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I recently finished a book called "The
Art of Making Memories" by Meik Wiking.
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He's the CEO of the Happiness
Research Institute in Copenhagen.
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I wrote a full companion guide
on the blog that breaks down
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all eight of his ingredients for
making memories that stick with the
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research and how to apply each one.
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That link is in the show notes.
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This episode is about the ideas that
personally resonated with me, the
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ones I keep thinking about, especially
as a parent of a young child.
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Because what Wiking writes
about isn't just interesting.
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For those of us in the thick of
parenthood, it's immediately applicable.
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Hey, welcome to Postcards for Posterity.
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Make the memories, keep the story.
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I'm Maddie, and this show is for moms
and anyone who takes the pictures
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and holds the stories in their
families but doesn't wanna miss their
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life while trying to document it.
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There's a quote Wiking includes in
the book from the philosopher Søren
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Kierkegaard, " Life must be lived
forwards, but understood backwards."
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I love that because it captures
something true about memory that I
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don't think we talk about enough.
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We're always moving forward
through the days, the years, the
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phases, but the meaning of it only
becomes clear when we look back.
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You won't know which moments mattered
most until years from now, or sometimes
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how it fully shapes you until later.
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It's like that other quote that I see
so often about how we're living in the
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good old days, but we don't know it
yet, which is both humbling and freeing.
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It also means the stories we
hold and the ones we tell about
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our lives shape everything.
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Wiking writes that long-term happiness
depends in large part on our ability to
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form a positive narrative of our lives.
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Our memories aren't just records.
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They're the story we tell
ourselves about who we are.
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What we hold onto and how we hold it
really shapes everything that comes after.
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Wiking also describes something
called the reminiscence bump, the
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tendency for older adults to remember
a disproportionate number of memories
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from roughly ages fifteen to thirty.
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The theory is that those years
are packed with firsts, and
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firsts are inherently memorable.
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Our brains pay closer
attention to new things.
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The extraordinary days
are the ones that stick.
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And I keep thinking about what that
means when you're parenting a young
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child, in part because you're watching
someone experience firsts constantly.
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First steps, first words, first time
tasting something sour and making that
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face, first time they figure out how to
do something they've been working on.
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You likely don't remember
your own first steps.
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Neither can I. But there's something
about watching your child's firsts, I
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feel like that gives you back a tiny
echo of that feeling, the aliveness
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of experiencing something for the
very first time, and you get to be
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reminded of what that wonder feels like.
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And in a way, you get to experience
firsts through them because it's your
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first time, especially if it's your
first child, experiencing what that feels
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like to see someone experience a first.
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Maybe that's a little meta, but the
research also gets interesting when
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you look at what's happening in a
baby's brain during those early years.
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For a long time, we assumed very
young children simply couldn't
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form lasting memories, that their
brains weren't developed enough.
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But more recent research
is challenging that.
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A twenty twenty-five study out of
Yale used fMRI scans to actually
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watch babies as young as twelve
months old form memories in real time.
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The hippocampus, the brain
region critical for memory, was
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active in encoding experiences.
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The reason we can't recall our
earliest years isn't necessarily
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that the memories weren't formed.
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It may be that they become
inaccessible over time.
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They might actually be in there somewhere.
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And we know that from birth,
babies are learning who they
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are by how they are treated.
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The first three years are considered a
critical period in brain development.
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The biggest change in brain weight across
an entire human lifetime happens in the
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first year of life What Wiking connects
to all of this is language and story.
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Our memories start staying with us
consciously retrievably around the time
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we begin to be able to tell stories
about our lives, around three and a half.
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Which means the experiences
before aren't necessarily gone,
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they're just held differently.
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And I love this quote.
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He writes, " your children may forget
their own earliest happy memories, so
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even though it is their happy memory,
maybe you can hold onto it for a while
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and give it back to them when they're
old enough to carry it forward."
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You are holding their memories until
they can carry them themselves.
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That's what memory keeping means
in the early years And this is
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where Wiking's idea of the memory
architect lands hardest for me.
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Not keeper, not documenter, architect.
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Someone who doesn't just
record what exists, but makes
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intentional choices about what
to preserve and how to frame it.
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Because the stories we tell
about our children and to our
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children, especially in these early
years, don't just describe them.
