HEALTH PLUS:Children who want to know about their early years only have to ask their parents for the story, writes MARIE MURRAY.
THE TERM “learning by heart” may bring to mind a rather quaint activity from school days of a different era; of memorising lengthy incomprehensible passages of poetry as punishment for misdemeanour.
But the term has another meaning: a meaning that makes it as invaluable as those poems when recollected years later, when their wisdom emerged aeons after they were memorised, with startling wonder at their relevance, their beauty and their profundity.
Learning by heart is committing to memory, so totally and so deeply that what is learnt by heart cannot be erased. It is a memory trace that persists throughout life.
Learning by heart is memorisation of a special kind. It is more than learning by rote, more than functional memory, more than remembering, more than memory storage and retrieval. It is an activity that engages the heart. It is learning so deeply that what is learned lies at the core of one’s being.
What we decide to learn by heart, we undertake to etch indelibly on mind and heart. We learn by heart that which is important to us. And what is more important to parents than their children?
Parents learn their children by heart. From the moment they are born, and even before they are born, they begin the process of inscribing every detail of their children’s existence in their hearts.
Is there an expectant parent who has not been emotionally moved by the ultrasound sound of a baby’s heartbeat? What “concord of sweet sound” is that to hear a baby’s heart? It is the beginning of parental learning by heart.
Newborn babies are scrutinised by their parents. As they are held in their arms, every detail is absorbed. The shape of the mouth, the depth of those newborn dark eyes, the turn of the nose, the fingers and toes, each crease, each newborn fold, the delicacy of body and soul are symbiotically attached to the parental heart.
The sight, the shape, the feel and the smell of the newborn: all begin a process of attachment, of encoding every detail in memory. It is a process of storing every element; of engraving, emotionally, everything about their child, to be consolidated in care and concern forever.
The first moments of parents’ introduction to their newborn are precious. Those moments begin lifelong learning: learning by heart. And there are many moments afterwards: the first grasp, the first steps, the first words and the special night time moments with the newborn.
There is the exhaustion of poor sleep and the sacredness of those special night hours: the night feeds, captured so eloquently in Eavan Boland’s poem Nightfeed in which parent and child continue to learn each other by heart.
There are so many remembrances that parents have of their children’s lives and the details of their lives as they develop. They do not just remember the big events: the first day at school, the birthday parties, the school plays, the sports days, the exams, the results, the celebrations.
They do not just remember when reading began, when writing appeared, when pictures were drawn or when music was played. They remember the ordinary and the everyday. Parents hold eidetic images of the entirety of their children’s lives within them.
Like photograph albums of the past, parents store vivid images of their children in their memories: images, incidents, moments and actions, are pasted into the parental mind. Events may be extracted. Situations may be recalled.
Stories can be told to children about times that children do not remember. Memories that children have can be verified and elaborated upon when parents are asked by their children about childhood times. Recall is ensured because their children’s lives have been learnt by heart.
Parents remember cuts and scrapes, illnesses and injuries and their wish that they could protect their child from every hurt in life.
Parents also remember when their child first suffered a disappointment, a rejection, exclusion, a taunt, setback, confusion or upset. Life brings moments of pain to everyone and parents feel their children’s pain more acutely than their own.
As children grow, parents grow in knowledge of their children, the temperament of each one, their talents and challenges, their individuality, their originality, their unique lives, their history, their past, their present and potential in the future.
Parents know their children. They have learnt them by heart.
Clinical psychologist and author Marie Murray is the director of the University College Dublin Student Counselling Services