April 13, 2018 • 27 mins
How do our childhood memories shape us? How do we cope with painful events during our most formative years? Dylan and Kathleen consider these questions and bring you stories of loss and strength. Special guest: Natalie Merrill, PhD.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, this is a interesting place. I've never been here before.
M hm hm, Hi and welcome to the Question Booth.
(00:23):
I'm Dylan Fagin and I'm Kathleen William and we're so
glad that you're here with us today. The Question Booth
is a place where people answer a big question. Each week,
we play some of their responses, talk to someone who
knows a lot about that subject, and find out surprising
ways that we're all more like than different. But before
we get down to it, how are you doing today, Kathleen,
I'm doing great, Dylan, happy to be in the booth
(00:44):
with you today talking about my favorite thing, the Question Booth.
The Question Booth is definitely a favorite of mine too,
and I'm looking forward to diving into this week's topic. Yes,
so today we're listening to the answers to the question
what one childhood memory shaped your idea of the world. Oh,
that's a great one. Do you have a memory from
your childhood that really stands out off the top of
(01:05):
your head? I do. When I was thirteen, my parents
moved me out of the suburbs and into the city
of Atlanta. I remember the first time walking up to
a little five Points, which is a famous neighborhood in Atlanta,
and the place was just covered in beautiful murals and
it smelled like incense, but my thirteen year old self
didn't know what incense were. And then this guy came
(01:29):
up to me and he asked me if he could
write a poem about me, and then he recited it
right in front of me on the spot, And I
think that really shaped who I am today. That's a
positive childhood memory, for sure. Do you have a world
shaping memory, Dylan? All my memories are kind of based
around comfort, and one of the strongest is my great
grandmother making macaroni and cheese. She cooked a lot, and
(01:51):
I remember sitting in her kitchen one day in particular,
and there was a thunderstorm outside and I was just
sitting there in that warm kitchen, smelling the macaroni and cheese,
watching Bob Ross just have a good feeling and be
happy and and love with life and new world, and
sat down and begin playing. It was so comforting. And
I think I've translated that sense of comfort over the
(02:13):
years into a sense of love, and I hope that
sense of love has made me a kind of person.
But you know what, the more I think about our answers,
and the more excited I am to hear everyone else's.
That's good because we have some great responses this week.
And as you know, Dylan, the thing about the question
Booth is that the more you ask a question, the
more you start to see a pattern in people's answers.
(02:35):
This week it was relationships and loss. People opened up
about struggling and ultimately overcoming big challenges to become stronger.
And we'll also be speaking to Natalie Meryl from Memory
University's Bower Memory Lab to learn more about how children
form and process memories. Among negative memories, some of the
more interesting ones, I think our transgression memories where someone
(02:58):
broke a law or did something that they feel was
morally wrong because they contradict your sense of self as
a good person. But let's start with Dana and Brittany.
Brittany talks about how important it is to have the
support of your family. M H. I think for me,
a lot of it had to do with when I
(03:20):
was younger, my mom was sick and seeing her in
the hospital and experiencing that as a young child, feeling
so out of control of that experience, but also feeling
like there was something you could do and to be
able to do those things and what that brings to
you as a person into the other people, whether it
(03:40):
be the day that I brought I think all of
my stuffed animals and baby dolls to my mom, or
trying to be there and make sure my brother didn't
get in trouble and you know, add to any any
stressors in life, or be able to hug my dad
as much as I could. And I, you know, I
was really really little. I was in kindergarten, and you know,
(04:02):
I think that I have an inclination to be that
kind of person. Anyway, I think other kids might deal
with things differently, so I think they're the inclination is there,
but I think certain things in life kind of bring
out certain capabilities and assets and possibilities and and and
so I think though that was a difficult time for
(04:25):
our family, I think it really helped define the way
that I look at family and the way that I
look at life. That you fight for the people you
love and you put yourself out there to take care
of the people you love no matter what's going on.
I'm sure that played a really big role in your
family being extremely close, like having to be so close
(04:45):
to come together, Like, did that play a really big
part in your childhood looking back? Uh, it was difficult,
I think when you're in the midst of something, But
when you come through that, I think you learned so
much more about the truth about your relationships, the struggles
about your relationships and how they can grow. My parents,
I've learned so much from them and their relationship, And
(05:08):
one of the things that I think is the biggest
gift is that they have fought, as any relationship faces fighting,
but they've always fought for each other. And that's something
that I saw, even when I was very very young
in that very tumultuous time in their relationship in our family.
Um kind of facing that but knowing that we got
(05:29):
to the other side of it and we faced it
together and faced many other struggles after the fact, intact
in whole and stronger because of it. Watching that really
is something that stuck with me. Is is one of
the other things I think, which is weird to say
that some of the bad things really shape you in
the best way, because if the bad things are things
(05:50):
you can learn from and grow from and find strength
from and really pull from, the best parts of yourself.
Then you can continue that into a oldhood and pulling
those wonderful parts of you and pushing that out to
the world. Brittany hit on something interesting here about how
negative memories might shape us more than positive ones. Well,
I want to know more, and according to an article
(06:12):
in Current Directions in Psychological Science by Elizabeth Kinzinger, negative
events do tend to be remembered more accurately than positive ones.
