Why You Can't Remember Being a Baby

The first few years of your life were the most important you'll ever live — learning to walk, talk, and recognise the people who love you. And you remember essentially none of it. It's called infantile amnesia, and it's one of the strangest blanks in the human mind.

Part of the reason is hardware. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that files experiences into long-term memories, is still under heavy construction in your first years. It's so busy generating new neurons that it can't reliably store lasting memories yet — the recording studio isn't finished.

Part of it is language. Much of adult memory is scaffolded on words and narrative. Before you had language to hang experiences on, there were few hooks to store or retrieve them by. The events happened; the filing system to keep them didn't exist yet.

So those years weren't wasted — they shaped you completely, from your attachment style to your first words. They were just built over, like foundations you can't see but are standing on right now.