First Recollections: Spinning Stories into Memories

08/06/2009

It's a muggy Friday afternoon, and we're crossing the I-395 bridge in Washington, DC—in hot pursuit of a duck. Not the feathered kind. I'm talking about that giant duck-boat thing with wheels that takes people on tours. My three-year-old boys are bananas about it. I’d sort of been hoping they might miss it because once they see it, they're obsessed. Like right now, Punk is quacking and instructing me to go catch it.

"Oh no. He's getting away. After him!” he squeaks. “Fast-aw mommeee, fast-aw!"

Of course, my pursuit fails miserably because, well, this is DC, and traffic is always at a standstill. Nevertheless, I'm trying to get a GPS on the duck, some coordinates, anything, when I notice the black cloud billowing across the GW Parkway. "Looks like a storm ahead," I comment, absently, then immediately regret it because the boys start panicking.

"Oh, it'll just be a few drops of rain—nothing to worry about," I tell them.

Boy am I wrong.

About a half hour later, on I-270 approaching Frederick, we get hit by a borderline tornado. Womp, womp, womp. Sheets of rain smack the windshield, and our visibility goes poof. The only thing we can see—and hear—are branches pelting us from all sides. Somehow, Punk, having given up on the duck, is sleeping soundly through all this commotion, but not T-Rex. He's terrified, screaming, "I'm scared! I'm scared! What’s happening mommy?"

What’s happening? Mommy is white-knuckling the steering wheel, watching stones spin next to the driver’s-side window and something approximating a log whiz past the windshield.

But, somehow, I practically sing my response: "Oh, now, nothing to worry about honey." {Crack!} "It's just a little storm." {Crash!} "Just relax and enjoy the rain."{Thud!}

Clearly skeptical, T-Rex starts whacking Punk, trying to wake him up—to…share his discomfort, I guess. I quickly put a stop to that. But I do feel bad that T-Rex is so scared. And when we finally drive out of what felt like a bad acid trip, it occurs to me that this could be one of T-Rex's first memories. Maybe even his very first recollection.

I'm pretty sure I was around his age when I started my own mental record. Some of it is hazy, pleasant impressions from the farm we lived on. A cow licking my hand. Picking apples from the orchard. Swimming in the dam. But the clearest memories are of less-than-sunny events.

I don't mean anything seriously traumatic. Just regular-life unpleasantness that, as a kid, you're not expecting: getting a bee-sting on the eyelid that made my face swell up like a blowfish, for example. Sitting on my dad’s shoulders, projectile-vomiting into a trashcan after having tubes put in my ears. Or watching my favorite toy truck get run over by an octogenarian.

To see if others remember similar experiences, I did a highly unscientific, informal survey on Twitter. Tiny sample. Very qualitative.

Most respondents, in line with behavioral science research, recalled their first experiences from age two or three. Also squaring with research and with my first memories, they recalled standout happenings, departures from the daily routine: meeting a new sibling in the hospital, falling down the stairs, hiding in the depths of a closet when company arrived.

Why the amnesia before age two? Scientists explain that, during the first years of life, children learn language and recognition skills that lay the foundation for what we commonly know as memory, and what psychologists call "long-term memory." This is how we describe our personal conscious experiences.

Researchers also find that:

• We form our first significant memories when our sense of self begins to take shape.

• These first autobiographical memories are our own interpretations of what happened and may not reflect the actual events. Really, our long-term memory is part of how we define ourselves and make meaning of life.

• Culture plays a large role in our first memories. Research by University of New Hampshire psychologist Michelle Leichtman finds that in more individualist societies, like ours, recall starts earlier than in more collectivist Asian societies. Her explanation: Because personal stories are so important in our culture, adults feed children’s memory formation, discussing events with them in ways that build and reinforce their autobiographical memories.

 

On one level the adult reinforcement bit makes sense to me. But on another, I think we most vividly remember our pure emotional response, and by age three or four, we have the words to describe that response.

And on yet another level, some of us are the kid who was awake during the near-tornado. And some of us are the kid who slept through it.

But if adults have as much to do with shaping kids’ memories as scientists say we do, I’ll have to stop myself from mentioning that Friday-afternoon monsoon to T-Rex. Instead, I’ll try to bring it back to that dern duck—how next time we’re going to catch it, no matter what.

Comments

[penny]

You're right about those early memories being mostly traumatic ones. Mine is of a playroom/workroom in which there was a large table set against a wall. I was about three, and my five-year-old sister and I were fighting over a dolls' stroller, tugging at each end of it. She prevailed and I went flying across the room, hitting my nose against a table leg. Broken nose, doctor's office, etc. followed. All I remember of my first home is the playroom and that table and the bloody nose. The good times there are all gone.

[Ives]

Might be interesting to see if kids from military families, who move around a lot, develop in different ways..

[Cyberchondriacmom]

I wonder if they will remember that ridiculous duck-mobile. I definitely will. It's become some sort of gauntlet now. See it, must race it. Am dating myself here as Gen-Xer, but it's like in Better off Dead, when John Cusack is compelled to always take on the Korean drag-racing brothers, one of whom channels Howard Cosell over a megaphone.

[sng]

I think the point you make about adults discussing events with their kids and helping them make sense of events they've experienced definitely plays a part in their autobiographical memory building. So much better to talk with them about the animals they saw at the zoo or the birthday party they just attended than turn on the car radio and let the events fade away from consciousness.

[colleen]

When my 6-year-old ganddaughter recently accompanied us on a trip to Ocean City, she kept a journal. Each day she would record an event that took place via a single sentence and an illustration to go along with it. For example, "Today we went on a boat to see the dolphins." The picture she drew for that one included mermaids riding on the dolphins' backs. Now I wonder what sort of longterm memory she'll have of that event. Will it include the charming mermaid fantasy or the less pleasant reality of her brother suffering a bout of sea sickness while the boat lurched in high winds??

[grace]

In reponse to Ives (above) I see Wikipedia has an extensive article entitled "Miltary Brats (US subculture)." Apparently there's been quite a lot of research done on kids from miltary families and even a book called "Military Brats: Legacies of Childhood Inside the Fortress" written by Mary Edwards Wertsch. She came up with a idea of a "military brat cultural identity" and dicusses several common themes from interviews of over 80 offspring of military households.