When do children establish memory?
A friend of mine said he has an early memory of a flood in Cincinnati, where he was standing by the front door and watching a boat go by on the street. He was two years old. Most people can’t remember anything from before four or five years of age. At least I can’t. I can barely remember anything these days. My mind has become a sieve.
When we were at the zoo, Tin was mesmerized by the elephant and giraffe and monkeys, but I wondered if he would actually be building a memory of them yet. We have talked about telling Tin his story about how he came to us, but we haven’t started yet. We did make a book of who he was before he came to us, but it was loosely based on what we know about him before. I remember when we went to the clinic on December 7th, the nurse practitioner pulled me aside and said the good news is that “he won’t remember any of this.”
Some quick research online brought up controversial opinions about when memory is first born. Some believe two years old marks a radical departure in a child being able to memorize. But Tin remembers how to high five, and he remembers his drawer in the kitchen with the Tupperware that he gets to play in, he also knows the meaning of no when we tell him not to touch something, but most books say he doesn’t.
I hope that when he scans his earliest memories they are of sitting on the front porch of the LaLa and watching the bayou and of being loved by his mothers, and of all the wonders that surround him here in New Orleans. He is about to be introduced to Mardi Gras and soon Jazz Fest, surely these are memorable events. I wonder though if he will remember being carried in my pack and turning his gaze to meet the sound of the giant wind chimes under the oak tree in City Park.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:19 pm
although there may not be specific memories as we understand them, i firmly beleive kids have sensory memories that build on themselves. even when kids are babies. it’s that feeling of security and peace associated with certain things. my family’s last name is aguero, btw. raphel eric aguero was my grandfather’s name. i too no longer have any relatives who might know anything, but it’s interesting all the same. gotta love new orleans. there’s no place i’d rather be–especially now!
January 25th, 2010 at 1:32 pm
My first memories–perhaps sensory as Cassie says above–go back to somewhere between 2 and 3. One was unpleasant (I wrote about the fishhook in my finger incident as I fished in the moss) and the other very sensorous (being taught to blow soap bubbles washing my hands in the porch basin). I know the approximate age because of the timing–it happened just before my father’s tour of duty at the end of the war and I went to live with them in Long Island. Perhaps I built on those memories over the year, but they’re still pretty vivid. I have other impressions on an even earlier time, but can’t pin anything down as to age–in one I was in a crib on a porch so it had to be pretty young.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
I fell out of my crib at the age of 2 – smack down on my face and busted my nose which was of course just forming at time. Is that why I am afraid of heights – nay, not afraid, terrified of heights? I do believe that the sensory is already there – I was the youngest of six kids and was bounced on knee to knee and to this day the sight of a baby being on a grown-ups lap gives me great pleasure. To hold my son on my lap and squeeze him tight makes me feel like it is me being squeezed and it is my squeals of pleasure – I know this so viscerally, I can’t believe it is not from my memory.