My oldest son
My oldest son followed a lot of the patterns described on this forum. For one thing, he talked early—sentences at age one, paragraphs with multisyllabic words at two. He is an outgoing child, so a lot of his statements would come out of the blue to strangers. He would say, “When I was a grownup ….” My recollection is that most of these statements were rather mundane, like “I used to drive a car.” I figured he was confused about how time works and didn’t think much of it, so those communications are lost.
My husband is a history buff, so we used to take a lot of weekend trips to Revolutionary and Civil War battlefields. My son quickly took an interest in the Revolutionary War reenactors. He would walk up to these people, complete strangers, and say, “Hello, soldier. Have you heard from General Washington?” He had a persona, really, and the persona was definitely a Revolutionary era adult. He would engage in long conversations with these people as if he were part of their time period, and they would always play a long, since they were, after all, reenactors.
We stopped going to the Civil War battlefields, because he didn’t have the same affinity for those reenactors. We went everywhere Revolutionary: Boston, Philadelphia, Valley Forge, Washington’s Crossing, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Yorktown, Colonial Williamsburg. Wouldn’t you if you had a child so interested in history? If the reenactors were giving a speech, he would listen, but afterward his hand would shoot up. He might ask a question about what they had been demonstrating, or he might ask a question about General Washington. He always talked as an adult would talk, and to their credit the reenactors seldom talked down to him.
His Revolutionary War persona mainly came out when we were on these trips, but once he acquired a three-corner hat and a toy musket, it sometimes came out at home as well. And when he acquired a quill pen and ink, he began writing letters to General Washington. These were just scribbles, since he couldn’t write yet, but occasionally, when the matter was urgent, he would dictate the letter to me. I may have saved some of those letters, and I hope to find them. As I remember, they were mainly about supplies and troops.
Also, we got a replica of the Declaration of Independence, I think at the National Archives. When he was four, it was his favorite bedtime reading material. He still has most of it memorized. It is pinned on his bedroom wall.
My son is twelve now and probably has no memory of his toddlerhood. But he has certainly retained his affinity for Washington. Last winter, he wrote an essay, “My Hero: George Washington.” He got a B+. “You certainly know a lot about Washington,” his teacher wrote. “I wish that you had said more about his presidency.” But my son was never interested in the presidency. I don’t think it was his period.
He also found an error in his sixth-grade history textbook. The textbook referred to Washington as a general during the French and Indian War. My son told his teacher that Washington was a lieutenant colonel in that war, and it turned out he was right. Of course, visiting all those places, it would be impossible for him not to learn a lot about the Colonial Period and Revolutionary War, so I guess that doesn’t count as a validation. But do you think his affinity for the period sounds past life related?