We might not be able to remember as many details
about the negative event, but the ones we do are
more likely to be correct. Okay, so let's say you
get in a car accident. Insert cartoon car crast sound
effect here now, so we're not morbid. It's a fender bender,
(06:39):
a lot of cosmetic damage, but everything's okay. Let's also
say that for the sake of the episode, that you're
a teenager, and I'm calling this the childhood memory because
of that. I was in one of these three days
after getting my first car, and I can't tell you
all the details, obviously, but I remember where it happened,
where I was hit, in the damage that I did.
I'm pretty confident all of that. It's still pretty vivid
(06:59):
in my mind. However, I've totally forgotten all the other stuff,
the name of the person who hit me, what they
were wearing, and the name of the cop who came
to the scene. But Dylan, are you a better driver now?
I sure hope so. Well, Dylan, it makes you feel
any better. The first time I got in the car,
I hit a pole, and I passed that pole on
my drive home every day, and my parents don't let
(07:21):
me live it down that there's still a giant dent
in that pole. For some reason, that makes me feel
a lot better. You know, we have a need to
remember the important details from a fear inducing event. In contrast,
on a day that you or I might go into
the office, work on a couple of projects and have
a couple of routine meetings, we probably don't remember a
(07:41):
lot about that day a month later because nothing triggered
an emotional response in our memory network. Memories are super interesting,
and it makes so much sense to me that some
of our strongest memories would be wrapped up in family.
And for some childhood memories are actually about the absence
of family. In fact, apps and this was really part
of the pattern that merged this week. Let's hear from Skylar. Okay,
(08:05):
So when I was born, Um, my dad had custody
in me because of like things with my mom, Like
if things are really um complicated, I have memories of
not having a female figure, you know, in my life.
It's just something important about having your mother, you know,
present with you as you're transitioning into being a young woman.
I did not have that, So, um a memory would
(08:27):
be just not having my mom around, and that really
taught me things just they're not gonna always turn out
how you want them to be, but you have to
just do what you have to do with what you have.
My dad, he didn't teach me everything that I needed
as far as like to become a woman. Not having
my mom really made an impact on me because I
saw the way that she was doing things like from
(08:48):
Afar from a distance, Like I knew that there was
a reason why I didn't have a relationship with her,
why she wasn't in my life. But um, I just
I didn't understand why things were happening the way that
they were happening. So I think I just learned, um
how to basically just do what you have to do.
I'm a great woman. I can say myself. I turned
(09:08):
out okay, but I'm just I don't know, it's just
it's it's a lot. Are you close with your dad?
He passed away in two thousand and eight, so like
I just had to her, you know, go through that
(09:29):
whole lost thing again. It's just different not having your parents.
So I think I learned a sense of independence in
a way by not having my mom firsthand and then
losing my dad. Um, independence, strength and growth, you know,
that's the main things that I learned from my childhood
because I didn't have my mom. She wasn't like a
(09:51):
strong influence, and then my dad was, but he left
me so early, so it was like what I'm gonna
do now, you know what I'm saying. So, um, that's
my main a principle from that. But you know, things
happen for a reason, so that's yeah. Do you have
a strong female figure in your life now? Oh yeah,
my my nana. Shout out to my nana. She Um,
(10:13):
she eventually did come and take me under her wing
and start to show me. You know, this is what
you do when this happens. It's okay to feel this way.
And I feel like having a strong woman like I said,
like the last said in the beginning, like not having
a mom really made me realize like, okay, like there's
some stuff that I'm lacking. So my nana came in
(10:34):
and yeah, like she just showed me the ropes and
really nurtured me the nurturing that I lacked that I
needed from my mother and my grandmother, and my nana
came in and gave me that and gave me that
sense of strength because you know, black women, we go
through a lot, and it's generational. It's not just the
stuff that we go through present time, but it's stuff
(10:57):
that's passed down to us just unintentionally. It's just in
our DNA. So like having her, they're really really really
helped shape me to be the person that I am today.
That was Skylar and the question booth. After the break,
we'll hear some more about childhood memories and we're back. So, Kathleen,
(11:29):
I don't know about you. A lot of my childhood memories,
for better or worse, are all tied up in school,
making friends, gem class, standardized tests, maybe trying to hide
a report card, which I may have done in fourth grade.
But all of that gets me interested in hearing about
other people's classroom experiences. Well, let's hear from Stephanie. She
(11:49):
spoke about her time at a Magnet school. Being in
the program I was in was awesome. It gave me
focus through high school in a real way, which was
in other ways very tumultual for me. So it gave
me a firm ground to stand on being a part
of that performing arts program where I kind of knew
what every day was going to look like. And I
had that as a very firm base um through years
(12:12):
which otherwise we're very rocky for me. I had a
very close friend of mine die when I was a
sophomore in high school, and at that point I just
kind of felt unraveled. I also had been diagnosed with
UM an autoimmune disease in freshman year. So there are
these hard things, and I think that being able to
move to that high school or the program was there,
really held me together when otherwise I might have fallen apart,
(12:38):
you know, from these other life changing negative things that happened.
You know, losing a peer at a young age was
really different than losing a grandparent or so different to
someone else. And I mean, first of all, you never
know what's going to happen, and second of all, there's
no way to prepare for that, and um, I don't
(12:59):
think my parents were prepared for the gravity of that
or how to help get through that. So that was
probably another big self shaper, that big experience of loss.
