To be sad that my teens don't remember being toddlers?

[Glastonbury2020]

They are now 16 and 18. They don't remember the endless boring mums and tots groups, the soft play centres, the hours in the park on the swings, the 6am Postman Pat jigsaws, the play doh, the stories at bedtime, the educational songs at the library! Nothing!
They remember stupid things like a jam sandwich at nursery and punching their siblings in the paddling pool.
So much for making memories!
Was it all worth it?

[Buttybach]

The only memory I have of being a toddler is my uncle putting his falsies on his Tongue and poking it out at me! Scared me shitless

[Yeahnahmum]

All those memories are for you. The good and the bad haha

Don't get me started on 'Thomas the Bastard Tank Engine'. God I hated those books. Boring as fuck hahajhahahaa

I myself only remember things from 7 and up...😣

[Marshmallow91]

I remember some things from being a toddler. I remember when I was learning to walk and my mum saying to my dad as I was outside in the garden "is she OK without the fences?" n my dad replied "yeah, she's fine". I've never seen a picture of my house in Germany and mentioned what I remember to my mum a few years ago, and she was shocked as she remembered that time too, because she was concerned about the house on the base because there were no garden fences.

I also remember being pushed by my mum in my buggy in the rain, and how soothing it was on my rain cover. Rain on a window stillness makes me relaxed and sleepy.

I also remember getting a kitten on my first week here when I came over from Germany age 2. I helped pick her and i was using a lace from a shoe to play with her.

Lastly I remember potty training, and my first time doing a poo in the potty, it was sat outside the bathroom and as I went to tell my mum, my dog ate it

[KarlKennedysDurianFruit]

I don't remember my brother existing until he was about five, by which point I would've been seven....

[AndNoneForGretchenWieners]

Three things stand out from my youngest years - the dog biting my toe gently to warn me because I had tried to ride her like a horse when my mum was answering the door, going to the loo and finding my dad asleep in the bath (he had been out drinking and didn't want to disturb my mum) and lying on the sofa with the local newspaper on the floor under me, teaching myself to read. I know this last one is a true memory because I can vividly picture what I was wearing and my parents remember the outfit but not the occasion.

My DS says his earliest memories are of being about 6 and going to work with his dad in the school holidays. Doesn't remember riding a camel in Tunisia or going to the Sealife Centre or Disney on Ice, but remembers helping his dad with his postal round. Craziness.

[RaisinGhost]

There has to be a balence. Yes, a trip to the garden is as fun and memorable as a trip to Disneyland at that age. On the other hand, if you put a baby in a box with some food and water and came back for it at age 7... well obviously they wouldn't come out quite right.

If you only did things that you remembered for life, you wouldn't do anything. I went on a trip aged 21, looked back at some of the photos recently and I hardly remember any of it.

If you really want to take the long view, what's the point of doing anything as we'll all die one day.

[GeorgiaGirl52]

@Emeraldshamrock

They wouldn't remember but each of those experiences made them who they are today.
The time was worth it.

That's the reason we sing them to sleep and rock them to sleep and read to them. It's not what you do, but that you are doing it with them.

[Footlooseandfancy]

I don't remember much of university but I was there and was having fun, doesn't mean it was a waste of time!

I hope all the activities I suffer do with DD help enrich her in a number a ways, help her learn to play with others, build confidence, give her the opportunity to climb large objects. It's not about #makingmemories

[Yugi]

I read once that long term memory is tied to language. Most people don’t remember anything from before they could say complete sentences.

I barely remember anything from junior school ages and only very specific stuff from senior school age and I could definitely say sentences by then so not sure how that works

Mind you, I struggle to remember what happened yesterday sometimes as well

[Rebelwithallthecause]

I don’t remember any if that because my parents never took us to toddler group DS or soft play and I certainly don’t of my toddler

Not anyone’s idea of fun I imagine

[justanotherneighinparadise]

I see all the nonsense coming through my news feed of ‘making memories’ and have a wry smile to myself as it’s so clear to me is the memories are for the adults, not the children. Yes the accumulative affect of doing lots of things with the children will pay off down the line, but don’t expect them to remember any of it!! That’s for you to remember, same with photos. They don’t want a thousand photos or school drawings, momentos deposited into their hands when the leave home. They’re for you. They want to go off and create their own memories when they have their own children.

[Sailingblue]

‘Early memories and experiences are meant to be forgotten. When they aren’t it’s usually because of something really bad or powerful that has stuck with them.’

This is interesting. My only early memory is my mum going into hospital at 4. I think the attention and love you give pre-schoolers builds their foundations and sets them up for later life. They might not remember it but it doesn’t mean that your actions weren’t important.

