49 Things From Childhood That We Only Started To Appreciate Once We Grew Up

We tend to think that childhood sucks when we’re little. We can’t wait to grow up and be like adults. Then we’ll be able to watch whatever we want on TV, buy whatever snacks we want, and go out without telling anyone and without a curfew. That’s why they say that youth is wasted on the young – because we don’t yet know how good we actually have it.

A couple of years ago, one Redditor was curious to know what cool things people experienced in their childhood but didn’t appreciate until they became adults. They went on r/AskReddit and posed this question to the community. People shared all sorts of wholesome and sweet things and even some impressive stories.

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Sometimes we tend to remember things more fondly just because they happened in the past. That way, our childhood might seem better than it actually is. This is called 'rosy retrospection.' Experts say that the phenomenon is a "cognitive bias that runs parallel with the concept of nostalgia, though the latter does not always directly imply a biased recollection."

But it's nothing to be scared of, it happens to most of us. It's just how our brains process memories over time. Young adults tend to remember their childhood as their 'golden age.' For older adults, it's their young adult years that seem to be the best.

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Apparently, our most vivid long-term memories happen between the ages of 10 and 30, and those are the years that our brains remember the best. We also tend to concentrate on our 20s, because many significant life events occur during those years: college graduation, marriage, having children, etc. This age period is also called 'the reminiscence bump.'

But it's not simply about the things and events that we remember. The more important factor is how we felt during them. That's what we register the best, and that's what triggers us to remember these events in a positive light. Also, because younger people tend to be more optimistic about the world and the future, our memories are made even better by the dopamine we had when we lived them.