How persistent - and how reliable - are these, really? At what stage do they become "concrete" in our minds as memories that will persist into adulthood?
It's fascinated, me, this, since my own children have been growing up.
I have some very concrete memories of things that happened to me when I was 5 or 6 years old, but talking to my parents in the years since (I'm now 37), it's apparent that they were, if at all remembered by my Mum or Dad, fairly trivial incidents in their lives. Like the time I woke up at about 9.30pm one Christmas Eve (having gone to sleep at about 8.00) and wandered downstairs in tears (thinking it was already morning) declaring that Santa hadn't been, only to be reassured that it wasn't even morning yet. And there was another time when I remember getting really upset that I wasn't going to be allowed to go the cinema with my Mum and Dad and Grandparents to see a film in the evening (but would be left to be babysat with my Uncle), as (as I can kind of see why now, in retrospect) they were going to see "Jaws", which must have come out in the UK in 1977, when I was 4 or 5.
I can remember what were clearly traumatic events when I was 5, or 6, like they were yesterday, yet I doubt my parents give then a second thought unless prompted. Now I'm the one causing what might be tragic moments of enormous grief to my own girls, because I haven't let one of them finish an ice cream or whatever before going to bed, or something.
I wonder if, in thirty years' time, they'll still remember the time I didn't let them stay up to watch the end of Ant and Bloody Dec, or something like that?
It's fascinated, me, this, since my own children have been growing up.
I have some very concrete memories of things that happened to me when I was 5 or 6 years old, but talking to my parents in the years since (I'm now 37), it's apparent that they were, if at all remembered by my Mum or Dad, fairly trivial incidents in their lives. Like the time I woke up at about 9.30pm one Christmas Eve (having gone to sleep at about 8.00) and wandered downstairs in tears (thinking it was already morning) declaring that Santa hadn't been, only to be reassured that it wasn't even morning yet. And there was another time when I remember getting really upset that I wasn't going to be allowed to go the cinema with my Mum and Dad and Grandparents to see a film in the evening (but would be left to be babysat with my Uncle), as (as I can kind of see why now, in retrospect) they were going to see "Jaws", which must have come out in the UK in 1977, when I was 4 or 5.
I can remember what were clearly traumatic events when I was 5, or 6, like they were yesterday, yet I doubt my parents give then a second thought unless prompted. Now I'm the one causing what might be tragic moments of enormous grief to my own girls, because I haven't let one of them finish an ice cream or whatever before going to bed, or something.
I wonder if, in thirty years' time, they'll still remember the time I didn't let them stay up to watch the end of Ant and Bloody Dec, or something like that?
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