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"What was I like when I was little?" — the question most parents can't answer

It usually arrives around 5 or 6, out of nowhere, at dinner or at bedtime. And it puts a finger on exactly the gap in every family's archive: we know what the child looked like, but no longer who they were.

Andrei-Bogdan Smidu · July 24, 2026 · 6 min read

The question comes without warning. Usually in the evening, usually around five or six, usually right when you were rushing to finish something else:

"Mummy, what was I like when I was little?"

And then there's a short pause in which you realise, slightly panicked, that you don't have a good answer. You say something like "you were so adorable", "you were such an easy baby", "you ate everything". Your child accepts it, because they're small. But you're left with the odd feeling that you just missed something.

You did. And it's worth understanding why.

What they're really asking

Around five or six, children start to grasp something unsettling: they existed before their own memories begin. There are photographs of a child everyone insists is them, and they remember nothing at all. That period is a hole in their own story.

So they ask. And the question isn't simple curiosity — it's something deeper: "who was I, before I could remember?" And underneath it, a check that every child performs without knowing: "was I wanted? Were you happy that I came?"

That's why the answer matters far more than it seems on an ordinary evening.

Why "you were adorable" isn't enough

Not because it's untrue, but because it says nothing about them. All babies are adorable. It's the answer any child would get, from any parent.

Compare it with:

"Whenever you heard the vacuum cleaner you'd stop whatever you were doing and start dancing. To anything. Once you danced for ten minutes in the middle of a shop because there was a hoover running upstairs, and a man laughed so hard he had to lean on a shelf."

The second answer does something different: it gives the child a detail that belongs only to them. It isn't a generic baby description, it's proof that they were watched closely, as a specific person, from the very beginning.

"Children aren't asking what they looked like. They're asking who they were."

A photo album answers the first question. Very few families have an answer to the second.

Why parents end up with no answer

Here's the unfair part: it's nobody's fault. The details children ask about are exactly the ones an adult memory loses first:

  • They're small — an invented word, an odd habit, a funny reaction. The brain doesn't flag them as important.
  • They happen during the period that gets recorded worst: the early years, with fragmented sleep and identical days. (We covered the mechanism at length in "I thought I'd remember".)
  • They go untold. What you don't repeat fades — and you never repeated these to anyone, because they seemed too minor.

The result: five years after the event, you have ten thousand photos and three anecdotes. Fifteen years on, you have ten thousand photos and the same three anecdotes, increasingly polished by retelling.

How to build a true answer

1. Recover what you still can, now

If your child is already 6, it isn't too late — but it's later than yesterday. Do one single hour-long session:

  • Open your gallery from ages 0–3 and scroll slowly. Photos work as a trigger for memories you can't reach "on demand".
  • Write down everything that comes back, however small. Especially the small things.
  • Ask the other parent. You'll find you remember completely different things.
  • Ask the grandparents. They weren't exhausted, and they noticed details you missed.
  • Search your old conversations. The messages you sent back then are an involuntary journal, written in real time.

2. Stop the loss, from today

One sentence a week, concrete, about who your child is right now. Not "we had a good day", but what they said, what they invented, what made them laugh. One minute. Ten years from now, those sentences are exactly the answer to the question we're discussing.

3. Write the answer down properly, once

The best thing you can do: turn the answer into a letter. Not one to open tomorrow — one for later, when the question comes back in a deeper form: "who am I, really, and where do I come from?"

Because the question asked at 5 doesn't go away. It transforms. At 18, at 25, on their first day as a parent, they'll want to know again how it all started. The difference is that by then they won't be able to ask so easily — and you'll remember even less.

The answer, built as you go

Nestori keeps the sentences, the voices and the letters that make up the answer to "what was I like when I was little?" — chronologically, per child, sealed until the age you choose.

Write the first letter

Free, no card. Encrypted, stored in the EU, export anytime.

What not to do

  • Don't invent. It's tempting to fill the gap with plausible detail. But children sense the difference between a lived story and a constructed one, and a short real anecdote beats ten minutes of improvisation.
  • Don't turn it back to yourself. "Oh, it was so hard, I never slept" is your answer to a different question. They're asking about them.
  • Don't apologise. If you don't remember, just say: "I don't remember much from that time, but let's ask Grandma — and let's start writing things down so we don't forget from now on." You've turned a gap into a shared project.

The lovely part

One thing is worth saying at the end: retelling genuinely works. Stories told often become fixed — and a child who hears about their earliest years ends up feeling they have them, even without being able to access them directly. You're not just giving them information, you're giving them a beginning.

Which is why the question at five is really a gift in disguise: it's the moment your child tells you, without knowing it, what they'll want in eighteen years. Few parents get a brief that clear.

And the answer to it isn't written in one evening. It's collected, one sentence a week, starting today.

Frequently asked questions

Why do children ask what they were like as a baby?
Because around age 5–6 they start to grasp that they existed before their own memories begin, and that period is completely missing for them. The question isn't simple curiosity: it's how they fill in their personal story and check that they were wanted and loved before they could remember.
What do I answer if I don't remember details from the early years?
Tell the truth, but fill it in with what you can recover: ask the other parent and the grandparents, open your photo gallery as a trigger and write down everything that comes back. Don't invent details — children prefer a short real story to a long fabricated one. A single concrete detail is enough to keep the answer from ringing hollow.
Why isn't showing them baby photos enough?
Because photographs show what the child looked like, not who they were. An album answers "what was I wearing", not "what did I say, what made me laugh, what drove you mad about me". Children are looking for character, not their face — which is why one concrete story delights them more than a hundred pictures.
At what age should I tell my child about their earliest years?
As soon as they ask, with stories suited to their age — young children love short, funny anecdotes about themselves. Retelling also has a practical effect: stories told often become fixed, so a child who hears about their early years ends up feeling they have them, even without remembering directly.