POV: Can one lose a Childhood that was never lived?

A life lived without a foundation of memories to look back on and muse “Voh din bhi kya din they” is most positively a nightmare. We all hold something or the other close to our hearts—some memory, a gesture, some words well-spoken, a home-cooked meal that brings light to our days despite the world seeming so far estranged from anything ‘live, laugh, love’. Knowing this, it feels valid to say that a life without a past worth remembering is a hollow life, an empty shell of what it should have been. Beep Beep, this is not a hypothetical. It’s soon going to be our reality.

Most of us begin to appreciate the importance of our childhood somewhere around the time we truly step into adulthood, we cherish those memories and hold them close to our heart. The toys and games, the tv shows and ice creams shared over the rooftop, that first act of betrayal when your dad lets go of the bicycle to let you learn—We’ve all had similar experiences but we all grew differently from it. There’s an almost idyllic quality to it when we revisit these memories in our heart and muse about it to our friends. Yet, for the coming generations, this core part of development may cease to exist entirely.

Technology is slowly decimating the next generation’s ability to think, learn or adapt as per their age’s requirements. According to Milwaukee Independent, Children have begun to engage with social media starting from ages as early as 4 years old. “Skibidi Ohio Gyatt Tax Rizz” and 6-7 memes cannot be a suitable replacement for lived experiences and real social interaction. It’s not just limited to the children themselves though. Research shows that most Gen Alpha children are kept from venturing out, making new friends without explicit permission even in situations where their safety is more or less guaranteed, most often with heavy monitoring.

"A crucial activity for the neuropsychical development of kids in early childhood (1-3 y.o.) and preschool (4-6 y.o.) is playing. Kids should be left without active engagement from an adult (or a screen) so they can start playing by themselves, engaging their minds and imagination."

Every now and then, I keep coming across videos from this Chinese Childhood Shop which features old chinese sweets, straws, bells, spiced snails and lemony treats that children used to love back in the days. This might appear ordinary but it’s not, for the comments would be full of adults reminiscing about running to these shops straight after school with an adorable net worth of a few coins, crafting jingly bracelets with plastic straws and bells and buying themselves delicious treats to squabble over. The best form of nostalgia is thereby not nostalgia for the candy itself, but nostalgia for the freedom and the creativity that eventually became symbolized by it. While watching all these videos, I am left thinking about whether children from today will be able to reflect upon those memories someday.

The question that emerges at the end of the day isn't whether today's children will have different memories from ours—every generation does. It's whether they'll have enough moments that are truly their own. The kind of memories that quietly resurface years later: a scraped knee from a bicycle fall, an evening spent chasing friends until the streetlights came on, or a game whose rules nobody remembers but everyone somehow followed. When these children grow up, what will they look back on and smile at?