Childhood Narrative Essay: Memory, Personality, and Behavior

This essay delves into the realm of childhood narratives, exploring the significance of early memories and their influence on an individual's personality and behaviors. The essay is based on an interview with Archbishop Kwaku Frimpong Manso, a 69-year-old clergy from Ghana, aiming to understand the consistency of his childhood recollections and how they shape his current worldview. The narrative contextualizes Archbishop Manso's memories within the post-war era and examines factors such as the education system, including the use of corporal punishment, and its role in shaping his personality. The essay references psychological theories like Freud's childhood amnesia and Adler's views on early memories to analyze the impact of family, peer groups, and social environments on the development of a person. Archbishop Manso's narrative highlights the importance of discipline, the absence of social class divisions in his early years, and how these experiences have influenced his perception of the education system and his overall worldview.

Running head: CHILDHOOD NARRATIVE
Childhood Narrative
Student’s name
University
Author’s note

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The Purpose of the present essay is to construct a childhood narrative, constructing a
descriptive account of the childhood memories of a person who was interviewed for this very
purpose. The rationale underlying this undertaking is to identify to which extent one can recall
the events of their early years, and how consistent they are. Additionally, the essay also attempts
to comprehend how childhood memories influence one’s personality and behaviours. To this
end, an interview has been conducted with Archbishop Kwaku Frimpong Manso, a 69-year old
clergy hailing from Ghana. Further, the essay will try to contextualize his memories in the post-
war era and examine how far his memories shape his current personality. For example, in
Archbishop Manso’s case, the factor of punishment in school played a crucial role in shaping his
worldview and personality.
Early childhood memory refers to the recollection of events occurred during one’s
childhood. These memories are formed during early years and very likely to influence an
individual’s behaviours throughout his life. However, most of the people are unable to recall
their early years’ episodic memory. Psychologists maintain that the first memory can belong to
the age of 3 to 4 years, although it can range from two to eight years. Nevertheless, it is evident
that the memories from the early stages of life are usually limited and fragmentary. In most
probability, it is a visual memory in color and not a continuous description of events. No adult
can ever represent a continuous account of early childhood memory without reconstructing the
events (Nelson 2017).
In this regard, Sigmund Freud’s theory of childhood amnesia is an instrumental
perspective to explain this phenomenon. According to Freud, adults are unable to retrieve the
episodic memories from the year two to year four, even some of the episodic memories up to
year ten. And the offset of childhood amnesia is described differently by different psychologists.

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Freud explained the inability of recalling with connection to repression of memories due to their
strong aggressive or sexual contents (Freud 2017). Discarding Freudian explanation,
psychologists in later periods held that the three stages of memory, i.e. encoding, storage and
retrieval are different in early childhood than the adolescence or adulthood, and this difference of
the process is largely responsible for explaining childhood amnesia (Bauer 2015)
In the light of the previous discussion, it could be argued that childhood memory is
nonetheless important to analyze the personality development and behaviours of an individual.
Notable psychoanalyst Alfred Adler also opined that it is important to analyze human nature. He
suggests that the first memory of an individual essentially reveals the fundamental worldview of
the person concerned (Lundin 2015). In this regard, it is also interesting to explore how the
intimate groups such as family and peer groups as well as the social environment such as school
and community influence the development of the person.
Archbishop Manso, as reported to the interviewer, grew up in the Colonial Ghana, known
as Gold Coast at that time. He was born in 1949, a time when World War II was raging in its full
wrath. Born in 1949, Archbishop Manso essentially grew up in the Post War era. In his
childhood, he experienced the transition of his country from a British colony to a sovereign
nation, and the subsequent changes that took place in the social and economic life. However, he
was very young to realize or remember all these things. When interviewed, he stated that the
earliest memories he had of his childhood was that of his school days. He started school at the
age of six, although he had no particular memory of that age. This establishes the phenomenon of
childhood amnesia, where we can only recollects episodic memories since the age of 6 years.
Also, the narration of his childhood seems to be a reconstruction, influenced by his adult
experiences and values.

