Earliest Childhood Memories

Most of my earliest childhood memories seem to be about a typical kid from an immigrant family. Yet there are some recurring themes that make them very different. Childhood memories are like a colourful tapestry rather than a neat ordered sequence.

Rebelliousness and Secrets

Here is a normal child behavior phenomenon: We make important decisions about life at the age of about 6. Naturally, at that young age, our life experience is limited. And yet we think we're pretty smart. It's similar to the way a teenager thinks they know everything. Pause your reading for a moment and reflect on your own conclusions about life around that age? What were the positive results of that conclusion? What were the negative results? There are always upsides and a downsides.

My mum mistakenly thought that, through her discipline, she was teaching me to be a good obedient child. But without realizing it, unintentionally, my mum taught me rebelliousness. And she taught me the art of keeping secrets. That's what kept her alive during the war - those two traits combined together - rebelliousness and secrets.

Want to find out more about my own early life decisions?
Click here on childhood role models to read about my first great adventure. I still smile remembering it.

English is the ONLY Language

One of my earliest childhood memories involves my parents' passion to learn English. I wish it were less passionate because it would have been nice for me to speak a second language. Many children of immigrants speak a second language fluently.. Click here to read more about English with an accent.

Useless Babysitters

Our final babysitter was a chunky grey-haired woman with a raspy voice. She came only to do her knitting, certainly not to engage with a little girl and her baby brother. This nasty woman once called me a "dirty little Jewess". I never told my parents. I knew how upset they would be. Click here to read more about my babysitters.

Bad-Tempered Piano Teacher

While my parents viewed dancing as frivolous, they viewed learning to play a musical instrument as a necessary lesson in discipline. They considered musical training to be essential. I now wonder if there was a deeper unspoken reason. I think they believed that the ability to play could save our lives someday. After all, the nazi's enjoyed their Jewish entertainers.

I had to play piano and my little brother had to play accordion. They were especially proud of him - an accordion is something portable.

Unruly Classroom

Here's something that happened in early grade school that still brings a cloud when I think of it.

Crying is Complicated

When my mum talks about what happened during WW2, her voice becomes dry and unemotional, as though she's reciting something and as though she's totally removed from it. I watch her closely and sometimes I see her face quiver, on the verge of tears and then she hardens up again. I think, not many besides myself can detect these subtle changes in her face.

Reasons for crying are complicated. It could just as easily be from joy as from grief, from self pity or from empathy.

Our judgement of another person crying is just as complicated. We might see it as a weakness or we might see it as honesty. The situation influences our judgement. Crying is  usually forgiven at a funereal.

So, how do we react when the crying goes on for days after the funereal? How about for years after the funereal? Everything depends.

How does a child see it? Again, everything depends.

My mother cried often - and yet I never really got used to it. It was always discomforting for me to see it. I didn't know what to do about it - only that I had to protect her.

In later years she cried often, but never for long. An unexpected flood of tears, like the dam broke, and then guiltily she wipes her face quickly with her hands, and incongruously she keeps smiling. I learned to understand it, but, admittedly, sometimes, I couldn't help feeling annoyed.

She tells me that crying is a luxury. During her years in the Russian Partisans, she was afraid to cry. It was considered to be sign of incompetence. She was afraid all the time. Partisans sometimes got shot for incompetence.

Crying is complicated, because tears come from the heart. Hearts are complicated.

Click here for a couple of stories about my mother crying.

All of our earliest childhood memories

All of them, with their associated emotions, can get complicated.

We survive. We connect. We heal. Sometimes there are scars where we've healed. That's OK. That's normal.