I think there was a kind of a pattern of
loss through my childhood that became a big shaper that
I don't think I sort of fell in my way
or started to find my way out of until my
(13:20):
early thirties, which makes my childhood sound really depressing, and
it wasn't. It was a quality childhood with lots of love,
and those things play a huge role, like they're they're
there right now exactly. And you know, the things that
stand out in that way are the things that really
do kind of change your core. It's not the plane
in the grass every day, I mean in a way
(13:41):
that shapes you. But the big things that kind of
shift your world are the ones that change you more.
Oh gosh, it is hard to lose a friend, especially
as a child or teenager when it can be even
more unexpected. Yes, and Stephanie wasn't the only person to
come into the booth and talk about loss. LaToya told
me a touching story about her grand mother. When I
(14:01):
was in the twelfth grade, I had just hurned seventeen
and my grandma. I lived with my grandmother. She was
blind and um she passed away my senior at the
very beginning of my senior of high school, and I
and UM, I lived to her and then after a while,
(14:22):
like um, after she died. It was like a really
shocking thing to me because like I'm a child, I'm
still seventeen, I'm in high school. But I didn't feel
like my parents, not my parents, went my family in general.
I didn't feel like they supported me in a way
that I should have been supported. I felt like I
was kind of alone at that time, Like they ended
(14:43):
up like selling my grandmother's house and I was instead
of like just going back and live living with my
mom because she lived so far away, I had to
go from house to house, and I just didn't feel
like anybody, you know, they didn't take care of me
as how you would take care of a child who
was kind of out there on her own and was
kind of lost and had just lost somebody that was
(15:05):
very important to her. And I think that's taught me
that I just kind of have to been for myself,
and I have been like that ever since. Like I
don't call anybody, ask anybody for help. If something goes wrong,
I kind of scramble around and try to figure it
out on my own. And I had to learn that
at seventeen. It's really hard. I can't imagine it was
(15:27):
because I was really close to my grandmother. I think
I was the closest one to her because I moved
with her because because she was lying, and to help her, um,
you know, do things around the house and things like that,
and so we had like we're really close relationship, Like
I mean, a teenager and her grandmother. Like it's weird,
but like I would talk to her about like boys
and my problems with my friends and stuff like that.
(15:48):
Do you have a certain memory that you really just
loved of her, like a certain um Yeah, So it's
so weird because um just like I remember I was
dating this boy and he ended up finding out that
he had like at a lot of other girlfriends either
than me, And instead of like calling my friends, I
(16:10):
like ran with my grandmother and I was crying to
her and she, you know, we were just talking about it,
and I felt like the fact that I can come
to you and you can give me like real advice
and not say up, he's nobody. You know, you're you're
only a teenager. You'll forget about him. But she was
really listening and like giving me real life advice. I
thought that was, like, you know, really cool. Losing someone
(16:45):
you love and care about at any age can seem
impossible to deal with until you have to to lose
someone like a family member or friend as a child,
even as a teenager, can be even more confusing. And
Susan Thomas, program director for the Center for Hope at
Cohen's Children's Medical Center of New York, says that grieving
as a child could be cyclical, and an article for
(17:05):
the magazine Social Work Today, she says, the adults always
have one foot in grief and one foot on the outside.
The kids jump in and out of grief. And to me,
that says that once you've experienced it, you're always kind
of expecting it. But as a child, it can truly
come as a shock. And I think that's why we've
heard all these stories about loss today. Loss shapes us
(17:27):
and as we grow we learn new ways to cope.
But with a child every new stage of life and
learning can reopen the grieving process, and the same article,
Any McNeil from the National Alliance for Grieving Children says
that eventually a child's relationship with the deceased person moves
from one of physical reality to one of memories in
continuing bonds. To that end, we wanted to talk to
(17:49):
someone about childhood memories and how they shape the people
we are today. We'll do just that after the break.
We'll be right back m hm, and we're back. Thanks
(18:12):
for joining us. So, as we mentioned, we wanted to
talk to an expert about childhood memory and to do
just that, we spoke with Natalie Meryl, PhD from Emory
University's Power Memory Lab, and Natalie told us about three
main functions of memory. The first is self, so the
self function is essentially understanding your identity and who you are,
where you come from, what values are important to you.
(18:34):
The second is social. The social function really is about
bonding with other people, so when something very significant happens
to you that day, you almost immediately want to tell
someone about it. And the third is directive, which is
helping people um understand their behavior and how to act
in the future. So you learn from your mistakes. What
(18:55):
lesson can I take from this? And what meaning can
I derive from this about how of world works and
what is my role in it? Helping us to understand
our past behaviors helps us make a plan to guide
our future behaviors. So, Natalie, how do we process negative
and positive memories? Like? Are this process differently? Positive and
(19:16):
negative memories are kind of different in how their processed
from meaning making perspective, because negative memories have some kind
of conflict that needs to be resolved. Among negative memories,
some of the more interesting ones, I think our transgression
memories where someone broke a law or did something that
they feel was morally wrong. Um. Those particularly provide a
(19:41):
sense of conflict for the self because they contradict your
sense of self as a good person. Um. This kind
of goes back to that self function I was talking about.
