Why babies’ experiences matter (even if they can’t remember them)

How early childhood shapes us as adults.

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August 23, 2026 2:30pm EDT

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Try as hard as you might, but you can’t really remember what it was like to be a baby. Our brains aren’t made to store specific memories from our first few years, something known as “infantile amnesia.”

Our first memories are often the result of stories we’ve been told, or even borrowed from movies or TV shows. Does it really matter if it happened, if you can’t really remember it?

Yes, science says. Vox’s Noam Hassenfeld spoke with two researchers about the fascinating research into the importance of babies’ experiences.

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