Why can’t we remember our lives as babies or toddlers?

Memories emerge earlier in some cultures than others, but researchers have long puzzled over our inability to recall events before two or three years of age

Life must be great as a baby: to be fed and clothed and carried places in soft pouches, to be waved and smiled at by adoring strangers, to have the temerity to scream because food hasn’t arrived quickly enough, and then to throw it on the ground when it is displeasing. It’s a shame none of us recalls exactly how good we once had it.

At Christmas, I watched my daughter, somehow already a toddler, being passed between her grandfathers and thought, wistfully: she won’t remember any of this. In parks, I push her endlessly on swings, making small talk with fellow parents who have been yoked into Sisyphean servitude, and think, ruefully: why won’t she remember any of this?

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