Are The way we understand our memories helps us to
understand our sense of self and identity. And so negative memories,
particularly some like a transgression or being a victim of
(20:03):
some horrible event, can come into conflict with that sense
of self. As you know, a good person who doesn't
normally have something bad happen to me on a regular basis,
and um, this is not who I am. And I think,
with regard to your question, um that you asked your
participants the question that you asked them, I think maybe
(20:27):
pulling for that kind of memory, because those are very
frequently the kinds of memories that we learned something that
really changes how we were seeing the world. Negative memories
are challenging. There are opportunities, but they're challenging, and and
positive memories can be self affirming, so there's a benefit
(20:48):
to having them as well and being able to share
those and and express them, but they're not challenging in
quite the same way. From a purely emotional level, that
makes a lot of sense because the things that stir
up emotions deep inside of me are often things where
I still feel like I have a lot of conflict
(21:09):
with myself. That that memory that will just get in
the back of your head in the middle of the
day and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh no,
even if it was five years ago, you're ruminating. Yeah,
But that also makes tell of sense that those are
the ones that you would walk away from and realize that, oh,
I don't want to feel that way again. Yes, So
(21:30):
that kind of goes back to what kind of blessing
am I going to learn from this so that it'll
guide my future behavior so that I don't end up
in this circumstance again, or I don't act this way again.
(21:51):
So going back to the directive function, the one that
helps us understand our own behavior, Is there anything you
can tell us about when it starts to kick in?
It's funny because I don't know that there's a particular
onset that people talk about all of a sudden. Um.
You know, I can learn from my past experiences, but
I will say that parents play a huge role in
(22:13):
shaping this um and one of the ways that they
do this is through reminiscing. So parents talking with their
children about their experiences and elaborating on those events can
help the child come to understand how exactly it is
that the events came to be, about what the child's
role was in the event, and understanding behaviors and how
(22:36):
the child's can act in the future. One of the
things that I look at in my research is parent
child conversations and looking to see how a parent actually
guides the child to understand the full picture of the
memory and what the child has experienced. And Um, you
do see very frequently parents kind of making comments like, well,
(22:58):
next time will be little nicer to our sister, won't
we um. And I think the directive function, or the
way we use our memories to understand our past behaviors
is something that might not necessarily turn on, but is
introduced with parents and with the help of social others
(23:20):
who are talking to the child and helping them understand
their memories. Wow, when you think about childhood memories, you
don't think about how important it is for someone like
a parent being there to ask you questions and shape
your childhood experience. Yeah, parents really help shape their children's memories,
and particularly through these conversations, help them gain a new
(23:43):
awareness of what it all means. And it's not really
until adolescents that people are able to do that on
their own in a very constructive, coherent kind of way. So, Kathleen,
(24:19):
after hearing all of these strong emotional stories this week,
I want to ask what is your final takeaway from
the question what one childhood memory shaped your idea of
the world. My takeaway is whether it's the loss of
a family member or a friend, or feeling like you
don't belong. The importance of support is what really resonated
(24:39):
with me. People like Skylar and Stephanie showed such strength
through loss. Brittany really spoke to how support can instill
us with great confidence. And actually I want to end
this episode with a clip from Brittany. Growing up with
parents and family that you know believe in you and
anything you can do. I think that really gives you
(25:01):
such a strong sense of self and makes you feel
like you can accomplish anything, even when you're scared. There
was something my dad used to always say to me
when he would put me to bed, and it was
kind of like he would start it, I would finish it,
kind of like you know, back and forth, and he
would say I and I go, love me no matter what.
And then he would go and I can count on
you no matter what, and you go, okay, good night.
(25:23):
So the important things, yeah, exactly. So like every night
he would say that, you know, putting me to bed,
knowing that I could count on him no matter what,
and that he loved me no matter what, and you
have that sense of stability and strength and foundation. And
so I think my parents the goal was always that
they wanted to give us roots so we could fly,
(25:57):
and we want to know what you think what childhood
memory shaped your world. You can write to us at
the Question Booth at hou stuff works dot com with
your answer. We'd like to give us special thanks this
week to executive producer Julie Douglas. Julie has helped us
shape this show in countless ways. Thanks as well the
senior producer, Annie Reese, and to Natalie Meryl for speaking
with us this week. My eternal thanks to my mom,
(26:20):
Thank you for a million wonderful childhood memories. And also
we'd like to thank Pont City Market for hosting the
Real Life Question Booth. The Question Booth is written, edited
and scored by me, Dylan Fagan, and my co host
Kathleen Quillian. Hi five, Kathleen. Thanks and thanks to everyone
who came into the booth and spoke to me about
this question. And if you're in Atlanta, you can visit
(26:42):
me at the Question Booth. We're on the second floor
a Pont City Market twelve to five pm Friday through Sunday. Also,
if you like what you hear, please consider leaving us
a review on iTunes. Your reviews help other people find us. Okay,
so before we go, what are we talking about next week?
Next week, we're talking all about the apocalypse. Well, I
(27:02):
wouldn't want to do this, but I could pick up
a cat and throw it at him. Yeah. Yeah, I
could kill someone if I had to. Whoa, that sounds
pretty intense. I look forward to hearing that. But until then,
see you in the question booth.