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In some ways, they become them.
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The narrative we build around who they
are, what they're like, what they've
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done, that gets woven into their identity
and reinforced with these stories It
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lands somewhere even when they might
be too young to push back on it.
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I know this personally.
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I had really big emotions
as a kid, like really big.
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As the story goes, I had my first temper
tantrum at Easter when I was around three.
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My temper tantrums lasted for a few years.
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Out of any story I've heard about me when
I was little, the temper tantrums are
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for sure the ones that I've ingrained in
my identity as I've heard them so many
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times and from various family members.
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There's a few bright spots to
these narratives I've focused on.
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One is my mom did tell me that She was
told smart kids often have tantrums.
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Not sure if that's true,
but her perception through
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someone else meant something.
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And two, one time we were at the
airport flying from LA to Arizona, and
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I wanted to get on the plane so badly,
I kicked and screamed until we boarded.
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Then the second we were on, I
kicked and screamed to get off.
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As a parent now, I would also be at my
final breaking point after all that,
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and by the time we landed, my mom was
done, and she handed me to my grandfather
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when she got to my grandparents'
and walked away to cool down.
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And when she came back, I was asleep
in his arms, and he said something
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like, "Never treat a little girl that
way." And I love that because I didn't
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know my grandpa very well, but this
story makes me feel very loved by him.
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And I think telling me about my
awful tantrums might have been my
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family's way of coping with their
own exhaustion and embarrassment in
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those moments and one thing that they
sometimes tacked on was, "One day it
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will come back to you," kind of thing.
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And families do this.
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They latch on to certain stories, and
they become the thing for that person,
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the trope, the thing that comes up at
Thanksgiving to humble you a little.
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They weren't trying to hurt me with it.
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It just became easy shorthand
for what I was like at that time.
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I think over years of that
shorthand, I absorbed it.
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It became a big identity of
my really early young years.
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I was the tantrum kid, the difficult
one, big emotions, and I internalized it
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more than anyone realized or intended.
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a few years ago, actually around
the time my daughter was born, I
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asked my mom what I was like as a
toddler beyond the tantrums, and she
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said, "Curious, kind, funny, smart."
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And I don't remember hearing
that very often growing up
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about those specific years.
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Doesn't mean I didn't feel some of those
things from them even, but it was really
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something to sit with and it, it made
me tear up a little bit when she had
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said that to me, and it just reminded
me it's something I wanna hold onto as
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a parent is that kids are dynamic and
people are dynamic, and one story, even
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a true one, is never the whole picture.
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And now, of course, I know and there's
more understanding about those big
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emotions being normal and I think I had
feelings I didn't obviously know how to
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handle, and the adults around me didn't
always know how to help me through them
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and that's pretty common, I would say,
in early childhood, and there's, more
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information now than there was then.
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And my parents did their best with what
they knew, and I've now rewritten and
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understood this narrative differently now.
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So I think one part of this is
your child doesn't have to accept
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the narrative you create, so I
hope you don't feel overwhelmed
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by being that memory architect.
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They can and will eventually write
their own, like I did, but the
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stories told early do have weight.
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They land somewhere, and it is important
to be thoughtful about which ones you
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keep repeating, and try to express and
choose stories that really paint a dynamic
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picture because you are the architect
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I want to talk about something I do
hear a lot, mostly through social
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media, but maybe you've heard
it too or thought it yourself.
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Why are you taking them to Disneyland?
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They're two.
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They won't remember it.
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Why spend money on a trip
to Europe with a toddler?
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What's the point?
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Or just any kind of experience,
that might stretch a little
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bit I understand the logic.
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If the goal of an experience is to create
a memory the child will consciously
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carry, then yes, a two-year-old probably
won't remember the castle, they probably
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won't remember the flight or the
hotel or most of the specific moments.
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In some cases, for us, traveling has
been a learning experience, and there are
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some things I hope she doesn't remember
when we've been completely exhausted.
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But I want to push back on this
because I think it misunderstands
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what the experience is actually for.
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First, you will remember it.
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Your partner will remember it.
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The experience creates
memories for everyone in the
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family, not just the child.
