Does anyone else have few to no memories of childhood?

[Celledora]

Talking with people about childhood memories and thinking about the memories we're making for our children, it seems I'm not normal in having hardly any memories before roughly 8 years old... anyone else?!

I can cleary remember climbing up onto the kitchen worktop and grabbing my mothers bright red lipstick. I started putting it on my lips before putting it pretty much everywhere else. I was 18 months old.

I can cleary remember the ice cold bath (which was avocado coloured) I was placed in and the red and blue toy boat on the shelf when I was in hospital with pneumonia. I was 3 years old.

I can also remember a lot of other things. Some good, some bad.

Strange really. I’ve never given it much thought. I do however think sometimes what memories my children will have when they are all grown up.

I mean nothing traumatic happened, not that I don't remember traumatic things.

I have very few. Also have no internal visualisation (so if you say think of an elephant, i know lots about elephants but i don't 'see' anything). I've heard it can be linked as most early memories are heavily visual.

My friends remember so many things that happened while we were at school and I recall almost none of these events. It does bother me actually. I feel like I lack the sense of self such memories bring.

I don't have many. Not does my sister but her therapist explains when you have a turbulent childhood the mind just forgets it all so that's why we don't remember anything. OH on the other hand remembers loads.

This is me! The only memories i have of my childhood have been put there by people talking about them, I can't actually picture the event but it feels familiar!
My memory is shocking for my adult years too, it makes me sad if i think about it.

I have lots of memories, a house we loved in until I was 2, the house move, the new house. Lots of holiday and day trip memories. Being with my grandparents, school, parties, birthdays. I have a happy uneventful childhood.

Oh my god same! I always worry why it is but I really don't remember ever living with my mum and parents broke up when I was 8!

I was thinking something similar the other day and realised any memories I do have do not include my mum.
She was a single parent, I went to a childminder and my dads every other weekend.
I don't remember any hugs, laughter or shouting really....maybe the odd memory of her telling my brother off. But nothing else

I remember a huge amount, including an awful lot of horrible traumatic stuff, down to tarmac and textures of things. I can visually walk round places I went and houses I lived in.

Dh might as well have just appeared on the planet when he was about 10 for all he can remember.

I find it hard to know what I remember and what I've been told. However recent conversation's with school friends (all of us around 50) shows up a great variety and what and how much we remember.

I have childhood memories but they aren’t really of events that would have been intended to be memorable iyswim and I need a lot of prompting/something to jog my memory whereas DP can easily and clearly recall lots of detail.

I don't have many.
No trauma here - I had a very happy childhood, just don't remember much detail.

Not the case with me. I remember back to being three years old. I have a very real recall of my grandma taking me for a haircut when my mum was in hospital having my brother. I can remember how high the chair was and watching the hair falling on the floor. I also remember being in the taxi and holding some fake blue flowers my dad had bought to take in. All my other memories are traumas though

Oh gosh yes I'm the same. I have an awful memory of anything and everything, I can't remember really important stuff, everyone else seems to remember how much my baby's weight at birth etc, I've had to write it down so I know lol. That's a big one for me has every mother seems to know this except me. I had a good childhood parents who love and do anything for me and my brother but I can't remember anything. If I see a photo I mite remember something. I've wondered if this is normal or not for years....

I have very few memories from my childhood. My sister always asks if I remember such and such when we were little and I have zero memory of it.

She remembers loads and loads and I hardly remember anything! I would echo PP and say my first memory is at 7 years of age, all I remember is playing with my friends on the field thinking 7 is my favourite age ever 😂 I had a happy childhood though, always felt loved and my DM had all the time in the world for us.

Having DS 20 months ago has almost flipped a switch in my brain. I have more memories in the last 20 months with DS than in the previous 26 years!!

It's almost like my brain stores all these things with DS because I never want to forget a thing about him. So strange how our brains work 🤷

Me too

It’s not just early childhood. I have very few memories of secondary school, though it was a horrible time for me so maybe I’ve just blocked it all out.

Mine is nearly photographic. I can remember most of in detail from around 4.

Interesting thread ☺️

DD2 has almost no childhood memories. DD1 invents them left, right and centre. Its not unusual.

My Dd(18) doesn't remember much from when she was little and it makes me really upset because she had a happy childhood. I read up on it and there is a theory that if your brain develops very quickly over a short period of time then something has to give and it can be the memory that suffers. My Dd was very advanced as a young child and wonder if this is what happened to her . It makes me very sad because I'd rather have had an average intelligence child that remembered her childhood
Those of you that can't remember much, were you very advanced in other areas?

I can go back as far as 3 or 4 years old. I remember my first day at primary school, day trips, residential trips, school discos, plays, names of peers, names of teachers. It was a happy period of my life.

I clearly remember secondary school but in snippets. I remember being terribly unhappy due to bullying. I remember how I felt. I remember teachers, peers, classroom layout, assemblies. I left nearly 30 years ago.

That's not a theory that would work with us Pickwick I don't know how to put it in a way that doesn't sound conceited, because it's not an important measure of a person in the slightest but both of us have a very high iq that was evident early.

Same here. I can remember snippets but can't quite tell if it's because i have seen photos of the events or actually remember them eg primary school trip?
The stuff I can remember is really just snippets and certainly not conversations.
I had a difficult childhood and was very affected by my dad leaving and constantly letting us down and almost being a second patent for my younger sister so I do sometimes wonder if I've just blocked it all out.