As I visit my 93-year-old mom in a nursing home I wonder what she and my dad (who died nine years ago today) were like as a young couple. I’ve seen photos of course, but those don’t shed much light on personality. My sons know what I was like at their age because they have videos. No such technology existed earlier, of course. My parents were in their 40s when I was born.
By the time I figured out who my folks were they seemed sort of, you know, old. I have virtually no memories of before age 5. An article in The Wall Street Journal last week entitled “Blanks for the Memories” says this isn’t uncommon. The inability of adults to remember early childhood memories is called infantile amnesia and the article goes on to explain various theories behind it.
I wonder if my growing up with television had anything to do with it. My hypothesis is that these celluloid images (which I can’t recall either) somehow displaced real memories. My older brother, who had no television set in the home until much later, says he has vivid images of playing in the yard at age 2. My mother — more than nine decades later — can recite details from before age 2, such as when her father took her outside to see her first snow and when she got an opened safety pin stuck in her mouth while her mother hung out the laundry.
Maybe I would have remembered that one myself. Glad my parents had a dryer when I was a baby. At least I assume they did; I can’t remember.
No comments:
Post a Comment