Good childhood memories

[JAVO]

What are some of the best things you remember about your childhood?

What relationships, activities, conversations, and experiences do you remember which make you happy when you think about them?

If you could write a letter which would travel back in time to before you were born, what would you tell your parents to change to make your childhood even happier and more enjoyable?

What did your parents emphasize too much? What did they do too much of?

If your kids are teenagers or older, it might be interesting for you to speculate on how might they answer these same questions.

 

[Phantonym]

What are some of the best things you remember about your childhood?

Time didn't seem to exist. Mostly my childhood seems really warm and light when I think back on it. Movie clips in slow-motion, no audio, hazy lens.

What relationships, activities, conversations, and experiences do you remember which make you happy when you think about them?

I remember the summers most of all, reading loads and loads of books and running around outside, climbing trees, travelling around with my family.

If you could write a letter which would travel back in time to before you were born, what would you tell your parents to change to make your childhood even happier and more enjoyable? (other than the obvious things like abuse or tragedies)

I'd tell them to be more emotionally available and take interest in me as a person.

What did your parents emphasize too much? What did they do too much of?

They worked too much.

 

[sleuthiness]

Mmmmm, the hours spent afterdark digging through dirt at school, tasting freshly-cut grass, rolling down hills at school in a little ball, spitting chewed up crackers all over school benches, laughing in the principal's face when his face burned a pristine apple red, engaging in daily, endless handball tournaments with one kid until midnight afterschool, happily pulling my little brothers (sx/sp e34 istp and so/sp e67 isfj) in some dinky red wagon down our street's incredibly steep hill to fill our mom's water jugs, getting Penguins frozen yogurt along the way, dumping the entire sugar jar in my Dr. Pepper while watching the big screen in our mom's conference room while she worked weekends (sx/sp e12 esfj), endlessly murdering, then resurrecting ghosts just to kill them off again while playing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TaskMaker, staying up to watch the Maxx on SATURDAY NIGHTS AT 10/9C in the dark.

It probably would've been convenient to have a dad while growing up, but shit's shit. All everything jo bahls learnin' speriences.

Always been pretty agreeable on the surface, probably more aloof than I realize, but for as long as I can remember I've loved sniffing out people who think they aren't human or above others in any fashion and watching them squirm like the fucking worms they are, which requires a certain amount of forwardness that most seem uncomfortable around, so once people realize the fact that very little escapes my perceptions, with a particular focus on unconscious static, they give me the skunk tail. Completely understandable.

I was really into dinosaurs, so my bookshelf had encyclopedias from A-Z that I'd pull down to study whenever I could focus. Anything that captured my attention was (still isn't) purely foo foo; there had to be some grounding element. Monsters aren't shit if they don't actually exist, so when writing whichever stories, I'd try to infuse as much knowledge of the unconscious human mind, an ultimate, ideal distillation of true human aloneness into words as possible, which pumped mud, blood, guts and all into whatever I was creating; my goal has always been to locate where the afterburners are, to blur the lines between unreal and real, death and life, truth and fiction, as much as I can weave together while making it universally, logically coherent.

Nothing more refreshing than being utterly indisputable, right, forum?

 

[miss fortune]

What are some of the best things you remember about your childhood?

there were so many new things to learn and experience, the world was a much more mysterious place... I liked to sit in the basement and read National Geographics on hot summer days, imagining what the places I saw must be like... the biggest worries I had were generally how to get out of trouble that I'd gotten myself into

What relationships, activities, conversations, and experiences do you remember which make you happy when you think about them?

I liked to hang out with my granny, who was really old and had a lot of interesting stories... I had to spend WAY too much time hanging out with my sister since we lived in the middle of nowhere and because of that we have a ton of inside jokes that nobody ever gets- I used to talk her to sleep by telling her stories every night up until the point when I graduated high school... one of my best friends rode the same rural bus as I did and we were some of the first to get on- we'd swap books and learn to make things out of paper all of the way to and from school every day- I was always in trouble with her parents for doing things like hunting frogs in thier pond during slumber parties

If you could write a letter which would travel back in time to before you were born, what would you tell your parents to change to make your childhood even happier and more enjoyable?

don't change a thing

What did your parents emphasize too much? What did they do too much of?

they put a heavy emphasis on learning, but I can't hold that against them! They also emphasized manners a lot

 

[alcea rosea]

A good topic. There is so much to remember that it's impossible to answer in such a short space.

 

[lastrailway]

The birth of my little sister.

I had little brothers, but I always wanted a little sister. I couldn't believe it when she was born and she was a she.

 

[Betty Blue]

What are some of the best things you remember about your childhood?

walking outdoors at night in the moonlight and being fascinated with the stars.

What relationships, activities, conversations, and experiences do you remember which make you happy when you think about them?

My Dad explaining erosion on a trip to Wales, taking us to caves. Sleeping on the roof in spain and listening to my Dad talking about the constellations on a night with many shooting stars. My Godfather and his endless patience and humility coupled with the ability to make us howl with laughter till our tummies were sore. My Nanar who was so strong and loved us to bits. The Native American Indian who gave me a scrap of paper on a bus with a book title on it.

If you could write a letter which would travel back in time to before you were born, what would you tell your parents to change to make your childhood even happier and more enjoyable?

I'd tell them to get their shit together and give us some boundaries. I'd also tell them i would help them later on but to make things easier they should stop taking so many damned drugs and spend more time on real life.
I'd also tell them it was really important for them to look up dyslexia and give my brother the support he needed.

What did your parents emphasize too much? What did they do too much of?

They hurt each other so much they still feel the bitterness. They did too many drugs. They did not empahasise enough of anything really but they did teach us empathy and compassion and love.

If your kids are teenagers or older, it might be interesting for you to speculate on how might they answer these same questions.

My eldest is 11 and all i can say is i'm breaking the chain. It took a while and i'm sure there will be a time when we need to talk it all through, and i'll be ready.


My family is small and broken, but still good.