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And those memories, the look on their
face when they see the parade, the way
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they fell asleep in the stroller, the
chaos and the joy of navigating something
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big together, those are yours to keep.
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Second, the research suggests
early experiences may shape more
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than we know, even when they
can't be consciously recalled.
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The emotional environment, the sense
of being somewhere new and exciting,
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the physical sensations of a place,
these get encoded at a level that may
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influence who a child becomes even
without retrievable memory attached.
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And third, my daughter personally loves
hearing stories about when she was a baby.
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She can't remember most of it, but
she lights up when I tell her about
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things we did, places we went, moments
that were funny or sweet or hard.
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The story of it matters to her
even without the memory because
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the story is part of who she is.
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So yes, maybe they won't
remember the trip, but you will.
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And someday the story of the trip will
be something you can give back to them.
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Creating memories wherever and whatever
they may be and the stories that you
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will look back on is what can positively
shape the identity of your children,
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your family, and even yourself.
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Because if you haven't been told
this lately, you are a great parent.
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If you're listening to this
and made it this far, you care.
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I wanna close with something
that took this whole idea
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somewhere unexpected for me.
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I just finished a novel called
"Theo of Golden" by Alan Levi.
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It follows a man who is genuinely present.
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He pays attention, he notices
people, he shows up, he observes.
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And the story is really about the
attention and kindness of one person
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rippling outward and affecting an entire
community in ways he never fully sees.
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I keep thinking about how that connects
to everything Wiking writes about
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memory, because being a memory architect
doesn't have to stop at your front door.
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When you ask the grandparent the question
they've been waiting to be asked, when
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you take the photo of someone else's
kid having a great moment and send it to
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their parent, when you show up because
you remembered someone was going through
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something hard, these are small acts of
observation and memory-making that ripple
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outward in ways you'll never fully track.
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One person paying attention, one
person noticing, that's enough to
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change the shape of a community's story
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The blog post companion to this
episode has the full breakdown of
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all eight of Wiking's ingredients
for happy memories, the research and
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how to apply each one practically.
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That link is in the show notes.
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It's worth bookmarking.
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And "The Art of Making Memories"
itself is absolutely worth reading.
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I'll link it in the show notes, too.
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Until next time, make the
memories, keep the story.
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Letters from today for the days ahead.
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Postcards for Posterity is connected
to my Love, Maddily blog, and that's
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where I share additional resources,
links, and freebies, ways for
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you to stay more connected to the
memories and people in your life
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I recently finished a book called "The
Art of Making Memories" by Meik Wiking.
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00:00:04,699 --> 00:00:08,159
He's the CEO of the Happiness
Research Institute in Copenhagen.
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I wrote a full companion guide
on the blog that breaks down
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00:00:11,579 --> 00:00:15,219
all eight of his ingredients for
making memories that stick with the
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00:00:15,220 --> 00:00:16,759
research and how to apply each one.
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00:00:17,049 --> 00:00:18,339
That link is in the show notes.
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This episode is about the ideas that
personally resonated with me, the
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ones I keep thinking about, especially
as a parent of a young child.
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Because what Wiking writes
about isn't just interesting.
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For those of us in the thick of
parenthood, it's immediately applicable.
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Hey, welcome to Postcards for Posterity.
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Make the memories, keep the story.
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I'm Maddie, and this show is for moms
and anyone who takes the pictures
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00:00:42,463 --> 00:00:45,623
and holds the stories in their
families but doesn't wanna miss their
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life while trying to document it.
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There's a quote Wiking includes in
the book from the philosopher Søren
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Kierkegaard, " Life must be lived
forwards, but understood backwards."
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I love that because it captures
something true about memory that I
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don't think we talk about enough.
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We're always moving forward
through the days, the years, the
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phases, but the meaning of it only
becomes clear when we look back.
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You won't know which moments mattered
most until years from now, or sometimes
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how it fully shapes you until later.
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It's like that other quote that I see
so often about how we're living in the
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good old days, but we don't know it
yet, which is both humbling and freeing.
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It also means the stories we
hold and the ones we tell about
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our lives shape everything.
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Wiking writes that long-term happiness
depends in large part on our ability to
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form a positive narrative of our lives.
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Our memories aren't just records.
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They're the story we tell
ourselves about who we are.
