False Memories

Cabbie21

My daughter sometimes trots out the tale that, when she wouldn’t eat something, we would put it in a tupperware box and bring it out at the next meal, reminding her that children in Cambodia would be grateful. There is an element of truth in this, though I not sure it was every time.

I remember being told a similar thing when I was small and refused to eat something. My retort was, ‘well, give it to them then!’
That usually got me a clip around the ear from my dad!

One of my daughters mentioned something that had happened to her that was quite traumatic and I genuinely couldn't remember it at all. The memory did come back slowly over the next few days but I had managed to put it completely out of my mind. Often I find our memories of events differ, I just think memory is selective and certainly I know that if something is strongly felt, it's more likely to be remembered. I remember being made to finish a meal I disliked, retching and being smacked for being silly. I bet my mother, long dead, would have forgotten it in an instance. (not that I am saying OP would have done that). I also had a basin cut, no basin involved but I remember the phrase being used.

My daughter sometimes trots out the tale that, when she wouldn’t eat something, we would put it in a tupperware box and bring it out at the next meal, reminding her that children in Cambodia would be grateful. There is an element of truth in this, though I not sure it was every time.

And being traumatised by it

When they were little one time I was asleep on the couch and one of them whispered is mum dead and I waited a few minutes and they sat up with a shout and they ran back screaming then roared with laughter and said do it again do it again so it became a game ( which presumably they enjoyed) and every now and then they request we played the game again

Roll on many years and my daughter went to counselling when her partner died they got to discussing childhood and my daughter says she told the counsellor she didn’t have many memories of childhood but how frightened she’d been when I played dead
I was mortified I had tried so hard to be a good mother and father to them and shield them from so much and do stuff
they d remember although we didn’t have much money and all she remembered was a blxxdy stupid game I d been requested to play !!!!

is

If there are more than one child in the family, it's amazing that their recollections of events , how they were treated or their interactions vary considerably.

I must remember that expression of the Queen's about recollections varying, it really is one of the best 'come-back responses in the world!
Comforting to hear how many of you have the same experiences too. I do hold my hand up about insisting my children ate what they were given, or at least tried it (but as I hate sprouts myself I doubt I would have given them to her more than once a year.
The whole thing's making me smile now.

I am sure you have some stories about her behaviour which are none too favourable,especially as a teenager I would trot out a few of these every time she comes out with one of her "memories" , especially if she has children her self. If she says it didn't happen like that, say that you don't remember her tales either.

sprouts
I thought that was in every manual advising How to be a Good Mother - make sure your children eat sprouts!

Daughters do seem to have a tendency to remember everything you have said that they take to be negative whilst completely forgetting all the positive things you have said!

I think that people do sometimes remember things differently. It's perhaps because their priorities were different at the time or because some particular aspect of the occasion stuck in their minds more than other aspects.

I know that I remember my mum's aunt's house as being on a slight hillside with an area of grass in front of it. When I found it on Google maps (I had the address) it's on a town street with a tiny garden between it and the pavement. Clearly I'm thinking of somewhere else that we must have visited on the same trip. So, certainly, recollections do vary especially when the memories are from childhood.

My dad could never remember any of the campsites we stayed on with him, mum and DH. I remember nearly all of them - perhaps because I booked them!

Maybe we should all - children and parents - accept that we see things differently and make allowances...

Quite honestly, I think they all do it.

One thing I did (apparently) was to put a basin on her head and cut her hair around it (have you ever tried putting a basin on your head, let along cut hair round it!)

Ex-Dancer
I'm not sure how old your DD is but I used to cut my children's hair when they were small and a basin cut was quite popular in the 1970s! It was invented by Vidal Sassoon, I think, and was also known as the Purdey cut after Joanna Lumley's character in the New Avengers.
I have photos of my DD with a basin cut, not sure if she has forgiven me yet but she laughs about it.

Tell your DD to look it up

Sometimes I gave my DC turkey drummers and fish fingers (we were quite hard up too).

I have a vivid memory of seeing my father for the last time. He was going on an aeroplane which crashed and he died. I was the last in the family to see him alive.

Recently, 70 years later, I was talking to my sister who's a couple of years older than me. She says she was there too and she remembers the scene completely differently from me.
I now accept that she is probably right.
We discussed other events in our childhood and each time we have a different version.
It doesn't bother me but I find it interesting, that we remember different things.