Yeah, this is a interesting place. I've never been here before.
M hm hm, Hi and welcome to the Question Booth.
(00:23):
I'm Dylan Fagin and I'm Kathleen William and we're so
glad that you're here with us today. The Question Booth
is a place where people answer a big question. Each week,
we play some of their responses, talk to someone who
knows a lot about that subject, and find out surprising
ways that we're all more like than different. But before
we get down to it, how are you doing today, Kathleen,
I'm doing great, Dylan, happy to be in the booth
(00:44):
with you today talking about my favorite thing, the Question Booth.
The Question Booth is definitely a favorite of mine too,
and I'm looking forward to diving into this week's topic. Yes,
so today we're listening to the answers to the question
what one childhood memory shaped your idea of the world. Oh,
that's a great one. Do you have a memory from
your childhood that really stands out off the top of
(01:05):
your head? I do. When I was thirteen, my parents
moved me out of the suburbs and into the city
of Atlanta. I remember the first time walking up to
a little five Points, which is a famous neighborhood in Atlanta,
and the place was just covered in beautiful murals and
it smelled like incense, but my thirteen year old self
didn't know what incense were. And then this guy came
(01:29):
up to me and he asked me if he could
write a poem about me, and then he recited it
right in front of me on the spot, And I
think that really shaped who I am today. That's a
positive childhood memory, for sure. Do you have a world
shaping memory, Dylan? All my memories are kind of based
around comfort, and one of the strongest is my great
grandmother making macaroni and cheese. She cooked a lot, and
(01:51):
I remember sitting in her kitchen one day in particular,
and there was a thunderstorm outside and I was just
sitting there in that warm kitchen, smelling the macaroni and cheese,
watching Bob Ross just have a good feeling and be
happy and and love with life and new world, and
sat down and begin playing. It was so comforting. And
I think I've translated that sense of comfort over the
(02:13):
years into a sense of love, and I hope that
sense of love has made me a kind of person.
But you know what, the more I think about our answers,
and the more excited I am to hear everyone else's.
That's good because we have some great responses this week.
And as you know, Dylan, the thing about the question
Booth is that the more you ask a question, the
more you start to see a pattern in people's answers.
(02:35):
This week it was relationships and loss. People opened up
about struggling and ultimately overcoming big challenges to become stronger.
And we'll also be speaking to Natalie Meryl from Memory
University's Bower Memory Lab to learn more about how children
form and process memories. Among negative memories, some of the
more interesting ones, I think our transgression memories where someone
(02:58):
broke a law or did something that they feel was
morally wrong because they contradict your sense of self as
a good person. But let's start with Dana and Brittany.
Brittany talks about how important it is to have the
support of your family. M H. I think for me,
a lot of it had to do with when I
(03:20):
was younger, my mom was sick and seeing her in
the hospital and experiencing that as a young child, feeling
so out of control of that experience, but also feeling
like there was something you could do and to be
able to do those things and what that brings to
you as a person into the other people, whether it
(03:40):
be the day that I brought I think all of
my stuffed animals and baby dolls to my mom, or
trying to be there and make sure my brother didn't
get in trouble and you know, add to any any
stressors in life, or be able to hug my dad
as much as I could. And I, you know, I
was really really little. I was in kindergarten, and you know,
(04:02):
I think that I have an inclination to be that
kind of person. Anyway, I think other kids might deal
with things differently, so I think they're the inclination is there,
but I think certain things in life kind of bring
out certain capabilities and assets and possibilities and and and
so I think though that was a difficult time for
(04:25):
our family, I think it really helped define the way
that I look at family and the way that I
look at life. That you fight for the people you
love and you put yourself out there to take care
of the people you love no matter what's going on.
I'm sure that played a really big role in your
family being extremely close, like having to be so close
(04:45):
to come together, Like, did that play a really big
part in your childhood looking back? Uh, it was difficult,
I think when you're in the midst of something, But
when you come through that, I think you learned so
much more about the truth about your relationships, the struggles
about your relationships and how they can grow. My parents,
I've learned so much from them and their relationship, And
(05:08):
one of the things that I think is the biggest
gift is that they have fought, as any relationship faces fighting,
but they've always fought for each other. And that's something
that I saw, even when I was very very young
in that very tumultuous time in their relationship in our family.
Um kind of facing that but knowing that we got
(05:29):
to the other side of it and we faced it
together and faced many other struggles after the fact, intact
in whole and stronger because of it. Watching that really
is something that stuck with me. Is is one of
the other things I think, which is weird to say
that some of the bad things really shape you in
the best way, because if the bad things are things
(05:50):
you can learn from and grow from and find strength
from and really pull from, the best parts of yourself.
Then you can continue that into a oldhood and pulling
those wonderful parts of you and pushing that out to
the world. Brittany hit on something interesting here about how
negative memories might shape us more than positive ones. Well,
I want to know more, and according to an article
(06:12):
in Current Directions in Psychological Science by Elizabeth Kinzinger, negative
events do tend to be remembered more accurately than positive ones.
