Why You Remember What You Remember From Childhood

The reasons seemingly random experiences are preserved in our memory.

Posted January 16, 2026 | Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

What is your very first memory ?

For me, it’s an image of my oldest sister in a white T-shirt with horizontal, dark green stripes, holding me near a lake when I was about 2 years old.

Aware that most of us have infantile amnesia [1] and rarely remember anything that occurred before we were 3 or 4 (our brain’s memory machinery—such as the hippocampus—doesn’t mature until then),[1] I went through dusty old family albums to see if there were any photos of that vacation. And sure enough, at Green Lake, Wisconsin, there was my sister Florence in the striped T-shirt that I remember.

Not conclusive proof of the accuracy of my memory, but promising corroboration.

It’s understandable why my other memories from early childhood , such as getting food poisoning at a daycare center, or my mother being taken away in an ambulance, have persisted: they were of emotionally charged events, and memory research shows that experiences with high emotional valences strongly encode.[2,3]

But my ancient memory from Green Lake is not associated with any strong emotions, so why is it still there?

Here’s the latest research on why we remember what we remember from childhood

Storage and retrieval of early memories

Notice the heading differentiates memory storage from memory retrieval, because it’s possible to store early memories but not be able to later retrieve them. Psychologist Carole Peterson found that careful questioning can resurrect memories that would otherwise be lost, extending recall to a time before the previous “earliest” memory.[6] For instance, when adults were primed with questions about their early life before being asked for their earliest memory, or asked to recount historical events in their first years, the age of earliest memories decreased.

Peterson’s research underscores the difference between memory storage and retrieval: Memories are like small rural villages with dirt roads leading to them; if the roads disappear in the undergrowth or are washed out, the village can’t be reached, even though the village still exists. So our first memories aren’t necessarily the only ones to survive infantile amnesia, just the earliest memories to which “memory roads” still exist.

The concept of maintaining retrieval pathways is crucial to recalling early events in our lives. Here’s a summary.

So, knowing all this, why do I remember Green Lake? I can’t be certain, but my guess is a combination of novelty (there were no lakes where I grew up) and family stories about the vacation.

I wish I could forget the bullying and other traumas I experienced as a child, but I can’t.

However, sometimes our brains “do us a favor” and unconsciously erase painful memories, a process called active forgetting .[7,8] With active forgetting, the “roads” to the “villages” of early memory do not so much fade away as they are purposefully bulldozed by our unconscious . Failures of active forgetting are associated with a wide variety of mental disorders, such as depression and anxiety , along with flashbacks and intrusive negative thoughts.[7,8] Contrary to popular belief, hypnosis and other techniques, such as guided imagery, do not reliably resurrect repressed memories .[11]

Implications for your mental well-being

Something profound happened as I was writing this piece: In resurrecting my own early memories, especially the traumatic ones that made me distrust others, I realized that my whole life, I had been a slave to those memories, needlessly erecting barriers and pushing good-hearted people away.

I never consciously chose to do this; my unconscious did it to protect my fragile ego. But my unconscious fortress of distrust was also a prison, preventing me from enjoying potentially fulfilling relationships. Aware of this now, I can consciously choose to stop my brain from overprotecting me and enjoy life more.

My expedition into the poorly charted recesses of my past unearthed a key that freed me from a prison I didn’t realize I was in.

Forays into the dim reaches of your own past could do the same for you. Happy hunting!

Alberini, C. M., & Travaglia, A. (2017). Infantile amnesia: a critical period of learning to learn and remember. Journal of Neuroscience , 37 (24), 5783-5795. pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5473198 (infantile amnesia)
McGaugh, J. L. (2013). Making lasting memories: Remembering the significant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , 110 (supplement_2), 10402-10407. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1301209110 (emotional valence)
Kensinger, E. A. (2009). Remembering the details: Effects of emotion. Emotion review , 1 (2), 99-113. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2676782 (emotions in retrieval)

4 ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4669902/ (novelty and distinctiveness)

Holland, A. C., & Kensinger, E. A. (2010). Emotion and autobiographical memory. Physics of life reviews , 7 (1), 88-131. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2852439 (frequent retrieval, family stories)
Peterson, C. (2021). What is your earliest memory? It depends. Memory , 29 (6), 811-822. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09658211.2021.1918174 (cues, interrogation method)
Costanzi, M., Cianfanelli, B., Santirocchi, A., Lasaponara, S., Spataro, P., Rossi-Arnaud, C., & Cestari, V. (2021). Forgetting unwanted memories: Active forgetting and implications for the development of psychological disorders. Journal of Personalized Medicine , 11 (4), 241. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8066077 (active forgetting)
Bauer, P. J., & Larkina, M. (2014). The onset of childhood amnesia in childhood: A prospective investigation of the course and determinants of forgetting of early-life events. Memory , 22 (8), 907-924. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4025992 (forgetting)
Simcock, G., & Hayne, H. (2002). Breaking the barrier? Children fail to translate their preverbal memories into language. Psychological science , 13 (3), 225-231. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/1467-9280.00442 (language)

10 Hayne, H., & Herbert, J. (2004). Verbal cues facilitate memory retrieval during infancy. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology , 89 (2), 127-139. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S002209650400092X (verbal cues)

Friedlander, M. D., & Smith, M. D. (1985). Scientific status of refreshing recollection by the use of hypnosis. JAMA , 253 , 1918-1923. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/397702 (hypnosis myth)

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Eric Haseltine, Ph.D ., is a neuroscientist and the author of Long Fuse, Big Bang.

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This article is part of the Bringwise Psychology Journal — daily insights on human behavior, mental health, and personal growth.