My DD too is quite likely to remember the horrible things I said or did when I think she got off lightly compared to her big brothers who bear no resentment.

Our DD has never accused us of anything like this but sometimes when relating things from years ago her version is different to my memory of it. As the late Queen said 'Recollections may vary'.

False memories of childhood seem to me to be more common nowadays. Is it a recognised “thing”? My dds certainly do pointedly accuse me and various friends with dds have also mentioned but funnily enough those friends with ds dont.

This is one of the main reasons why people become estranged .
I read it all the time on MN.
Most posters are assuming that these are false memories.
I don't know of course.
But I think OP you need to really listen to your daughter.
Try to understand her reality.
Maybe she did feel pressured to eat things she didn't like or more than she could manage.
It was common years ago for children to be expected to eat whatever was put before them.
Maybe you didn't mean to and you have misremembered.
Airily dismissing another person's reported experience is not going to make for a close relationship.

May be it is daughters. About 5 years ago DD and I were chatting one evening when she took a deep breath and said 'I want you to listen to me and not interrupt, She then listed a whole range of ways I had failed her when she was a teenager. I listened. When she had finished she just picked up the threads of the previousconversation as if nothing had interupted it.

I was gob smacked. Yes, there was some truth in one or two of her comments but most were nonsense, but I said nothing but discussed them with, first, DH, who agreed that a number of things she said were incorrectly remembered because his recall was the same as mine, and then with DS, who also corroborated my memory of events. - and actually was angry about some of the things sge said, but I said he was not to mention the subject to her - and he hasn't.

In the end I decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Nothing I can say or do is going to change her mind about what happened in her teenage years, and arguing about it is not going to do anything other than make things worse. i am not sure that she even remembers the event. But I do.

ex-dancer , all I can suggest is when she starts up again, just give her a smile and say, 'well this is a subject where memories may differ'. Say it when she tells the story to others. Nothing either of us can say or do is going to alter what our daughters belief in what happened. The best thing is just shrug it off.

I have just altered all my post Christmas plans because this last weekend my DS and DDiL said they were looking forward to doing certain things a certain way when they came down after Christmas, just like we used to do pre-COVID- except that neither me, DH or DD have any memory of doing what they suggested or anything like it.

But they and DGC are convinced that this is what the past was, so we will do it.

Mogsmaw

I have an overactive bladder. I know I have had this since childhood as, at any gathering, my mum would tell everyone about me coming to the door, dripping pants sliding towards my knees. Says “I feegot.
I didn’t “ forget” I now know it’s known as “doorsteping”. I do mean ever gathering. Every Christmas dinner, meeting the minister to plan my wedding, every **ing time!

That’s just awful of your Mum, why would she ever do that?
Isn’t it known as key in the door syndrome?

ExDancer you have my sympathy as one of my DD’s is much the same, it’s annoying but I’ve learned the best thing is to let it slide as she really believes it.Nothing awful btw but things I know for a fact never happened.
I bet the pudding bowl scenario came from either you or the hairdresser giving her a short bobbed hairstyle and somebody joking that it looked as if it had been cut around a pudding bowl.

I stayed with my gran a lot and my mothers complaint was that she had treated and removed all my lovely ringlets whilst in her care. This was simply not true.

I have an overactive bladder. I know I have had this since childhood as, at any gathering, my mum would tell everyone about me coming to the door, dripping pants sliding towards my knees. Says “I feegot.
I didn’t “ forget” I now know it’s known as “doorsteping”. I do mean ever gathering. Every Christmas dinner, meeting the minister to plan my wedding, every **ing time!

Am not going to say your daughter is a liar but sone people do make up stories or elaborate to gain popularity. And sometimes false memories are caused by suggestibility, could another member of the family or friend of the family have related a memory of these things occurring to your daughter mistakenly but she now believes those memories are hers, having forgotten the initial conversation.
In any case you do need to clear this up with your daughter is not fair on you.

My daughter seems to be the same, whilst I think of times when I lost patience, she says she doesn't remember anything, in fact comes up with some good things I can't remember! One thing she does remind me of is that I made her eat custard, she won't eat it to this day.