It seems like parents forget a lot of stuff but more importantly all the bad stuff. I guess there is no use in hanging onto the bad memories of being up all night and your child screaming bloody murder when all you want to do is put on their shirt. But I just find it frustrating when I talk on the phone with my mom, tell her about LO's latest tantrum, and then she tells me that I never did that as a toddler. I talk to her on the phone almost every day (she calls me). I don't really want to complain but when you talk to someone almost every day these things just come up for lack of any other new conversation! Anyway, I was just wondering if your parents do the same or will they actually admit that you were not a perfect angel?
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My mom says that I'll forget LO's terrible colic days. But I remember it all as of now. My husband has already forgotten. I like to think about it because it reminds me of how far I've come.
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@Rubies: I don't understand how anyone would completely forget. I will always have a general memory that the first few months were really really bad but I might forget the exact details?
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My mom has told me that my brother cried so much that she wanted to throw him out the window. And I threw a tantrum in the grocery store and a man told her she needs to learn how to control her kids. And she remembers the bloody, cracked nipples that come with breastfeeding. She remembers!
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@artbee: I
your mom. 
I can't believe she admitted wanting to throw him out the window! Hahaha.
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my mom tells me all the time how much I was a difficult baby and wuold cry for hours, but she says my sister was an angel. some babies are just easier to deal with than others
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My MIL says that her babies were perfect angels. Then she says how she never slept the first 2 years of Rob Sr.'s life because the boys were just 15 months apart and she had zero help, not even her husband, so she never slept more than an hour at a time.
My dad also claims we were perfect, and I think my mom chooses to block out bad memories-- except trying to potty train my older brother when he was 18 months, which was so traumatizing that she still kinda shakes when she talks about it.
I think grandparents forget the bad stuff because they want to show you that what you're going through is not that big of a deal. Also, I think children are always a challenge, and by the time you get to the teenage years, all your memories of the bad stuff are just all crowded in with the current bad stuff. Already I look back and wonder why I thought taking care of RJ as an infant was so hard. Toddlerdom seems so much harder!
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Both my mom and my MIL will go on for ages about what miserable babies DH and I were. MIL tells stories about how she'd meet FIL in the driveway with a screaming baby in her arms just to hand him off so she could go for a walk around the block to calm down. My mom will tell about how I would only shut up if I was in my swing, and when that thing would start slowing down, it was a sprint for her and my dad to wind it back up before I woke up again.
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I don't think they purposely forget, I think every stage seems more difficult than the last, and that it blurs together. Time goes by pretty fast and I can understand that.
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my brother was a very colicky baby and my mom has not forgotten! we are 14 months apart and my brother was so difficult, she sent me to live with my aunt for a month because my brother required so much attention.
i haven't forgotten the hard stuff, but when I look back on it, it was worth it to get where we are today so it doesn't seem as hard in retrospect.
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I think a lot of parents to forget the bad stuff. I think it's a defense mechanism. Or a survival of our species technique maybe, haha. I mean, if all parents remembered all the bad stuff- there would be a lot of single children in this world!
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@BabyLove: both of our mothers swore that if myself or DH had been the first baby, there would have been no second baby! lol!
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i don't know, but i can tell you i forget a lot - good and bad lol. that's why i need to start jotting things down.
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My mom seems to have blocked out all the bad stuff. I remember being a very naughty child (and a horrible teenager) and fighting with my brother and sister ALL THE TIME. She shocked me recently by saying something to the effect of us all having been such good kids and always getting along so well. ????
She also told me recently that she never owned a bottle for her 3 kids. We were all breastfed till age 2-3. I don't believe that she spent the first year of each of our lives without being away from us more than a couple of hours. When I mentioned that to my grandmother (her mother), grandma said something like "Hmmm... well, we all remember things differently." Ha ha.
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@BabyLove: hmmm...my mom seems to have forgotten everything and yet she still only had me so it could not have all been good fun!!
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@Andrea: I didn't even tell you the best part. She said that she wanted to throw him out the window, but it was winter in Ohio and too cold outside so she didn't. Like it's the coldness that should stop someone from throwing their baby out the window. But I understand.... you're not logical when you've had no sleep and have a constantly screaming baby!
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@artbee: good thing it was not summer time then!
your mom. 
I can't believe she admitted wanting to throw him out the window! Hahaha.
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16 comments