We might not be able to remember as many details
about the negative event, but the ones we do are
more likely to be correct. Okay, so let's say you
get in a car accident. Insert cartoon car crast sound
effect here now, so we're not morbid. It's a fender bender,
(06:39):
a lot of cosmetic damage, but everything's okay. Let's also
say that for the sake of the episode, that you're
a teenager, and I'm calling this the childhood memory because
of that. I was in one of these three days
after getting my first car, and I can't tell you
all the details, obviously, but I remember where it happened,
where I was hit, in the damage that I did.
I'm pretty confident all of that. It's still pretty vivid
(06:59):
in my mind. However, I've totally forgotten all the other stuff,
the name of the person who hit me, what they
were wearing, and the name of the cop who came
to the scene. But Dylan, are you a better driver now?
I sure hope so. Well, Dylan, it makes you feel
any better. The first time I got in the car,
I hit a pole, and I passed that pole on
my drive home every day, and my parents don't let
(07:21):
me live it down that there's still a giant dent
in that pole. For some reason, that makes me feel
a lot better. You know, we have a need to
remember the important details from a fear inducing event. In contrast,
on a day that you or I might go into
the office, work on a couple of projects and have
a couple of routine meetings, we probably don't remember a
(07:41):
lot about that day a month later because nothing triggered
an emotional response in our memory network. Memories are super interesting,
and it makes so much sense to me that some
of our strongest memories would be wrapped up in family.
And for some childhood memories are actually about the absence
of family. In fact, apps and this was really part
of the pattern that merged this week. Let's hear from Skylar. Okay,
(08:05):
So when I was born, Um, my dad had custody
in me because of like things with my mom, Like
if things are really um complicated, I have memories of
not having a female figure, you know, in my life.
It's just something important about having your mother, you know,
present with you as you're transitioning into being a young woman.
I did not have that, So, um a memory would
(08:27):
be just not having my mom around, and that really
taught me things just they're not gonna always turn out
how you want them to be, but you have to
just do what you have to do with what you have.
My dad, he didn't teach me everything that I needed
as far as like to become a woman. Not having
my mom really made an impact on me because I
saw the way that she was doing things like from
(08:48):
Afar from a distance, Like I knew that there was
a reason why I didn't have a relationship with her,
why she wasn't in my life. But um, I just
I didn't understand why things were happening the way that
they were happening. So I think I just learned, um
how to basically just do what you have to do.
I'm a great woman. I can say myself. I turned
(09:08):
out okay, but I'm just I don't know, it's just
it's it's a lot. Are you close with your dad?
He passed away in two thousand and eight, so like
I just had to her, you know, go through that
(09:29):
whole lost thing again. It's just different not having your parents.
So I think I learned a sense of independence in
a way by not having my mom firsthand and then
losing my dad. Um, independence, strength and growth, you know,
that's the main things that I learned from my childhood
because I didn't have my mom. She wasn't like a
(09:51):
strong influence, and then my dad was, but he left
me so early, so it was like what I'm gonna
do now, you know what I'm saying. So, um, that's
my main a principle from that. But you know, things
happen for a reason, so that's yeah. Do you have
a strong female figure in your life now? Oh yeah,
my my nana. Shout out to my nana. She Um,
(10:13):
she eventually did come and take me under her wing
and start to show me. You know, this is what
you do when this happens. It's okay to feel this way.
And I feel like having a strong woman like I said,
like the last said in the beginning, like not having
a mom really made me realize like, okay, like there's
some stuff that I'm lacking. So my nana came in
(10:34):
and yeah, like she just showed me the ropes and
really nurtured me the nurturing that I lacked that I
needed from my mother and my grandmother, and my nana
came in and gave me that and gave me that
sense of strength because you know, black women, we go
through a lot, and it's generational. It's not just the
stuff that we go through present time, but it's stuff
(10:57):
that's passed down to us just unintentionally. It's just in
our DNA. So like having her, they're really really really
helped shape me to be the person that I am today.
That was Skylar and the question booth. After the break,
we'll hear some more about childhood memories and we're back. So, Kathleen,
(11:29):
I don't know about you. A lot of my childhood memories,
for better or worse, are all tied up in school,
making friends, gem class, standardized tests, maybe trying to hide
a report card, which I may have done in fourth grade.
But all of that gets me interested in hearing about
other people's classroom experiences. Well, let's hear from Stephanie. She
(11:49):
spoke about her time at a Magnet school. Being in
the program I was in was awesome. It gave me
focus through high school in a real way, which was
in other ways very tumultual for me. So it gave
me a firm ground to stand on being a part
of that performing arts program where I kind of knew
what every day was going to look like. And I
had that as a very firm base um through years
(12:12):
which otherwise we're very rocky for me. I had a
very close friend of mine die when I was a
sophomore in high school, and at that point I just
kind of felt unraveled. I also had been diagnosed with
UM an autoimmune disease in freshman year. So there are
these hard things, and I think that being able to
move to that high school or the program was there,
really held me together when otherwise I might have fallen apart,
(12:38):
you know, from these other life changing negative things that happened.
You know, losing a peer at a young age was
really different than losing a grandparent or so different to
someone else. And I mean, first of all, you never
know what's going to happen, and second of all, there's
no way to prepare for that, and um, I don't
(12:59):
think my parents were prepared for the gravity of that
or how to help get through that. So that was
probably another big self shaper, that big experience of loss.
