Happy vs difficult childhood

[Vitallyli]

AIBU to think that if you had a mostly happy childhood you'll have more childhood memories, will remember yourself from younger age, will be as consequence more companionate for children as you will be in better contact with your inner child? AIBU to think that if you don't remember yourself much before the age of say 10 your childhood is likely to have been difficult/unhappy?

Yes I agree.

My childhood was pretty horrific by anyone’s standards, a lot of it I have simply blocked out - I only have a small handful of memories before the age of 8 or 9. Certainly less than 5 memories.

I have so many amazing memories of my childhood - especially involving my sister. We can reminisce for hours and hours, and have many happy nmemories from when we were as young as 6-7.

However, we dealt with parental divorce at aged 5, had to live in a really rough area and had our house burgled so many times that we lived in fear a lot. We also had a mother we were terrified of who would scream at us for barely anything and would hit us until we were aged 14-15 years old.

My sister struggles to show affection to anyone whereas I will hug anyone who wants one and work in a very caring profession.

Our childhood seems to have affected us both differently.

I don’t think there are any strict links between the happiness of childhood and the number of memories but it’s an interesting theory.

Not necessarily. I had a happy, comfortable childhood. But I have a crap long-term memory for events etc. I'm great at remembering words and stuff - I can still recite poems I learned at primary school. But I have a very patchy memory of my teen years, never mind pre-teen ones.

I have clinical depression, which is hereditary, so in my childhood i was always pretty unhappy, even though it was carefree and almost idylic.
I hated being a child. why do i have to go to school? why do i have to listen to my parents? why can't i have every toy in the world? and why wasn't i born in America? In hindsight - i had all the happy memories, no trauma, no abuse, no poverty or hunger. But always feeling some kind of discomfort.
Only as an adult i grasped the reasons and learned some coping strategies.

Nope... I had a very difficult/unhappy childhood and I have lots of memories of it, my sister who missed a lot of the worst bit due to age however remembers not a lot before being about 9 or 10.

I had a fucking awful childhood with most, in not all of the ACEs in it, and I remember far, far more than I would like to remember.

I had a pretty naff childhood home life and I have lots of pre-10 memories, but they’re mostly of time with my dogs or holidays at nice relatives’ houses.

Yes agreed. I had a pretty traumatic childhood and have very few ‘happy’ memories. I’ve whole chunks missing, I know I’ve tried to block a lot out.

I when an awful childhood

I many memories.
Some only partly which suits me fine

I had an awful childhood. I remember the abuse and I remember playing outside with the kids from my block of flats. The rest od a blur.

I don’t agree. My childhood was pretty shit really. I remember too much of it, right from the age of 2. One of my siblings remembers almost nothing from childhood at all. I think people’s brains just work differently, regardless of whether childhood is good or bad.

I don't agree. I didn't grow up in a happy family environment and I still remember the resentment, the arguments, the maliciousness with which some family members treated DM, feeling excluded and the sibling affection not balanced.
I remember certain situations but most of all how I felt about it. And it's pretty vivid, even more as I'm getting older and have my own child.

I had a great happy stable childhood. Don’t remember much about it though!

Hmm, I’d always thought like you OP, having had an abusive childhood and very few memories. However, it seems we might not be right!

I read somewhere that the really early memories, when your system is still building itself, don't get filed properly so you can't normally retrieve them. The system keeps building itself till something unusual happens (in my case I have only about three memories from before my brother was born a few months before I went to school).

So it's quite possible that someone with a happy stable childhood would not remember much from the early part of it, while those with more adverse experiences would remember more.

On the other hand, there's the blocking out scenario which many people recognise. I imagine the threshold for that will vary from person to person, depending on different factors including the rest of their experiences.

tldr: it's complicated...