Writers Draw From Childhood Memories

Childhood Antics

When we were kids, we did things that we'd never attempt now. The middle child above is doing a handstand. I couldn't have done that as a child, and certainly not now. As writers, we dip into our childhood memories time and again when we create fiction, memoirs, personal essays, poetry and more. 

I've noticed lately that more and more memoirs are being written that put the spotlight on the author's growing up years. Family stories are most often events that happened when we were children or ones we learned about as children.

Why do we delve back into our early years? Some of us think of that period of our life as treasured times; they were years when life was good, we didn't have the same kind of responsibilities as we do as adults. Some writers travel back to those childhood moments to try to understand what made them the adult they are today. They have questions about their present self and seek the answers in years gone by. 

We know that writing can be a release for those dealing with grief. Maybe writing about what happened to us as a child can be a release for some guilt or regret we still deal with as adults. As stated above, It can also help us explain why we are the people we are now. 

In the old movies, we'd often see someone stretched out on a special couch in a psychiatrist's or psychologist's office. "Tell me about your childhood," the doctor would say. The patient would begin the story which suddenly became 'the movie.' A number of years ago, psychologists blamed lots of adult problems on the way their mother potty-trained them. Not a lot of people bought into that one. 

Most of the memoir authors who write books about their childhood are writing about the problems they had while growing up. Let's be honest. A book about an idyllic childhood is not going to sell many copies. It's just too....well, too nice. The problems can be with an entire family, one parent, another relative, siblings, world conditions at the time and more. Or the problem could be the author of the book who had a disability or faced a traumatic event. There are multiple situations that bear writing about to perhaps help other people and for some self-help. 

We use childhood experiences when writing fiction, too. If an author is writing a mystery which involves a kidnapping at a park playground, that author is most likely going to bring up his/her own experiences on playground equipment to write about them. The way he/she kept pumping their legs to make the swing go higher and higher. The way they ran alongside the merry-go-round pushing it to increase the speed before jumping on for the ride. The way they sat on the teeter-totter with a friend, got it going and then hopped off letting the other person down with a thud. Great fun, or so we thought at the time. When writing anything, it helps to have experienced it to put some life into the scene. 

Some write with yearning about those growing-up days. They'd give anything to be able to go back and experience them again. Impossible, but many do wish they could enjoy the good times of those years. Many poets write with real emotion about those lost times, remembering them with fondness. 

Whether you write the good or the bad about your early years, you have lots to draw from.