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What we hold onto and how we hold it
really shapes everything that comes after.
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Wiking also describes something
called the reminiscence bump, the
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tendency for older adults to remember
a disproportionate number of memories
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from roughly ages fifteen to thirty.
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The theory is that those years
are packed with firsts, and
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firsts are inherently memorable.
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Our brains pay closer
attention to new things.
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The extraordinary days
are the ones that stick.
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And I keep thinking about what that
means when you're parenting a young
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child, in part because you're watching
someone experience firsts constantly.
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First steps, first words, first time
tasting something sour and making that
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face, first time they figure out how to
do something they've been working on.
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00:02:28,965 --> 00:02:32,805
You likely don't remember
your own first steps.
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Neither can I. But there's something
about watching your child's firsts, I
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00:02:37,445 --> 00:02:41,325
feel like that gives you back a tiny
echo of that feeling, the aliveness
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00:02:41,335 --> 00:02:45,255
of experiencing something for the
very first time, and you get to be
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reminded of what that wonder feels like.
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And in a way, you get to experience
firsts through them because it's your
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first time, especially if it's your
first child, experiencing what that feels
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like to see someone experience a first.
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00:03:03,825 --> 00:03:09,575
Maybe that's a little meta, but the
research also gets interesting when
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you look at what's happening in a
baby's brain during those early years.
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For a long time, we assumed very
young children simply couldn't
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form lasting memories, that their
brains weren't developed enough.
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But more recent research
is challenging that.
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A twenty twenty-five study out of
Yale used fMRI scans to actually
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watch babies as young as twelve
months old form memories in real time.
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The hippocampus, the brain
region critical for memory, was
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active in encoding experiences.
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The reason we can't recall our
earliest years isn't necessarily
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that the memories weren't formed.
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It may be that they become
inaccessible over time.
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They might actually be in there somewhere.
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And we know that from birth,
babies are learning who they
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are by how they are treated.
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The first three years are considered a
critical period in brain development.
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The biggest change in brain weight across
an entire human lifetime happens in the
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first year of life What Wiking connects
to all of this is language and story.
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Our memories start staying with us
consciously retrievably around the time
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we begin to be able to tell stories
about our lives, around three and a half.
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Which means the experiences
before aren't necessarily gone,
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they're just held differently.
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And I love this quote.
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He writes, " your children may forget
their own earliest happy memories, so
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even though it is their happy memory,
maybe you can hold onto it for a while
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and give it back to them when they're
old enough to carry it forward."
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You are holding their memories until
they can carry them themselves.
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That's what memory keeping means
in the early years And this is
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where Wiking's idea of the memory
architect lands hardest for me.
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Not keeper, not documenter, architect.
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00:04:56,825 --> 00:04:59,415
Someone who doesn't just
record what exists, but makes
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00:04:59,415 --> 00:05:02,425
intentional choices about what
to preserve and how to frame it.
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00:05:03,185 --> 00:05:06,465
Because the stories we tell
about our children and to our
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00:05:06,465 --> 00:05:09,805
children, especially in these early
years, don't just describe them.
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In some ways, they become them.
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The narrative we build around who they
are, what they're like, what they've
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done, that gets woven into their identity
and reinforced with these stories It
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lands somewhere even when they might
be too young to push back on it.
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00:05:27,095 --> 00:05:29,285
I know this personally.
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I had really big emotions
as a kid, like really big.
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As the story goes, I had my first temper
tantrum at Easter when I was around three.
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My temper tantrums lasted for a few years.
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Out of any story I've heard about me when
I was little, the temper tantrums are
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00:05:48,305 --> 00:05:52,535
for sure the ones that I've ingrained in
my identity as I've heard them so many
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times and from various family members.
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There's a few bright spots to
these narratives I've focused on.
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One is my mom did tell me that She was
told smart kids often have tantrums.
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00:06:06,795 --> 00:06:08,935
Not sure if that's true,
but her perception through
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00:06:08,935 --> 00:06:10,455
someone else meant something.
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00:06:11,455 --> 00:06:15,825
And two, one time we were at the
airport flying from LA to Arizona, and
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I wanted to get on the plane so badly,
I kicked and screamed until we boarded.
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Then the second we were on, I
kicked and screamed to get off.