I think there was a kind of a pattern of
loss through my childhood that became a big shaper that
I don't think I sort of fell in my way
or started to find my way out of until my
(13:20):
early thirties, which makes my childhood sound really depressing, and
it wasn't. It was a quality childhood with lots of love,
and those things play a huge role, like they're they're
there right now exactly. And you know, the things that
stand out in that way are the things that really
do kind of change your core. It's not the plane
in the grass every day, I mean in a way
(13:41):
that shapes you. But the big things that kind of
shift your world are the ones that change you more.
Oh gosh, it is hard to lose a friend, especially
as a child or teenager when it can be even
more unexpected. Yes, and Stephanie wasn't the only person to
come into the booth and talk about loss. LaToya told
me a touching story about her grand mother. When I
(14:01):
was in the twelfth grade, I had just hurned seventeen
and my grandma. I lived with my grandmother. She was
blind and um she passed away my senior at the
very beginning of my senior of high school, and I
and UM, I lived to her and then after a while,
(14:22):
like um, after she died. It was like a really
shocking thing to me because like I'm a child, I'm
still seventeen, I'm in high school. But I didn't feel
like my parents, not my parents, went my family in general.
I didn't feel like they supported me in a way
that I should have been supported. I felt like I
was kind of alone at that time, Like they ended
(14:43):
up like selling my grandmother's house and I was instead
of like just going back and live living with my
mom because she lived so far away, I had to
go from house to house, and I just didn't feel
like anybody, you know, they didn't take care of me
as how you would take care of a child who
was kind of out there on her own and was
kind of lost and had just lost somebody that was
(15:05):
very important to her. And I think that's taught me
that I just kind of have to been for myself,
and I have been like that ever since. Like I
don't call anybody, ask anybody for help. If something goes wrong,
I kind of scramble around and try to figure it
out on my own. And I had to learn that
at seventeen. It's really hard. I can't imagine it was
(15:27):
because I was really close to my grandmother. I think
I was the closest one to her because I moved
with her because because she was lying, and to help her, um,
you know, do things around the house and things like that,
and so we had like we're really close relationship, Like
I mean, a teenager and her grandmother. Like it's weird,
but like I would talk to her about like boys
and my problems with my friends and stuff like that.
(15:48):
Do you have a certain memory that you really just
loved of her, like a certain um Yeah, So it's
so weird because um just like I remember I was
dating this boy and he ended up finding out that
he had like at a lot of other girlfriends either
than me, And instead of like calling my friends, I
(16:10):
like ran with my grandmother and I was crying to
her and she, you know, we were just talking about it,
and I felt like the fact that I can come
to you and you can give me like real advice
and not say up, he's nobody. You know, you're you're
only a teenager. You'll forget about him. But she was
really listening and like giving me real life advice. I
thought that was, like, you know, really cool. Losing someone
(16:45):
you love and care about at any age can seem
impossible to deal with until you have to to lose
someone like a family member or friend as a child,
even as a teenager, can be even more confusing. And
Susan Thomas, program director for the Center for Hope at
Cohen's Children's Medical Center of New York, says that grieving
as a child could be cyclical, and an article for
(17:05):
the magazine Social Work Today, she says, the adults always
have one foot in grief and one foot on the outside.
The kids jump in and out of grief. And to me,
that says that once you've experienced it, you're always kind
of expecting it. But as a child, it can truly
come as a shock. And I think that's why we've
heard all these stories about loss today. Loss shapes us
(17:27):
and as we grow we learn new ways to cope.
But with a child every new stage of life and
learning can reopen the grieving process, and the same article,
Any McNeil from the National Alliance for Grieving Children says
that eventually a child's relationship with the deceased person moves
from one of physical reality to one of memories in
continuing bonds. To that end, we wanted to talk to
(17:49):
someone about childhood memories and how they shape the people
we are today. We'll do just that after the break.
We'll be right back m hm, and we're back. Thanks
(18:12):
for joining us. So, as we mentioned, we wanted to
talk to an expert about childhood memory and to do
just that, we spoke with Natalie Meryl, PhD from Emory
University's Power Memory Lab, and Natalie told us about three
main functions of memory. The first is self, so the
self function is essentially understanding your identity and who you are,
where you come from, what values are important to you.
(18:34):
The second is social. The social function really is about
bonding with other people, so when something very significant happens
to you that day, you almost immediately want to tell
someone about it. And the third is directive, which is
helping people um understand their behavior and how to act
in the future. So you learn from your mistakes. What
(18:55):
lesson can I take from this? And what meaning can
I derive from this about how of world works and
what is my role in it? Helping us to understand
our past behaviors helps us make a plan to guide
our future behaviors. So, Natalie, how do we process negative
and positive memories? Like? Are this process differently? Positive and
(19:16):
negative memories are kind of different in how their processed
from meaning making perspective, because negative memories have some kind
of conflict that needs to be resolved. Among negative memories,
some of the more interesting ones, I think our transgression
memories where someone broke a law or did something that
they feel was morally wrong. Um. Those particularly provide a
(19:41):
sense of conflict for the self because they contradict your
sense of self as a good person. Um. This kind
of goes back to that self function I was talking about.
