I can’t remember my children

[EmpressOfTheSofa]

Ok sounds dramatic. But I’ve just had a FB memory of my youngest doing something cute as a toddler. And watching it feels
to me like watching my own cute baby but has no relevance to the pre teen I see now.

We have a great bond, no worries there. But I can’t reconcile pictures/videos of him then to now. It’s like separate identities. The same for my much older adult DC.

Is this weird? I can see pictures of my younger siblings and join that together with the adults they are now but with my kids I seem to have a strange disconnect between who they were as infants and who they are as older children. I’m finding it quite disturbing. It’s like ‘remember that toddler we used to know’ and ‘look at this funny child laughing at his own farts’. Love them both but seem like completely different entities.

Anyone else or am I losing it?

Oh. Just me then.

My mid/long term memory has become terrible since having children, I forget so much. They're still young now but I can imagine feeling this way in 10 years!

I can remember my childhood vividly, but five years ago is a bit of a blur.

I feel the same - the teenager in front of me seems like an entirely separate person to the cute toddler I had.

The title is very dramatic 😂 but I sort of get it. I look at pics of my four year old as a baby and hardly remember taking them or him being that age. I don't think that's so unusual? Maybe it's because we have so many pics on smartphones now that we look back much more than we used to.

No I think I understand my phone is away pinging up photo montages of little people I clearly remember having wonderful holidays with that bare no resemblance to the hulking 17 year old pulling off the driveway in his car. they feel like very separate people who both belonged to me at different times!

I think it's when your relationship changes so much it's like they are different people. I'm the same with DS and my 10 year younger sibling I helped raise. I miss the children they were while still loving the teens/adults they are.

I'd say it was a cognitive issue if you look at photos of your kids but can't remember them, sorry. Do you mind if I ask how old you are?

You posted your second post 6 minutes after your first.......jeez give people time.

I do look at pictures of mine when they were tiny and I miss those little people.
I sort of know what you mean.
Who they are now has taken over the 4 year olds they used to be.
I suspect it’s some evolutionary thing that means I’m able to let them out of my sight!! 🤪

I get this! I can't put it anymore eloquently but yes. I get this too. It's very strange.

I don’t think she means that she doesn’t recognise her kids. I get what she means, but I can’t put it into words. It’s almost like how I feel about covid - a surreal feeling.

I get this. I hate that I can’t remember how they used to speak and stuff. I see it in videos and it makes me sad.

I feel like this - I think it’s because you never wake up and they’re suddenly a pre teen, it’s a gradual thing where you don’t notice big changes until you’re faced with them in an old photo or memory.

Is this weird? I don’t necessarily think so. When we tell my youngest DC of the epic tantrums they used to have, it is like we’re talking about a different person. Isn’t that because they are, really? The toddler has gone, never to return.

I grew up with my siblings, so I got older alongside them at the same life stage, turning from the children we were to teenagers to young adults to older. It was happening to me simultaneously as it was happening to them. Whereas my own children seemed to age up so much faster whilst I don’t feel I’ve changed fundamentally. I think that’s why it seems different.

I’m not bothered by it, other than sometimes nostalgically wishing for an hour or so in the company of my DC at their younger, squishier stages. The past is another country…

I think it’s just really what happens when you’ve got teenagers 🤔 I look at mine and think it seems a lifetime ago since they were tiny, it’s surreal.

She remembers them but they seem like a different person to the older kids she has now.
I totally get it OP, when I look back at photos of my teens when they were little it’s like they are different people and it makes me really sad. How the hell do they change so fast in front of your eyes without noticing?

I started early on this. I couldn't ever really connect my newborn babies with the squiggly thing I used to feel kicking inside me. Didn't seem real that they were one and the same.

I think this feeling is becoming more common since we started viewing life through our phones and social media. I'm making a conscious effort to be more in the moment now

I feel the same way about my 5 year old!! He feels like a different person to the newborn. Sometimes I look into his face and remind myself he is that newborn. I love them both so dearly but it's just weird!

Make the most of every day because in the blink of an eye he’ll be grown up 😭

I think it's kinda normal. It's why older people tell you not to wish the years away, or to cherish all the times you have before they are adults. It's only 18 years and it goes in a flash. Also, your young adults and teens want you to recognise them for who they are now, not hark back to their cute years at 3/4/5/6 whatever. They want with them in the here and now (even though it seems like they don't sometimes!). So the loss of memory of the details of your child's early years could be seen as nature's way of putting you in the present.

When did was born, I found it really hard to connect her with the child that I had carried throughout the pregnancy.

I loved her immediately and fiercely but there was this strange feeling of loss for the baby that I had carried.
It was odd and I didn't have the same feeling with my second. That was more of a 'ah there you are' kind of moment.
I can imagine feeling like you do when they are older too.

100percent get you
I can barely look at old pics of my teenager
Ahhh

It is the same for kids when we get old. They don’t remind us younger. Time keeps marching on.