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As a parent now, I would also be at my
final breaking point after all that,
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and by the time we landed, my mom was
done, and she handed me to my grandfather
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00:06:36,785 --> 00:06:39,735
when she got to my grandparents'
and walked away to cool down.
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And when she came back, I was asleep
in his arms, and he said something
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00:06:43,685 --> 00:06:49,785
like, "Never treat a little girl that
way." And I love that because I didn't
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00:06:49,795 --> 00:06:53,885
know my grandpa very well, but this
story makes me feel very loved by him.
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00:06:54,885 --> 00:07:00,785
And I think telling me about my
awful tantrums might have been my
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00:07:00,785 --> 00:07:04,445
family's way of coping with their
own exhaustion and embarrassment in
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00:07:04,445 --> 00:07:09,635
those moments and one thing that they
sometimes tacked on was, "One day it
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00:07:09,635 --> 00:07:11,155
will come back to you," kind of thing.
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And families do this.
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They latch on to certain stories, and
they become the thing for that person,
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the trope, the thing that comes up at
Thanksgiving to humble you a little.
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00:07:20,905 --> 00:07:22,235
They weren't trying to hurt me with it.
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00:07:22,235 --> 00:07:26,865
It just became easy shorthand
for what I was like at that time.
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00:07:27,365 --> 00:07:30,285
I think over years of that
shorthand, I absorbed it.
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00:07:30,285 --> 00:07:36,299
It became a big identity of
my really early young years.
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00:07:36,299 --> 00:07:44,339
I was the tantrum kid, the difficult
one, big emotions, and I internalized it
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00:07:44,339 --> 00:07:46,669
more than anyone realized or intended.
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00:07:47,329 --> 00:07:50,459
a few years ago, actually around
the time my daughter was born, I
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00:07:50,459 --> 00:07:54,719
asked my mom what I was like as a
toddler beyond the tantrums, and she
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00:07:54,719 --> 00:07:57,799
said, "Curious, kind, funny, smart."
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00:07:58,479 --> 00:08:00,769
And I don't remember hearing
that very often growing up
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00:08:00,769 --> 00:08:02,379
about those specific years.
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00:08:02,439 --> 00:08:07,609
Doesn't mean I didn't feel some of those
things from them even, but it was really
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00:08:07,609 --> 00:08:10,749
something to sit with and it, it made
me tear up a little bit when she had
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00:08:10,749 --> 00:08:17,039
said that to me, and it just reminded
me it's something I wanna hold onto as
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00:08:17,039 --> 00:08:21,869
a parent is that kids are dynamic and
people are dynamic, and one story, even
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00:08:21,869 --> 00:08:24,099
a true one, is never the whole picture.
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00:08:25,099 --> 00:08:29,449
And now, of course, I know and there's
more understanding about those big
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emotions being normal and I think I had
feelings I didn't obviously know how to
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00:08:34,689 --> 00:08:38,219
handle, and the adults around me didn't
always know how to help me through them
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00:08:38,219 --> 00:08:44,569
and that's pretty common, I would say,
in early childhood, and there's, more
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00:08:44,569 --> 00:08:46,329
information now than there was then.
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00:08:47,059 --> 00:08:50,659
And my parents did their best with what
they knew, and I've now rewritten and
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00:08:50,659 --> 00:08:53,699
understood this narrative differently now.
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So I think one part of this is
your child doesn't have to accept
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the narrative you create, so I
hope you don't feel overwhelmed
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00:09:04,849 --> 00:09:06,729
by being that memory architect.
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00:09:07,249 --> 00:09:12,259
They can and will eventually write
their own, like I did, but the
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stories told early do have weight.
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They land somewhere, and it is important
to be thoughtful about which ones you
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keep repeating, and try to express and
choose stories that really paint a dynamic
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picture because you are the architect
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I want to talk about something I do
hear a lot, mostly through social
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media, but maybe you've heard
it too or thought it yourself.
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Why are you taking them to Disneyland?
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They're two.
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They won't remember it.
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00:09:44,629 --> 00:09:48,699
Why spend money on a trip
to Europe with a toddler?
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What's the point?
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Or just any kind of experience,
that might stretch a little
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bit I understand the logic.
