I remember I was around two or three years old and my family and I were at a birthday party for a family friend.  Being as young as I was, I was waddling around the party minding my own business and just seeing what was going on.  I started walking when I was very young, and the adventurist in me had come out yet again at this party.  At some point, I made my way to where my mom was sitting, but she had gotten up momentarily.  The chairs being used at this party were folding metal chairs and I had put my hand down near the back, but my mom did not see this.  Somehow, when she sat back down, the chair folded and split my finger down the nail.

Seems crazy, right?  Well I agree, but it is true.  At least, it is what my parents told me. My paternal grandparents keep “Baby Books” of all the grandchildren, and I remember going through mine around the age of 12.  As I flipped through the pages, I paused, took a double take of the one photograph because I did not believe what my sensory memory had seen. What I thought I had seen the first time was proven by my double take.  I saw a picture of me, around age three, being held by my father with a thick heap of gauze wrapped around my ring finger.  Being caught off-guard and extremely confused, I called my mom into the room and asked her what happened.  That was when she told me about the party.  Very simply Infantile Amnesia can explain the reason I had no memory of what happened. Infantile Amnesia is defined in our textbook as the inability to retrieve memories from much before age three, but is it not true that we are supposed to remember something traumatic? At least this is the claim made by many people, but I do not agree. As traumatic as this event seems, I do not actually remember any of it occurring.

I am able to write about this event today because my parents had implanted the memory into my mind.  After explaining what had happened, I was extremely shocked.  How could I not remember such terrifying moment?  I was too young to make a memory out of it.  After my parents told me what had happened, they told me to look down at my ring finger, so I did.  Going behind my nail, I noticed a scar, and then I was really shocked because I could not believe I never noticed it before.  I can retell this story to people no problem, but it is not from my own memory.  The only reason I can recall this event is because my parents told me about it and implanted the memory into my mind.

**Definition of Infantile Amnesia found in Psychology textbook