[Magdalen] Awareness/Memories.

[Jay Weigel]

A lot of people don't remember actual bad or serious events that happened
to them at even older ages, particularly events that resulted in injury.
Others of us remember seemingly random events that happened at very young
ages.

For instance, my first clear memory is of standing on my tiptoes, holding
onto the edge of a baby carriage and looking down into it at a baby, and an
adult voice saying, "This is your cousin Judy." Judy and I were born a year
and three days apart and were very close growing up. The first time we saw
each other I was just shy of 18 months old. It was Christmas, 1944, and my
mother and I lived with my dad's parents in Columbia, MO. Dad's older
brother, my uncle Bill, his wife, my aunt Carol, and 6 month old Judy had
come for Christmas. When I told my mother about this she was quite
surprised, as no one had ever told me about it.

The other memory I have around this era is a little more nebulous and
surrounds my first recorded sentence, which was "I saw Mrs. Gulick's red
setter." My grandpa would take me for a walk almost every day unless the
weather was just too inclement, and apparently I reported this upon my
return one day. I do have a very concrete memory of the neighbor's red dog
against her dark green coat.

On Thu, Mar 19, 2015 at 12:19 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen <
magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
>
>
> A number of events reported in the newspapers this past week
> or so prompts me to ask the question about what age a child  needs
> to be to remember events.
>
> There is the Utah child who hung upside down in her family submerged
> car, with water rushing inches from her face for something like 10  hours.
> She was rescued and is physically all right.  Will she have a memory  of
> this?  She was about 2.
>
> There were other recent reports of bad events for children as young
> as 1 year of age.  Will they remember?
>
> Some of the online material implies it is about two years of age when
> memory and self-awareness takes place.  But I wouldn't take the
> stuff online as necessarily accurate.
>
> Anyone know?
>
>
> David S.
>