On Core Memories
"I love you," she whispered.
"Loveyoutoo," murmured Andrew.
Petra was glad that someone had said those words to him so often that the answer came by rote.
In an Instagram reel a few days ago, I said I thought that the idea that we can influence our kids’ core memories is bullshit.
If you aren’t a parent of young children and/or a millennial active on social media, let me provide some context. The concept of “core memories” was popularized by the 2015 Pixar movie Inside Out; in theory, they create the foundations for who we become. I tried to look further into this to see if there’s any science - psychology or neurology, maybe - behind it and a) there isn’t, and b) I realized that, actually, it doesn’t matter because I still don’t believe it’s something that parents can guide even if it is legitimate. Not in the way that social media emphasizes, anyway.
(As my friend Kate commented in response to my reel, “Building core memories is just another way to guilt mothers.”)
Anyway, the point is, the activities we orchestrate to try to give our kids these core memories are transitory. That’s not to say they won’t remember an incredible trip or a fantastic birthday party or whatever else. But what matters more are the everyday, repetitive, banal interactions that become the cocoon from which our children will eventually emerge as adults.
I’ve been thinking about this for about a year now - and, specifically, about that quote at the top of this post. (It’s from Shadow of the Giant, one of Orson Scott Card’s sequels to the wildly popular Ender’s Game, and I remember almost nothing about the book besides those lines.) Interestingly, when I Googled “core memories” while writing this post, I found articles only dating back to fall 2022. Maybe that’s partly why it’s been on my mind for roughly the same amount of time. But also it’s because for a while when Claire was two, she would come up to me and say - in response to nothing I’d said out loud to her first - “I love you, too, Mommy.”
I guess she just thought that was her line; not that it was a reply, but it was just… what she was supposed to say when she wanted to express affection. We’d said “I love you” to her so much that “I love you, too” was rote. Not without genuine feeling, but automatic. Of course someone would say or think or express, somehow, “I love you” to her. Even if they hadn’t said it immediately proceeding her “I love you, too,” she knew it, so it was, in a way, existentially a response every time she said it.
That’s the core memory I want to give my kids. It’s not something I can plan or direct in any way because it has to be incessant. Steady. Persisting through the occasional raised voice or consequence for bad behavior; immutable.
I love you, too.
