Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

I can’t remember my children

167 replies

EmpressOfTheSofa · 29/01/2023 20:22

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?

OP posts:
RichardOsmansXraySpecs · 29/01/2023 20:52

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.

I think this is right but because we have so many photos/videos etc it is a constant reminder of that time. Maybe if we didn’t have the photos the memories of the little ones would fade a bit?

FatsiaJaponica567 · 29/01/2023 20:55

It’s not just you op! It’s like adolescence comes along and steals your little dc away and they morph in to the same but different people. Also, I think you are so busy “doing” when you are raising young dc that it’s hard to stop and just savour the moment. I do have some vivid snapshot memories of my dd’s childhoods and it’s lovely now to see them now grow in to beautiful young women but it’s hard to connect the two sometimes!

I sometimes think there is some mechanism in our minds that makes us forget each stage tbh so we carry on procreating or we pay attention to the here and now. I know with Mumsnet threads, I am only ever focused on the threads that relate to the stage the dc are at at the time!

RichardOsmansXraySpecs · 29/01/2023 20:55

Youdoyoubabe · 29/01/2023 20:51

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

Yes you’re right when I picture my parents I see the older people not the ones in their 30s/40s as they would’ve been when I was a child.

MatildaJayne · 29/01/2023 20:58

I feel like this with my young adults. I look at photos of them as preteens and they don’t seem to be the same person. The transformation at puberty for my boys happened so quickly that they seemed to change appearance and personality within weeks. It’s more noticeable with my youngest, he seems to have changed hugely and I can’t join the dots between him then, such a distinct and quirky personality, and now, a fairly uncommunicative and insecure young adult. The other two have also changed but not quite as dramatically.

Kanaloa · 29/01/2023 21:05

I don’t think it’s that you can’t remember your kids 😂 they’ve just changed a lot. I understand that. When I watch DS (now taller than me) in a karate comp, I can’t really reconcile him with the baby him who used to have explosive baby poop. It’s like there’s baby DS and big boy DS. Weirdly I don’t have this with DD or my younger two. They just seem like longer versions of baby them! Maybe because they aren’t teens yet.

Choconut · 29/01/2023 21:05

Yes I understand this, it's like I don't recognise him as a 2 year old as I can only think of him as the teenager he is now.

OliveWah · 29/01/2023 21:06

Weirdly, I feel like this about DD2, but not DD1. I am really close to both girls, they are very different in personality and need different things from me in terms of parenting, but I love them both equally and wouldn't say I am "closer" to one than the other. This disparity in my failure to recognise the baby/toddler/8 year old that now 14 year old DD2 has turned into, and the ease with which I can recognise new-born baby as 16 year old DD1 feels very odd to me. I've not heard anyone else discuss it, so I am relieved to read other people admit to feeling similar on this thread.

User963 · 29/01/2023 21:07

I was watching some videos of dS as a toddler and older and was amazed how different his voice sounds. He is 11 so it hasn’t broken yet but in my head it’s as if it’s always sounded the way it does now.

ilovesushi · 29/01/2023 21:08

Yes I get it! I was thinking of this only this weekend!

dontknowwhatisbest · 29/01/2023 21:09

Absolutely relate, and I was actually thinking about posting something similar just recently.

Without wanting to sound over dramatic it's as if the young children they were simply don't exist anymore. I find looking at photos a very bittersweet experience.

Tulipmonster · 29/01/2023 21:10

I’ve been feeling very much at the coal face of parenting with my 3 and 1 year old and this thread has given me chills at the idea that one day I’ll long to be back here…

BrutusMcDogface · 29/01/2023 21:11

I totally get it. My oldest turned 13 recently and I find it hard reconciling the person she is now, with the tiny girl in the photos! Still love her though 😜

Lemons1571 · 29/01/2023 21:12

My photos don’t represent my memories. I suspect I was so fucking knackered all the time that my brain just didn’t retain much of it. The photos are in the moment, my brain was always one step ahead with the next thing that needed doing / sorting / arranging.

nellytheelephantpackedhertrunk · 29/01/2023 21:12

I have a 3yo and feel exactly like that when 'memories' pop up on social media from a year or two ago!

