(And why every mother should know this)

There are moments in motherhood that don’t arrive with noise or announcement. They slip in quietly, almost like a whisper, and yet they change the way you see everything.


For me, it happened on an ordinary evening in our home here in Ontario. I was sitting with my son, scrolling through a few photos on my phone—just everyday moments, the kind we all capture without thinking. He pointed to one and said, “That was fun, Mama.” It was such a simple sentence, the kind you hear every day, but something about it made me pause. I looked at him, then back at the image, and I realized he wasn’t just seeing a picture. He was remembering.


In that moment, something shifted inside me.


As someone with a Master of Science, I’ve always been curious about how things work. I’ve spent years understanding systems, patterns, and processes. But motherhood has a way of asking questions that no textbook ever prepared me for. I found myself wondering—how does my child remember things? What shapes the way he sees himself? What stays with him as he grows, and what quietly fades away?


That curiosity led me into a different kind of learning. Not as a photographer at Golden Grains Photography, but as a mother trying to understand the deeper meaning behind the moments we capture—whether through everyday phone photos or professional family portraits.

What I discovered felt almost too powerful to ignore.


Children are not born with strong memory in the way we understand it. They don’t automatically store and retrieve life events like a camera recording video. Instead, they learn how to remember over time. And the most beautiful part is this—they learn it through us. Through conversations. Through shared moments. Through the way we revisit the past with them. Research in Developmental Psychology shows that when parents talk with their children about experiences—what happened, how it felt, what it meant—children begin to build something called autobiographical memory. This becomes the foundation of how they understand their own life story.


That realization stayed with me. It made me look at something as simple as a photograph in a completely new way.


I used to think photos—whether casual or taken during a professional maternity photoshoot, newborn session, or family portrait session—were about preserving moments. Freezing time. Holding onto something before it disappears. But now I see that photos are not the memory itself. They are an invitation. A doorway. A gentle nudge that says, “Come back to this moment. Feel it again.”


Because memory doesn’t live in the image. It lives in what we do with it.


Science tells us that memory is not stored like a file we open and close. It is reconstructed every time we revisit it. Which means when I sit with my son and look at a photo, and I say, “Do you remember this day?”—I am not just asking a question. I am helping him rebuild that moment. I am helping him attach feeling, meaning, and understanding to it.


The more I read, the more I understood that this process is not just about remembering. It is about becoming.


Children who grow up hearing stories about their lives, about their family, about moments they were part of, tend to feel more secure in who they are. They develop a stronger sense of belonging. A deeper emotional grounding. It’s almost as if these shared memories become quiet anchors inside them, holding them steady as they grow.


And somewhere in the middle of all this learning, I had another realization—one that felt both beautiful and a little uncomfortable.


So many of us, as mothers, are behind the camera. We are the ones capturing the moments, making sure everything is documented—whether it’s a milestone, a birthday, or even planning a professional photoshoot in Kitchener, Waterloo, or Cambridge to preserve these memories. But how often are we actually in those memories?


Because one day, when our children look back at these family photos, those images become part of how they understand their childhood. And in those images, they don’t just see themselves. They see who was there with them. Who held them. Who loved them. Who showed up.

That thought stayed with me for a long time.


Now, when I look at a photograph—especially a thoughtfully created portrait, whether it’s a newborn photography session, a maternity shoot, or a timeless white-on-white child portrait—I don’t just see composition or light or expression. I see a moment that can be revisited. A moment that can be spoken about. A moment that can be felt again.


And I’ve started doing something very simple, but very intentional. I sit with my son, and we look at photos together. I ask him what he remembers. Sometimes he says something. Sometimes he doesn’t. And then I tell him what I remember. I describe the day, the feeling, the little details that he might not notice yet.


And slowly, I can see it happening.

He is learning how to remember. He is learning how to tell his own story. He is learning that his life is made of moments that matter.


I don’t do this perfectly. There are days when life moves too fast, when photos stay buried in my phone, when I forget. But now I know something I didn’t know before.


Memories don’t just stay because they happened.


They stay because we return to them. They grow because we give them attention. They become meaningful because we share them.


If you are reading this as a mother—whether you’re considering a professional family photoshoot in Ontario or simply trying to capture everyday life at home—I want to tell you something gently, the way I wish someone had told me.


You don’t need to capture everything. You don’t need perfect photos. You don’t need to get it right every time.


What matters is that you pause, sometimes, and go back, sit with your child. Look at a photo. Talk about it. Laugh about it. Feel it again, because in those small, quiet moments, something very powerful is happening.


You are not just remembering.

You are helping your child understand who they are.

And that, more than anything else, is what will stay with them.

References

  • Fivush, R. (2011). The development of autobiographical memory.
  • Reese, E., & Newcombe, R. (2007). Training mothers in elaborative reminiscing enhances children’s autobiographical memory.
  • Fivush, R., Haden, C., & Reese, E. (2006). Elaborating on elaborations: Role of maternal reminiscing style.
  • Duke, M., Lazarus, A., & Fivush, R. (2008). Knowledge of family history and adolescent well-being.
  • Schacter, D. L. (2012). Constructive memory.
  • Wade, K. et al. (2002). A picture is worth a thousand lies.
  • McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories.