Last week I said to my youngest daughter that I really missed taking my older daughter or either of them to school. She said to me, "but Daddy, you didnt walk her to school?" Geez. Of course I did. I even have posts from older years in which I talk about how sad I was not to walk her to school anymore. Well, the days are not long gone, but .. gone. But how can my younger daughter not remember? She said, "you walked her to school before I was born?" No. "When I was in pre school", well yes, but also after you had gotten into first grade. Then my older daughter was in 4th grade and I was still walking her, but not as much and that is when it stopped.
How can she not remember?
Well because even if memories start to occur by two or in the third year of life, and better by age 3, kids dont have strong memories, or explicit memories until say 6 or 7 years of age. After pre school and the beginning of basic school. It might be called childhood amnesia. Long term memories are not well developed before this age.
HOWEVER, the earlier years DO contribute to their overall good (or bad) development. So the kids wont have concrete memories of travelling to all these places, but they will have intrinsic feelings that they had a good childhood comfortable and expanding and they did a lot. Sort of fuzzy memories.
You can solidify these memories or flesh them out with pictures. For instance if you have pictures of your kids before they were three they may not remember the actual event but do remember the picture. I even trick myself into thinking that I can remember. I have a picture of me wearing big rubber boots which come up to my belly button when I was under 2 years old. I tell myself that I DO remember wearing those boots. But probably moreso I remember the picture of me wearing those boots very exactly. I dont have the picture here, but I remember it quite well because I looked at it well into my "remembering years".
What I wanted to try out is testing my younger daugther to see if she can rememberher earlier years. Because here is an interesting but maybe sad thing. It is said that younger kids, like a six year old can remember things from under two years old, but as they get older they in fact forget them and lose these pre memories. Something with the way the long term memory location is being developed during teen age years. Well here is the exact quote
" Memories made in later childhood and beyond are more likely to stick because the young brain, especially the hippocampus and the frontoparietal regions, undergoes important developmental changes that improve our ability to bind, store and recall events"
So we can remember things from earlier ages when we are six, but then we lose them because they seem to get kicked out by a better development.
Which kind of makes me sad. Because already my youngest daughter (age 9.5) cant remember that I walked her to school or pre school. And I did! What if my wife divorces me and plants it in her head that I didnt do anything? Especially when she is a teen ager and the earlier memories will get displaced. What will I do? I ll be shouting at her, "I did, I did walk you to school. In fact quite often I CARRIED you piggy back all the way to pre school". She will say, "no no, you didnt do anything for me", and then maybe I might doubt myself and ask myself if I really did do that? Because we all remember different things. So maybe I actually never did it. But I did. But those memories CAN be taken away from me.
Life and memories are so fragile ... is what it comes down to.
So what you have to do Dads, is preserve your memory in your child. Make sure when they are young, from a young age tell them about things you did. If you tell them enough, they may not remember the actual event, but they will remember you telling them the actual event, which may be as best they will be able to do for remembering it, and good enough.
Or else you can take pictures. Pictures .. well there is the proof. Me carrying you and I did that quite often. And they will remember the pictures.
So, enjoy your times with your kids. BUT ALSO preserve those times by embedding those memories in your kids. Otherwise, when they become teen agers they might say, "you did nothing. You did nothing for me". And who knows if you will remember youself if you actually did anything.
Just saying.
It is funny. I have listened to Pat Metheny since the 80s. I went to his concerts I think I caught him twice at least. But I have never owned any of his music. Finally this week I bought this CD. Pat Metheny Group s "Imaginary Day" from 1997. But just the kind of stuff I love from his band. I have been listening to it every day.
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