OneFrenchEgg · 29/01/2023 21:13

My 15 year old said this the other day, that one day he would be a man and not the same him as now.

M08my · 29/01/2023 21:14

I was watching a video of my dd from when she was about 9m and in the video, she's responding to what I'm saying by smiling and nodding or shaking her head.

My first reaction watching it was, why isn't she saying anything?! - so weird, I realised I completely forgot there was a time before she could talk! Lol that sounds stupid but it was just a gut reaction. I remember the first few days after her birth, vividly like minute-by-minute replay because of my birth trauma, but after that it's all a bit of a blur.

So yeah, I completely get you, OP. And my DD isn't even 3yo yet lol.

ehb102 · 29/01/2023 21:15

I haven't got aphantasia but I find it very hard to visually recall things in detail. I am very weak at it. So yes, I know how you feel.

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 29/01/2023 21:17

When I see my tall , slim, bearded 23yo DS with his guitar on his back I am gobsmacked when I recognise that this creature is mine albeit on loan. I might turn out to be the MIL from Hades , who knows ?

So far apart from the little by he was way back when.

DD is a beautiful tall intelligent young lady . She is chatty , funny and independant . I think DH and I have done good.

My menopausal brain is struggling to remember recent things like holidays or days out , Even Christmas and that was only a month ago.

Original poster
EmpressOfTheSofa · 29/01/2023 21:19

I am so glad I posted this! I was feeling very low in general and particularly low about my big kids living away; the FB memory of my gorgeous toddler pretty much tipped me over as I couldn’t reconcile him with the performance-farty little 10yo monster who kept trying to use the word ‘shag’ in conversation (Austin powers film watched earlier in the evening)

I thought I was a monster who couldn’t remember my babies as babies. Thank you MN. 20years here and you are still making my life better even though they ain’t babies no more.

OP posts:
NeedAHoliday2021 · 29/01/2023 21:20

I love remembering the toddler years etc but it feels like a different lifetime.

Simulacra · 29/01/2023 21:20

I think it’s probably a quirk of nature, so that we can kick them out of the nest. We remember just enough of their cute helpless days to not throttle them, and have a disconnect between what they were and what they are so that we don’t keep them tethered to us forever.

liveforsummer · 29/01/2023 21:21

Mine are both still very like their younger selves. Dd1 a bit dreamy, silly and engaging. She makes the same facial expressions and words things in the same manner. Dd2 still has the fiery temper and curly hair, constantly observing and questioning. They really are just bigger more sophisticated versions of earlier years. Other children change hugely. I guess it's coincidence that nether of mine did

Changemaname1 · 29/01/2023 21:21

I wouldn’t say I feel a disconnect in the way you describe

however my memory is shocking , even big things like holidays only 7/8 years back with them I can remember the odd thing that happened but that’s about it . Some
occasions are clearer others I can barely remember

iv been thinking about this recently actually is my memory really bad or is everyone like this

Changemaname1 · 29/01/2023 21:22

liveforsummer · 29/01/2023 21:21

Mine are both still very like their younger selves. Dd1 a bit dreamy, silly and engaging. She makes the same facial expressions and words things in the same manner. Dd2 still has the fiery temper and curly hair, constantly observing and questioning. They really are just bigger more sophisticated versions of earlier years. Other children change hugely. I guess it's coincidence that nether of mine did

I do agree with this though mine are just older versions and still very similar to how they were

MadCattery · 29/01/2023 21:23

My best friend keeps pictures of her now-grown daughters on her wall, photos of when they were small. I commented once on how cute they looked and she said “yes, I really miss those kids.” I was confused. She still has the two daughters. And then she explained just like you did, that those small children were different from the big people/ adults she now knows. It does make sense. An adorable eight year old and a trip to the zoo is completely different from today, taking care of their own homes and children. They don’t even seem slightly related.