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If the goal of an experience is to create
a memory the child will consciously
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00:10:00,749 --> 00:10:04,869
carry, then yes, a two-year-old probably
won't remember the castle, they probably
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00:10:04,869 --> 00:10:08,879
won't remember the flight or the
hotel or most of the specific moments.
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00:10:09,879 --> 00:10:14,959
In some cases, for us, traveling has
been a learning experience, and there are
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some things I hope she doesn't remember
when we've been completely exhausted.
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But I want to push back on this
because I think it misunderstands
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what the experience is actually for.
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First, you will remember it.
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Your partner will remember it.
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The experience creates
memories for everyone in the
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family, not just the child.
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00:10:33,909 --> 00:10:38,369
And those memories, the look on their
face when they see the parade, the way
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00:10:38,739 --> 00:10:42,169
they fell asleep in the stroller, the
chaos and the joy of navigating something
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big together, those are yours to keep.
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Second, the research suggests
early experiences may shape more
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00:10:48,739 --> 00:10:51,359
than we know, even when they
can't be consciously recalled.
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The emotional environment, the sense
of being somewhere new and exciting,
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00:10:55,579 --> 00:10:59,709
the physical sensations of a place,
these get encoded at a level that may
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00:10:59,719 --> 00:11:03,529
influence who a child becomes even
without retrievable memory attached.
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And third, my daughter personally loves
hearing stories about when she was a baby.
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She can't remember most of it, but
she lights up when I tell her about
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00:11:13,969 --> 00:11:18,399
things we did, places we went, moments
that were funny or sweet or hard.
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The story of it matters to her
even without the memory because
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the story is part of who she is.
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So yes, maybe they won't
remember the trip, but you will.
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And someday the story of the trip will
be something you can give back to them.
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Creating memories wherever and whatever
they may be and the stories that you
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will look back on is what can positively
shape the identity of your children,
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your family, and even yourself.
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00:11:42,629 --> 00:11:46,119
Because if you haven't been told
this lately, you are a great parent.
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If you're listening to this
and made it this far, you care.
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I wanna close with something
that took this whole idea
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00:11:52,489 --> 00:11:53,839
somewhere unexpected for me.
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00:11:53,979 --> 00:11:57,689
I just finished a novel called
"Theo of Golden" by Alan Levi.
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00:11:58,199 --> 00:12:00,259
It follows a man who is genuinely present.
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00:12:00,459 --> 00:12:03,819
He pays attention, he notices
people, he shows up, he observes.
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00:12:04,649 --> 00:12:08,369
And the story is really about the
attention and kindness of one person
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00:12:08,809 --> 00:12:14,179
rippling outward and affecting an entire
community in ways he never fully sees.
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I keep thinking about how that connects
to everything Wiking writes about
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memory, because being a memory architect
doesn't have to stop at your front door.
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When you ask the grandparent the question
they've been waiting to be asked, when
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00:12:26,569 --> 00:12:30,479
you take the photo of someone else's
kid having a great moment and send it to
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00:12:30,479 --> 00:12:34,789
their parent, when you show up because
you remembered someone was going through
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00:12:34,789 --> 00:12:39,719
something hard, these are small acts of
observation and memory-making that ripple
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outward in ways you'll never fully track.
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00:12:42,709 --> 00:12:46,689
One person paying attention, one
person noticing, that's enough to
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00:12:46,689 --> 00:12:49,149
change the shape of a community's story
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00:12:50,149 --> 00:12:53,259
The blog post companion to this
episode has the full breakdown of
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00:12:53,279 --> 00:12:57,349
all eight of Wiking's ingredients
for happy memories, the research and
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00:12:57,359 --> 00:12:58,899
how to apply each one practically.
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That link is in the show notes.
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It's worth bookmarking.
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And "The Art of Making Memories"
itself is absolutely worth reading.
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I'll link it in the show notes, too.
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Until next time, make the
memories, keep the story.
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Letters from today for the days ahead.
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Postcards for Posterity is connected
to my Love, Maddily blog, and that's
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00:13:20,497 --> 00:13:23,797
where I share additional resources,
links, and freebies, ways for
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00:13:23,797 --> 00:13:26,707
you to stay more connected to the
memories and people in your life