.

I remember the texture of my bedspread, how it was hand-knotted and when I got mad at my mom and was sent to my room, I'd pluck the knots out.

I remember lots of things. All "photographs" of my life, from the time I was a baby to now, 49 years later.

I remember a lot from early childhood, also, and I am 52. (And my mom still has one of those iron grinders that you screwed onto the kitchen counter.)

As you said, they are brief photographic moments no more than seconds long. My earliest memory is that I am holding a stick and waving it in front of a dog on a chain and he is barking at me and trying to get at me and then someone lifts me up and away from the dog. I also remember sitting in a high chair at the table and one of my older sisters bursting into the kitchen screaming and crying about Murgatroid (this was the dog's name) and my mother throwing on this black and white coat and running outside. Murgy lived outside in a dog house to which he was attached by a chain with a choke collar. Behind the dog house was one of those old unmortared stone walls that ran the length of the property and the dog had climbed on the rocks and then jumped or slipped and his collar was caught and he hung himself. Hearing the story later in life, I realized that must have been the day I remember. My mother was pregnant for my younger sister at that time, and she is 2 years and 5 months younger than I am.

I also remember my grandmother taking me to the hospital to get my mother, who was pushed out in a wheelchair and being told she had a surprise for me. In her lap was what I thought was a doll, but then it began to cry and so did I. That was my younger sister. I can still SEE this--she is wearing a knitted green hat and sweater.

I can also remember everyone laughing at me one day at my grandmother's house because my uncles had taken off their shoes to see whose feet were bigger. (My mother's family are very tall people, and my uncles both wore size 14 or 15 shoes.) I saw them do this and I ran over to my mother and said "MOMMY, Uncle Jake has FEET!" My father lost both his legs below the knee in WWII, and while I knew my brother had feet, I'd always thought that when men grew up, they didn't have feet anymore.

A little older, at five, I can remember my mother watching the funeral of President Kennedy on TV. I guess I wanted her attention and wasn't getting it, and she'd shushed me. I knew the President had been shot, but I really didn't know who he was or what that meant, and I remember feeling irritated and saying "Why are you crying, Mommy? Did you know him?"

Recently I had weird memory jog. A younger brother lives with my mother in the house where we grew up, and doing some yard work he unearthed some old things, one of them being a little red plastic Indian holding a tomahawk and a couple of little plastic soldiers. I remembered the Indian--that belonged to my older brother who is no longer living. It was so weird to see this little plastic toy that we played with probably 45 years ago.

[Sudcaro]

I think we all remember differently, because we feel differently.
About the incident the OP is talking: your son enjoyed his walk, so he remembers being punished and what you told him because at the time he probably didn't understand why you were so angry and upset. On the other hand, you were scared and concerned something might have happened, so you may not remember what you said or did, because you remember the fear something might have happened to him, and probably also remember the relief you felt when he came back.
That's the same with every memory: an event, even a family reunion, a sports game etc... willl not be lived the same way by each individual, so it will not be "recorded" the same way by their memory...

[Spazkat9696]

I really can't remember any of my childhood. It drives my family nuts that I can't remember anything. I can tell people certain things that happened, but not because I remember them just because I've been told they happened.

[hypocore]

It's very common for people to not only remember things differently than others but also to only remember parts while others remember the rest.

Just today, through facebook my sister, oldest brother, niece and myself had a discussion where no one remembered the same thing.
My niece is 28 and thought she remembered visiting some family property when she was a kid so asked about it.
My sister, who is 44 could not recall ever going to that property anytime after she was a teen.
My brother spoke of the time frame when our mother sold the property and then how our other brother attempted to buy it back a few years later, but was off on the actual time frame.

We all did indeed spend time there when my niece was a kid. I know this for a fact as I have a picture of her and my oldest (who is 3 days older than she) taken ON the property.

My sister would have had both her older two children by then and simply cannot remember going to this property at all during that time frame. Yet my niece sure remembered going!

Now I have to go find that picture and send it to them all. lol

[ferretkona]

Back in 1974 we went to play in the snow. I was 15 sister was 12. I came down first on a small sled, I thought it was too rough and motioned to dad not to come down. Too late, dad and sister were coming down on the toboggan. They hit the jump cause by a fire road under the snow. Dad was injured, broke his back three vertebra. When he felt the injury he pushed my sister off sideways to get her off. Luckily we were sledding next to a bunch of off duty firemen.

