How many childhood memories do you have?

[HourlyTime]

A friend asked me if I had school dinners or took a packed lunch when I was a kid - I couldn't remember.

Either Primary or secondary school, I have zero memories of eating, I couldn't tell you - I can't remember any friends I had, or outside school what I did in the summer holidays or weekends.

I realised I have very, very few childhood memories at all.

Is that normal/common?

I have lots of memories of childhood with my family and very little of school. That's probably not a coincidence. I have a few quite clear memories of primary school, none of them particularly good and I have completely obliterated all other primary memories. I don't remember a great deal about secondary school until 6th form.
But I can remember what was going on in my life outside school at the same time in vivid detail. For example, last year DH and I drove through somewhere on the way to our holidays that I visited with my parents in 1974 and I recognised it and said to DH "Oh, if you take the next left there's a pub down the road by the lake. It's called the Fisherman's Rest and I had really nice scampi and chips for lunch on holiday with Mum and Dad. They both had chicken." I could remember that day in almost photographic detail, down to what I was wearing, but I couldn't tell you who my teacher was that year or anything at all that happened at school.

I remember tonnes of stuff from my past, particularly my childhood.

I remember walking to my friends house when I lived at my first house, aged 3.

I remember sitting in my green Mothercare Minit pushchair. I remember it vividly as the seat used to wobble when I climbed in. I remember my brother standing on the metal footplate to hitch a ride and it saying Mothercare on the footplate.

I can re all the names of all of my teachers from Primary and secondary school

I remember the name of every child in my year 6 classroom and where they say in that room.

I remember my first day and hanging my school bag up in the cloakroom. My school bag had a cat on the front. I remember lessons from my infant school days.

I hated those first days of school and bawled my eyes out every time my mum left me. She had to sit me down with a Caramac bar (white packaging with a soldier on the front) which would distract me for long enough for her to make a run for it!

Ask me what I was doing on a specific day last week and I'd have to really think about what I did!

I'm autistic and used to stand back and observe people at school so I'm wondering if that was why I remember so much about my childhood.

I have lots of childhood memories starting from 3 or 4 years old. My sister however, hardly remembers anything - she can’t even remember our parents taking us to DisneyWorld in Orlando (twice - she was roughly 8 and 10 I think on those trips).

Some examples of things I can remember:

looking out of my bedroom window at the house we lived in before we moved when I was 5 and seeing my neighbour in her garden

Cutting my eye open at nursery within a few days of my 4th birthday

My favourite story book that every night at the old house I would wait til my mum went downstairs then I would turn on my light to read it.

Flooding my parents house because the water was off before I went for a nap

Watching the All Blacks on tv when I got home from nursery at lunchtime

Watching Knight Rider on a Friday night

A power cut that I thought meant I would miss Knght Rider… but it came back on just in time

My parents making a rocket ship and a boat for me and my sister out of cardboard boxes from appliances at our old house.

Making these pink and green peppermint sweets with my mum.

The exact layout of our house from before we moved including the garden.

Watching my dad go to work from the front room window and waving to him.

Playing with Sticklebricks and a Transformer.

These were all from under 5 - so many above that age I couldn’t list them all! As I’m starting to think, there are more memories flooding back even from that young age.

I remember loads and since having DD I keep getting flooded with memories of my childhood that I hadn’t thought about for a long time, to the point that I remember them better than my more recent life!

When DD started secondary school I was not prepared to be suddenly experiencing strong flashbacks to my own school years — even very visceral memories of walking up the school stairs and so on. I hated secondary school and in my twenties I was keen to forget my teenage years as fast as possible. Turns out they are all still there, just waiting for the right school run morning moment to pop up again all smelling of parquet floor hall polish and Dewberry. 😯

I remember a teacher who was an absolute cunt when I was 4. That's as far back as I go.

I could still name everyone in my primary class. I'm 47. I remember most things. I don't have an eidetic memory but the amount of detail I remember must be pretty close. I even remember stuff like my school shoes and the type of hairbands I wore in reception.

I remember loads , my earliest memories were from about age 3 - going to afternoon playgroup , the big muddy field behind our house and getting our first family dog from Battersea dogs home .

I hardly remember anything, just bits and pieces from middle school and high school.
I don't remember teachers names or my classmates except my closest friends.
I hardly remember anything from being really young.

My adult memories are not all that good either in that I've forgotten some people that I've worked with. Colleagues will ask if I remember Jenny, or say "Oh Tom is coming back to work here soon!" And I'm just like "who?"
It's like if we are not close friends or haven't worked together for quite a long time, they just leave and cease to exist!

I remember a few things but it's more that I know they happened rather than that I can go back and relive them
I can't see pictures in my head or remember smells and things though. So I wonder if it's to do with that?

I remember loads. I’ve got very early memories of being potty trained, my cot, my pushchair, the first family dog.

Absolutely loads from school, I could tell you every teachers name, everyone in my class, parties I went to, my first day at school.

Dh can’t remember anything. I find it baffling to be honest that people can’t remember things, but everyone is different.

