Memories!

My son and I drove by our first apartment the other day, really the only place we lived as a complete family (except for a brief attempt at reconciliation). My son was only 2 at the time so I didn't expect him to remember much but I asked anyway. He said the only thing he could remember was that I used to take him up the street to look at the horses and throw rocks in the pond. I was amazed, we really only did that a couple of times and the pond was actually just a puddle left over from a big storm. That got me thinking! We only have so much room in our heads for memories, what made him select that memory over so many others?

I thought back to my own childhood and the memories that stood out from my earliest days were related to emotional moments. Some of the memories were nice and some were not so pleasant but almost all of the early ones involved some type of emotion. I remember telling my Mother that I wanted to be a writer when I grew up and her saying "honey, you have to read something first" I remember thinking "I don't like to read so I guess I can't be a writer" I also remember walking home from school with my 2nd grade girlfriend and spilling milk on a girl I really liked in first grade and a crush on my 3rd grade teacher.

I asked my son to think about what he remembers from his early childhood. In addition to the memory I mentioned above, he remembered his Grandma taking him to see the construction workers building homes (when he was around 4 yrs. old). He remembered the cockroaches at his mom's house when they lived with her parents and he remembered me being late to pick him up from school one day (he was the only kid left). I remember that event also, I can still see the hurt in his face. Fortunately there were several more positive memories that involved me. I was struck by how much these events had apparently impacted him but I had to think hard to remember most of them.

It appears our deepest memories are made from emotional events; not from all the fun things we did while growing up but often from the everyday mundane things we did. They come from living and sharing an emotional connection. If you are a parent, my suggestion is to ask your kids what they remember from their early childhood and work on making those types of events a regular part of your relationship -- if they were positive. I’m no expert on memories but I do know we remember them for a reason.