Childhood Amnesia: an Update from the Archives

Three years ago I wrote about the phenomenon of children I'd spent hours with in childcare settings forgetting who I was, and I wondered if there was a name for this - and there is! This evening I heard this story on NPR about childhood amnesia, or children's inability to remember events from the first three or four years of their lives. While this phenomenon doesn't entirely overlap with my experience - some of the kids whom I knew were older, eight year olds who forgot me by 13 - it does provide a satisfying piece to the puzzle.

Forgetful Children

It happened again last week: I was openly snubbed in public. But this wasn't someone I actively dislike; this was a middle school-aged boy on the Metro who looked straight into my eyes and smiling face and showed no sign of recognition. Thanks, Carl!

Some background: five years ago, I finished a four year run as an activity counselor at a Boys and Girls Club after school program. This equaled three hours each day and eight during winter, spring and summer breaks. Modestly, I estimate that I spent hundreds of hours a year with many of those kids - helping with homework, reading Captain Underpants books, playing tag, and comforting them when they were frustrated, lonely or hurt.

When I left the Club, Carl made a Mad Lib about *me* as a going away present - one of the best gifts I've ever received from a kid. But he was maybe eight then, and now he's basketball player-tall, probably 13, and that was a long time ago. I wasn't disappointed or even surprised last week when he didn't know who I was; I've seen the same blank expression on other buses, in parks, and in stores in the years since I stopped working with those kids. I know a lot of other people have entered and exited their lives since they last saw me. And I know there are exceptions, ones who remember my face and sometimes even my name.

Still I never stop feeling amazed at how all those hours of drawing, snacking, and playing kickball were wiped away for many of them. Old people have Alzheimer's; what do we call this particularly young affliction?

Reliable Transportation = Discrimination?

I have two part time jobs currently, but I still keep my eye out for work. Lately I've been encountering more job descriptions that sound good until I get to the Minimum Requirements section: "must have access to reliable transportation"; "must have access to a reliable vehicle"; or the blunt "must have a car."

I ride the Metro and have ever since I moved to Seattle in 2001. Is it reliable? Well, most of the time it actually is. There are delays, breakdowns, inclement weather, belligerent riders and all the other myriad reasons why it might not get you where you hoped to be when you planned to be there. But any form of transportation will include some degree of uncertainty.

Part of my beef is semantic: If these ads said "must have FAST transportation" instead of "reliable," I would not only be more understanding, I might even be amused. I often have to budget an hour for a bus trip across town - a distance that a car will usually be able to traverse in, oh, 15 to 30 minutes.

But my biggest problem is money-related. Like I said in an earlier post, a lot of people, including me, ride Metro because it's less expensive than driving. Through one of my jobs, I pay just $55 every three months for an Orca card. Collectively, these reliable transportation caveats feel like an additional societal kick in the shin during a recession that's already hurting already vulnerable people. Don't have a job? Can't afford a car? Well too bad!

Do some jobs require cars? Yes. For example, for some of the nanny and babysitting jobs posted in The Daily, the University of Washington's paper, this "must have a car" language makes sense - families who want multiple children to be picked up after school and driven multiple places in the span of two hours, for instance.

But a message to the other families: your kids can ride the bus too.