My sister later complained of back pain. X rays showed a chip on the side of a vertebra.

Here is where her collection of the story has changed thru the years.
She flew off the toboggan, flew thru the air 300 feet and hit a tree. She broke her back and had to be air rescued by helicopter to be rushed to the hospital. Dad's paralysis meant less than her air borne accident. She now claims she broke her back in 4 places.

[LongIslandEddie]

I often liken a brain to a hard-drive on a personal computer. The human brain has a fantastic capacity for storage of information, the computer is limited,
even when there is an ultimate and almost infinitesimal amount of potential storage space for information. Because the computer has no way of logically
deciding upon how to store it's information when that information is not filed in a manner by which we as the user decide to file that data. You will find that
although the computer will allow you assign a file name, number and date, as to the intake of this information, the computer depends upon you, the user to
establish the importance of and the method of retrieval, the human brain has it's own system of filing the information, the situations, the stimulus, the images
and yes, even those relative feelings and emotions that are associated with those respective "memories or events".

When, as children, we begin to compile our memories, the brain will begin to develop various "pigeon holes", compartments of information that tend to group
themselves together because of other associated memories. In example, if we have a compartment that deals with mother, most of what we associate with
mother, is kept in a space that deals with mother and because our earliest interplay begins with stimulus from mother, father and siblings, the brain seems
to create sub-compartments that encompass stimulus felt or observations or whatever we associate with any particular aspect of life as it relates or impacts
with these early building blocks and "storage compartments of memory.

I believe that the human mind is limitless, unencumbered by the need to consciously file information, the brain develops it's own ability to compartmentalize
this information and to store it as chemistry, perhaps like liquid crystal does on your LCD monitor, arranging it in ways that we as lay people may not understand
the process but yet, reap the benefit as we draw upon memory and find that we have the ability to recall whatever it is that we held in memory if we search our
minds deeply enough. As years pass and the events of our lives begin to register within the mind, the information banks begin to fill but all of the while, the mind
is filing this information in an order that establishes an almost instantaneous recall. As we get older, that information does not leave our minds unless we lose,
through a physical impairment or perhaps a chemical imbalance such as Alzheimer's or any other unnatural occurrence which might serve to impede us from opening
or tapping upon those compartments where these various memories have been filed.

At 66 years of age, I can still remember certain things that happened to me when I was just a child of three years of age, no, these memories are mere glimpses,
moments within themselves that had no particular priority (as I view them now), but were impressed there within my mind at the time they were put there. I find these
memories come back to me as I get older but they are mostly assigned to images, almost like photographs that haven't got too much detail and remain somewhat "hazy",
when I try to dwell upon them but still they remain in memory. My children are forever saying-"Dad, remember when we did this, or that", I usually draw a blank because
these were events of their lives that had more significance to them, than they had with me. often what is memorable to a child is not as memorably important to a parent
and conversely, my children will not be storing my memories in the same mind as I have (or whatever I still have remaining of what they have left me with)!

[Mightyqueen801]

We were talking about a weird childhood-memory, or lack of one, last night. When my daughter was around two, someone had given us those colored plastic alphabet and number magnets that they have for kids. One night my daughter put them on the refrigerator and called her father and I over to see her "rainbow". She had arranged the letters and numbers randomly in the shape of a rainbow, but what was strange was that she started pointing to some of the letters and saying "A", "J", "K" "R" or whatever they were. We hadn't yet taught her the alphabet, and neither did my mother, who had her during the day. She never watched Sesame Street, and as far as I know any other TV shows that talked about the alphabet. When we asked her how she knew what the letters were, she said, "My cat told me." We didn't even have a cat, let alone one that could talk or knew the alphabet. To this day I still don't know how she learned what the letters were. She doesn't remember this at all.

She is currently in college and studying both Chinese and Russian, including their writing. She's learning it very quickly, too. Maybe her "cat" is still with her.

[chicagojlo]

Must be the same affliction my husband has where he remembers having said one thing and I remember another...