Illustration by Michelle Theodore
The young sisters sat, confused, in the back of the family car, on what was supposed to be a routine visit to the dentist.
Their mother and father slowly pulled out two envelopes: the family was not en route to a dreaded dental cleaning, but to Disneyland Paris, a trip the parents quietly saved up for all year.
Mom and Dad filmed the now-viral moment, a carefully choreographed surprise that left the girls squealing and panting. Their mother shared the entire escapade on TikTok, describing it as the biggest “core memory” imaginable for a child.
Social media is rife with the core memory hashtag, as parents painstakingly plan big-ticket events, milestones and holidays for their children.
Under the banner of #corememories online, parents describe orchestrating these joyful experiences, hoping they’ll imprint on their kids. Visits with Santa, presents piled under Christmas trees, Disney World trips, Taylor Swift tickets – these are the recurring themes.
Despite their hopes, the idea that one could engineer someone else’s “core memories” isn’t rooted in child development research. Instead, the concept was popularized after the 2015 Pixar film Inside Out, which followed an 11-year-old girl named Riley, whose core memories were stored in her brain as glowing, pulsing orbs, shaping her personality.
Parents concocting whimsy and joy is hardly new, and many posting their efforts online seem genuinely excited: Who wouldn’t want their children to have more happy memories than sad ones? Still, the degree of control parents have over their kids’ childhood memories remains up in the air.
Vancouver was buzzing, the friendship bracelets flying, when Kayla Armstrong and one of her three young daughters went to a Taylor Swift show in early December, tagging along with a friend and her own young daughter.
Ms. Armstrong, 32, catalogued the #corememory on Instagram: she, decked out in a Travis Kelce football jersey, the girls belting out songs in sparkly silver dresses and cowboy boots, then fast asleep on the way home. “Will cherish this night & the memories made forever,” wrote Ms. Armstrong, saying she treats Instagram like “home videos back in the day.”
Since the show, her seven-year-old has been parroting one of the pop star’s moves during the song The Man, flexing and kissing her bicep. “For some reason that really stuck with my daughter,” Ms. Armstrong said.
While she understands her daughters will make their own memories, she hopes the concert will stand out; that her child will remember its “overwhelming joy” and what it felt like to be drawn out of her own world, interacting with so many others.
Within the wider online phenomenon of core memories, Erin Pepler sees good intentions and families bonding, but also some blind spots.
“It’s parents wanting to parent well and give their kids this beautiful set of childhood memories,” said Ms. Pepler, Burlington, Ont.,-based author of Send Me Into the Woods Alone: Essays on Motherhood.
“In some cases, you might be trying to heal your own childhood: ‘I didn’t have this myself so I’m going to give it to my kids in a really big way.’ It’s soothing for you.”
Undeniably, this is not the memory-making of the past, a handful of yellowed photographs tucked into a private family album. Today, parents share their families’ personal moments on the internet constantly. With core memory content, there is often a “gotcha” element, parents priming a surprised reaction from their kids for the camera. This is where Ms. Pepler starts to cringe: the self-serving, performative parts of the trend.
“When you take this whole core memory conversation – first you curate the memory and then you put it online – what part of this is for the kids?”
Another question mark is the extravagance of many core memories. Rarely is it humble – a family watching a movie together or sharing a meal. Instead, it’s luggage sets wrapped under the tree, hinting at a surprise trip to Disney World. Ms. Pepler compares the exaggerated experiences to dates on The Bachelor: “It’s not just a date where you’re going to a coffee shop. No: We’re going skydiving.”
The fad is being fuelled in part by influencers, whose lifestyles are paid for by advertisers. Their over-the-top feeds can leave regular parents feeling inadequate. “People feel so bad about what they can’t give their kids, but they don’t actually know how other people are giving their kids those things,” Ms. Pepler said.
Others see the core memory phenomenon as an extension of intensive parenting, where mothers and fathers invest much time, energy and money to try and steer each outcome in their children’s lives. First, parents felt they had to schedule their kids up with productive activities. Now, they’re being nudged to curate their interior, psychic worlds of reminiscence.
In brainstorming core memories, some parents do an “emotional safeguarding” for their kids, according to Melissa Milkie, a University of Toronto sociology professor who studies family time and well-being.
“Emotional safeguarding is trying to somehow ensure that your children will be mentally fine and happy,” Dr. Milkie said. “Parents are feeling that there’s so much uncertainty. This maybe helps them feel more in control – even if they’re not, actually.”
Regrettably, major defining memories can’t be manufactured the way some parents might like, according to Carole Peterson, a psychology professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland who has studied children’s memory and adults’ memory of early childhood for some five decades.
While children might be able to recall pleasant moments, it’s unlikely those will shape who they turn out to be, Dr. Peterson argued.
“If you think back to your own life, there were real high point and low point events,” she said, pointing to a teacher guiding a child’s trajectory, or an instance of bullying.
“These were major events that had an impact on the way you think about yourself and your life. They are unlikely to be a trip to Disneyland,” Dr. Peterson said. “You cannot control what the child remembers about a particular event. And you certainly can’t control what kind of impact that’s going to have on them long term.”
She pointed out that even in the short term, kids remember things differently than adults do. They can latch onto smaller, more serendipitous moments – a kitten befriended on an all-inclusive beach getaway. Or, more jarring events: dad locking his keys in the car on a road trip, or a thunderstorm bearing down while camping. These memories can’t be planned in advance. Often, they’re free.
Ms. Pepler recalled a family trip through Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen and Luxembourg, where their hotel balcony overlooked a medieval castle, a deep interest for her son. When they returned home, it was clear the boy had seized onto something else entirely: a Luxembourg bakery with door handles shaped like croissants.
“He would tell all his friends after the vacation, ‘I had a chocolate croissant for breakfast every morning!’ I’m like, ‘Dude. You saw the Eiffel Tower. You went through the catacombs. You saw the Berlin Wall,’” Ms. Pepler laughed. “But he has this core memory of the croissants being such a treat – it was so outside the norm. I never would have planned that.”