Children who hit

[ailbhe]

My mother swears she was never hit by any of us after we were two.

But we can remember doing it. Not much, like, but hitting one's mother is a bit of a Big Deal and sticks in the guilt-ridden memory somewhat.

I wonder will my journals prevent me from rewriting the children's pasts? Or just alter how I rewrite them? I know other parents who swear they never smacked their children, with similar contradictory child-memories.

Comments

[webhill.livejournal.com]

parents make stuff up all the time.... michael's grandma has, for many years, been rewriting her daughter (my MIL)'s history. She does it to the grandkids, too ("remember the time I took you for your first milkshake?" "No, you never did that" "yes I did" etc). My own mom insists that i never came home from school to find the police there after she'd called them because I was missing, despite numerous eyewitness accounts to back me up. Parents are weird that way :)

[ailbhe]

My mother is unusually helpful in that she knows she has blank spots due to depression messing with her memory, so she doesn't *argue* with us over this stuff. But she is disconcerted by it.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I know people who got through some bad childhood stuff by forgetting. For me, remembering is my survival skill - I had to remember things well, or my mother's rewritten version would be the canonical one even if it was something that happened to me that she wasn't even there for.

[kiya]

Ohgodsthis.