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In his account, he described the existing education system of Ghana, and commented how
different it was from the contemporary system. The world was yet to experience the
technological revolution. Ghana, especially was an underdeveloped nation. Hence, the students
did not have an access to modern educational or electronic gadgets. Imparting education relied
on blackboards and simple school supplies. And students obeyed teachers and elders following
the common values imbued to them.
Another important aspect of Archbishop Manso’s memory of his school was his
perception of religion and social class. He stated that the locality that he belonged to was mostly
comprised of farmer families. Hence, there was no distinct division of social class among the
student, as they belonged to the same class. Also, all the families were Christians. Therefore,
there was no comparison or discrimination of religion either. The society, as it seems from his
description, was quite homogenous. The children were not quite aware of class comparison or
class discrimination. Thus, the memory nevertheless served to construct his worldview to a
significant extent, as it is evident that children learn the practice of social discrimination from the
social attitude surrounding them. Since he had no memory of such distinction, it is unlikely to
grow a strong sense of racial or class insecurity. Manso points out that he did not face any of
such discrimination until he arrived in the United Kingdom in 1984 and was exposed to a diverse
society.
The most significant aspect Archbishop Manso mentions in his memoir was the
importance of discipline in the education system that he received in his childhood. According to
him, the Christian background of all the children imbued a common sense of discipline in all of
them. They learnt the values of respect and obedience from their families itself. Hence, they were
generally obedient to their teachers as well. He comments that he is pained to observe the lack of

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respect and obedience in some of the children in today’s society. And he thinks it is the failure of
the contemporary education system. Apart from the religious teachings and the family values, he
opines that their school also played an instrumental role in imparting discipline among the
students. He describes his school to be very strict in general. They also were subject to corporal
punishments in case they were disobedient or misbehaving. During 1950s, corporal punishment
was quite a common practice in the schools of Ghana. He describes a number of punishments
they received as little kids in schools. Usually, they were belted or caned as punishments. Also,
the teachers used to employ a rap on their knuckles with a ruler, or spanked them across their
backside. Thus, physical pain was widely used to behave children in their early ages.
The practice of corporal punishment was allowed in schools in adherence with the
ideology of in loco parentis, a notion that ascribed a status of authority to teachers. They were
granted the same authority as parents, employing any form of punishment they seemed fit for
disciplining the children (Burchell 2018). This practice, to some extent, corroborates with the
early notion social state of childhood, when adults started to consider the adult supervision and
nurturing.
Childhood generally refers to the span of life ranging from birth to adolescence.
However, the notion of childhood can be categorized into two major viewpoints, i.e. biological
state of childhood and social state of childhood (Corsaro 2017). According to educational
psychologist Jean Piaget, childhood is comprised of two stages—preoperational stage and
concrete operational stages (Barrouillet 2015). Social state of childhood, on the other hand, refers
to the social attitude towards children. Up to the middle ages, children were not regarded as
distinct group of individuals. Rather, they were considered as undeveloped adults (Heywood
2017). Historian Philippe Ariès, a notable scholar of medieval history, suggested in his Centuries

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of Childhood that the notion of childhood is essentially a social construct, rather than a natural
phenomenon (Prag and Tendler 2018). The idea of social state of childhood emerges from the
influence of the English philosopher John Locke, who held that human mind, in its original form
is nothing but tabula rasa—a blank slate to be embossed by experience. This theory has a deep
impact on the notion of childhood, since it emphasized the ignorant, unadulterated state of
children’s mind to be shaped and filled with knowledge and right values imbued by their parents.
With the Lockean influence, the social attitude towards children started to change around the 17th
century. Adults started to consider as distinct entities, in need of nurturing and protection
(Heywood 2017). This perspective in particular justifies the ideology of in loco parentis, giving
the teachers the authority to discipline the children. And this memory of his own childhood
seems to have a deep impact on Archbishop Manso’s worldview, who also believes in the
effectiveness of corporal punishment in teaching children the value of discipline.
Throughout his memoir of his early education, Archbishop Manso maintained the
importance of discipline in education and in the development of children. Although corporal
punishment is banned in many countries including both Ghanaian and English schools, he
considers it as an instrumental factor to impart the value of respect and discipline. Thus, it is
evident that how Archbishop Manso’s childhood memory informed and influenced his
perception towards education system. Hence, it can be concluded from his narration that the
childhood memories of the interviewee has a deep impact on his personality and worldview.

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References
Barrouillet, P., 2015. Theories of cognitive development: From Piaget to today.
Bauer, P.J., 2015. A complementary processes account of the development of childhood amnesia
and a personal past. Psychological Review, 122(2), p.204.
Burchell, A., 2018. In Loco Parentis, Corporal Punishment and the Moral Economy of Discipline
in English Schools, 1945–1986. Cultural and Social History, 15(4), pp.551-570.
Corsaro, W.A., 2017. The sociology of childhood. Sage publications.
Freud, S., 2017. Three essays on the theory of sexuality: The 1905 edition. Verso Books.
Heywood, C., 2017. A history of childhood. John Wiley & Sons.
Lundin, R.W., 2015. Alfred Adler's basic concepts and implications. Routledge.
Nelson, Katherine. 2017. The cultural construction of memory in early childhood. Handbook of
culture and memory, pp.185-208.
Prag, E.M. and Tendler, J., 2018. Centuries of Childhood. Macat Library.