Are The way we understand our memories helps us to
understand our sense of self and identity. And so negative memories,
particularly some like a transgression or being a victim of
(20:03):
some horrible event, can come into conflict with that sense
of self. As you know, a good person who doesn't
normally have something bad happen to me on a regular basis,
and um, this is not who I am. And I think,
with regard to your question, um that you asked your
participants the question that you asked them, I think maybe
(20:27):
pulling for that kind of memory, because those are very
frequently the kinds of memories that we learned something that
really changes how we were seeing the world. Negative memories
are challenging. There are opportunities, but they're challenging, and and
positive memories can be self affirming, so there's a benefit
(20:48):
to having them as well and being able to share
those and and express them, but they're not challenging in
quite the same way. From a purely emotional level, that
makes a lot of sense because the things that stir
up emotions deep inside of me are often things where
I still feel like I have a lot of conflict
(21:09):
with myself. That that memory that will just get in
the back of your head in the middle of the
day and all of a sudden, I'm like, oh no,
even if it was five years ago, you're ruminating. Yeah,
But that also makes tell of sense that those are
the ones that you would walk away from and realize that, oh,
I don't want to feel that way again. Yes, So
(21:30):
that kind of goes back to what kind of blessing
am I going to learn from this so that it'll
guide my future behavior so that I don't end up
in this circumstance again, or I don't act this way again.
(21:51):
So going back to the directive function, the one that
helps us understand our own behavior, Is there anything you
can tell us about when it starts to kick in?
It's funny because I don't know that there's a particular
onset that people talk about all of a sudden. Um.
You know, I can learn from my past experiences, but
I will say that parents play a huge role in
(22:13):
shaping this um and one of the ways that they
do this is through reminiscing. So parents talking with their
children about their experiences and elaborating on those events can
help the child come to understand how exactly it is
that the events came to be, about what the child's
role was in the event, and understanding behaviors and how
(22:36):
the child's can act in the future. One of the
things that I look at in my research is parent
child conversations and looking to see how a parent actually
guides the child to understand the full picture of the
memory and what the child has experienced. And Um, you
do see very frequently parents kind of making comments like, well,
(22:58):
next time will be little nicer to our sister, won't
we um. And I think the directive function, or the
way we use our memories to understand our past behaviors
is something that might not necessarily turn on, but is
introduced with parents and with the help of social others
(23:20):
who are talking to the child and helping them understand
their memories. Wow, when you think about childhood memories, you
don't think about how important it is for someone like
a parent being there to ask you questions and shape
your childhood experience. Yeah, parents really help shape their children's memories,
and particularly through these conversations, help them gain a new
(23:43):
awareness of what it all means. And it's not really
until adolescents that people are able to do that on
their own in a very constructive, coherent kind of way. So, Kathleen,
(24:19):
after hearing all of these strong emotional stories this week,
I want to ask what is your final takeaway from
the question what one childhood memory shaped your idea of
the world. My takeaway is whether it's the loss of
a family member or a friend, or feeling like you
don't belong. The importance of support is what really resonated
(24:39):
with me. People like Skylar and Stephanie showed such strength
through loss. Brittany really spoke to how support can instill
us with great confidence. And actually I want to end
this episode with a clip from Brittany. Growing up with
parents and family that you know believe in you and
anything you can do. I think that really gives you
(25:01):
such a strong sense of self and makes you feel
like you can accomplish anything, even when you're scared. There
was something my dad used to always say to me
when he would put me to bed, and it was
kind of like he would start it, I would finish it,
kind of like you know, back and forth, and he
would say I and I go, love me no matter what.
And then he would go and I can count on
you no matter what, and you go, okay, good night.
(25:23):
So the important things, yeah, exactly. So like every night
he would say that, you know, putting me to bed,
knowing that I could count on him no matter what,
and that he loved me no matter what, and you
have that sense of stability and strength and foundation. And
so I think my parents the goal was always that
they wanted to give us roots so we could fly,
(25:57):
and we want to know what you think what childhood
memory shaped your world. You can write to us at
the Question Booth at hou stuff works dot com with
your answer. We'd like to give us special thanks this
week to executive producer Julie Douglas. Julie has helped us
shape this show in countless ways. Thanks as well the
senior producer, Annie Reese, and to Natalie Meryl for speaking
with us this week. My eternal thanks to my mom,
(26:20):
Thank you for a million wonderful childhood memories. And also
we'd like to thank Pont City Market for hosting the
Real Life Question Booth. The Question Booth is written, edited
and scored by me, Dylan Fagan, and my co host
Kathleen Quillian. Hi five, Kathleen. Thanks and thanks to everyone
who came into the booth and spoke to me about
this question. And if you're in Atlanta, you can visit
(26:42):
me at the Question Booth. We're on the second floor
a Pont City Market twelve to five pm Friday through Sunday. Also,
if you like what you hear, please consider leaving us
a review on iTunes. Your reviews help other people find us. Okay,
so before we go, what are we talking about next week?
Next week, we're talking all about the apocalypse. Well, I
(27:02):
wouldn't want to do this, but I could pick up
a cat and throw it at him. Yeah. Yeah, I
could kill someone if I had to. Whoa, that sounds
pretty intense. I look forward to hearing that. But until then,
see you in the question booth.
The Question Booth News
Hosts And Creators
Dylan Fagan
Kathleen Quillian
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