Tonnes. Early memories are like snap shots, a few 'story memories' like DM telling me off for playing outside.

First day at school, teachers obsession with us writing in pencil not pen, learning counting and story time, end of my first term when the teacher said dont come back to this classroom go to the next one, DBs first day.

Learning maths in years 2 (why do I always remember maths? 😂), hiding under tables, forgetting my glasses.

So much more, who my friends were, physical accidents and illnesses, who looked after me, school plays and events, judo, gymnastics classes, school discos, school trips and so on continuing throughout school.

At home I remember playing outside a lot, board games, we didn't do as much at home as school was so busy, but remember places we would go, seemingly endlessly being sat in the back of the car etc.

What have I done in the last month?I'd have to forensically check the calendar 😂

I remember loads, but very random short snippets.

Like a talking doll I got for Christmas in about 1994. You pressed her tummy and she'd talk. If you didn't then press her for a while, she'd then say "bye bye". On that Christmas Day, she happened to say her "bye bye" as I was leaving the room with her, and the whole family laughed. I can still picture her really clearly. She had a pink dress and two blonde bunches on either side of her head. She spoke with an American accent.
Another really clear one is walking down the high street with my dad, talking about buying some chocolate mousses. I guess it was memorable, because it was very rare for me to go out with just my dad. I suppose I was about 7 or 8.

I don't remember so much of the "big things". I don't remember a great deal of holidays we went on for example. Aged about 10 and then 12, we went to Malta and then Cyprus. They are pretty merged in my head as one trip.

I'm the same as you with teachers.
I remember every teachers name and face as if it were yesterday. Especially my primary school teachers, and could tell plenty of stories about them.
I find it completely bizarre, the people who just shrug when asked "who was your year 3 teacher?" Mine was Mrs Poole, and I can picture her as clearly as if she was stood in front of me now!

I have very, very few, DH remembers almost everything

Although interestingly I did a type of meditation recently which brought back LOADS, so it’s still there somewhere

@Edenmum2 If you don’t mind sharing, I would be interested to know what type of meditation this was? I have aphantasia (no minds eye) and very limited autobiographical memory. I practice guided meditations but am totally unable to do the visualisation ones. No worries if not.

I remember lots, in vivid detail, even the gist of some conversations that stick out more in my memory. I don't remember faces though, and I'm hazy with names but I can see everything else in my mind's eye.

My 14 year old, however, already can't remember much of primary school unless there's photos to jog her memory.

I can remember absolutely tonnes of stuff from childhood, including a few things before age 3. I remember conversations, friends' birthdays, all sorts! Not only remember having packed lunches at school, but remember what I had as well!

I'm late 40s and my short-term memory isn't so good nowadays, however.

Im
not sure what it’s called officially but it was one where just before you sleep you focus on a house you went to a lot when you were young and you walk through every room in your mind…sounds really basic but I was amazed at how much it unlocked for me, not just to do with the house I choose (my grandparents) but all sorts of other stuff came back. I was actually only doing it to help me get off to sleep!

I don’t remember lots, but I do remember the green and pink custard. There was a girl in my primary school that would mix it all up with chocolate cake and eat it with her mouth open 🤢

I don’t remember anything from before about age four or five, but I do recall school lunches, friends, and playing outside. Once I reached high school, around eleven my memories became more tied to emotions, like the embarrassment when the bus driver stopped to tell me off for standing on the top deck, or for wearing the wrong shoes. Etc.

I remember loads down to where my classmates sat in class from about the equivalent of y3 up until the upper 5th. I could draw a diagram and write their names. I also remember all the teachers' names. Sadly not so much about what I should have learnt. I can still see Miss Williams putting up Christmas decorations by sellotaping a drawing pin to the end of a broom and sticking it in a ceiling tile and putting up our cut out snowflakes.

I'd like very much to forget grey pigs liver and beef cobbler with cabbage swimming in water and the menstrual blood that stayed up the wall of the outdoor lavatory block for the five years I was at the school.

I remember back to 18 months. I don't really forget anything.

I remember loads including incredibly tiny details involving all senses.

DH hardly remembers anything.

I don't know that it means very much - some people say if you can't remember childhood it's indicative of trauma. With DH and I, DH arguably had some traumatic experiences/his parents were a bit strict veering into abusive at times, and he was bullied at primary school but I didn't experience anything so extreme, so the theory seems to work for us, but I'm not convinced that it's like that across the board. Maybe it has some effect but it seems to me that it's more likely what you remember is influenced by the way your brain stores memories, which is probably individual?

I think it's strange that you don't remember anything from childhood tbh.

I can remember a huge amount about my childhood, teachers, dinners, family life. If I think of an aspect say, school dinners. it's as though a film reel plays through my head. I have a friend of a similar age who can remember very little. I think it's individual.

I don’t remember everything, but my memories start from when I was two years old: DM had lost a baby at term, my GM was looking after me and my DB, I remember lying on the hearth rug when my DP came to pick us up to return home.
I have loads of memories of growing up!