I asked my 4 yo if she could remember my 18m old’s birth yesterday and she didn’t have a clue, couldn’t remember anything.

[ContessaferJones]

I have occasionally horrified my father with just how much I remember from childhood (generally not good stuff!) but there are some happy memories in there too. I suspect I may have undiagnosed autism though, so maybe that's a factor. My younger sister says she can't remember a thing, but just knows it was bad - unfortunately she's right there

As for my own kids, I know what you mean OP - it's like the other inhabitants of your very tiny world have left and not mentioned they were going! I have all this stored info on The Zingzillas, all the verses of Row your boat/round and round the garden/this little piggy etc, yet they stare at me blankly. I can still recite the first few pages of the Gruffalo and Tiddler, discuss Granny Murray, the NumTums etc, and yet.

I suppose it is a comfort to think that it's turned then into the outstanding citizens they are today

[whatswithtodaytoday]

Children don't remember anything much before 3, and very little before 7. You're not making memories, you're keeping them happy in the moment and they're learning constantly.

[minnieok]

I remember bits before 2, apparently very unusual whereas dd can't remember much before 6, go figure

[justanotherneighinparadise]

It makes sense about the bad memories tending to stick over the good. I would imagine from an evolutionary point of view the bad memories have more ability to save your life over the good ones.

[minnieok]

You have to remember that making memories is more for the adults and (for me then) photo album (now Instagram). Same principle for my dog, I take him to different places for variety, because he "likes" going out when in reality he likes the local park just as much and would actually prefer to be left to his own devices snoozing on the sofa and patrolling the garden (it's big) for intruders (aka foxes).

[BeyondMyWits]

My girls remember some of the rhyming books - we read them all the time when they were little. And when they were at school and their dad had to go away with work, I read them to them again for comfort, that built a cosy memory for them.

Apart from that (and the Backyardigans from the telly - mummy's half hour to get the housework done!) they remember the (blooming AWFUL, soul destroying) night we were stuck in floods on the M5 with my mother 2 kids and us 2 - in a Ford Fiesta! Apparently it was an exciting adventure, Granny gave them chocolate biscuits for tea and they had to wee in a bush. I remember it slightly differently.

[AlohaMolly]

Does it help to think of it like foundations? You build sold foundations for a house but they’re hidden away underground. You can’t see them, but good work went in all the same and they make for a good strong house!

[ginghamtablecloths]

Yet they enjoyed themselves at the time so don't beat yourself up about this making memories thing.
How many of us remember being toddlers? If you were to write the story of your life it would only have fleeting moments of this stage. Other bits are more memorable.

[wanderings]

I remember my childhood vividly from four years old (more than I do my adult life), down to conversations, light switches at school, my mum trying to stop me wearing shoes on my bare feet, being blindfolded to guess who was speaking in a funny voice, but it seems this is unusual. My mum was very big on making us write diaries (with her help in early years), but I don't think that's the reason I remember so much. Indeed, I found diary writing a chore because I remembered things.

There's a very sad moment in the film "Eskimo Day", when some parents of teenagers (who are having their interviews at Cambridge) say "they won't remember us bringing them up, they'll think it was always like this, they'll think we were always a hundred years old".

[vanillandhoney]

Surely the memories are for the parents, not the children?

[MarshaBradyo]

Yes worth it, it doesn’t matter they can’t remember it, it was influencing their minds in positive ways

Also you remember it which is nice for you

[Aroundtheworldin80moves]

My 9yo has no memories whatsoever before we moved abroad when she's 4. Her younger sister remembers the older sister breaking her arm (she remembers the cast).

They are 9&7 now... The younger one has a memory of an elephant and has quite clear memories of our time in Cyprus (aged from 2.5-4.5). The older one has blanket memories- she remembers the school, the beach, the boats, the waterpark, but not events.

It's parents making memories, not the kids. And there is nothing wrong in doing something because it's fun at the time, not because you want to remember it.

[EssentialHummus]

Doesn't remember riding a camel in Tunisia or going to the Sealife Centre or Disney on Ice, but remembers helping his dad with his postal round. Craziness.

Yes. I can't be the only one with a toddler whose favourite thing from a visit to Legoland was seeing a squirrel in the car park.

I have two memories from before age 7 - one, being in a nursery class where we were each blindfolded in turn and had to taste something and guess what it was (I remember someone being given a small piece of onion), and being about 4 on the day my mum and I reunited with my dad after 6 months in our new home, and mum telling dad that I wouldn't need the bed guard he'd bought. At this point I'd lived in 4 countries and lived through both the first Gulf War and the end of Apartheid. Neither registered.