But for a five-year-old, memories are something that happened only hours or, at the most, days before.

So he's been trying to foster some older ones to keep up with his older brother and sister.

He's always asking me if I remember certain incidents which he is adamant occurred in 2006 or 2007. All his precious recollections now are preceded with a year date so he can feel as if he's getting those runs on the board in terms of age.

I haven't got a very good memory. It seems that I have purged from my mind things that have no bearing on just getting through the rigours of being a working mother.

My husband has a fantastic memory. He can recall dates, faces, places and even useless facts about certain events in our life that, despite my best attempts, still allude me.

Before we got married we did a road trip across the US. He can recall the exact style of car, the restaurants we ate at, the strange people we met. The only thing I can dredge up from my addled brain about that month is a fight we had on the way into - or it could have been out of - San Francisco when I turned the map upside down.

I do have flashbacks which I assume are bits and pieces of my past that find their way to the surface every now and then. But mostly the things I remember all have to do with what needs to be done in the immediate future, or what I may have just forgotten.

But it seems I'm not the only mother with a bad case of brain fag. I recently met up with a friend whom I had not seen for 17 years. He could recall every detail about the last time he saw me, but sadly, all I could remember was that I happened to be in another country.

I started to feel guilty until his wife let out a sigh of relief and confessed that she too can't get the synapses firing on all cylinders any more and some of the details her hubby so fondly recalls draw a blank with her.

My own mother has had the problem for years. Recently I was telling the kids about a terrible bike accident I had when I was about 10.

For years I carried an awful scar on one elbow, the legacy of major gravel burn. At the time I was with my older brother, who raced off to get help because I'd knocked myself out.

But before he got home, he saw me speed past in the back seat of a strange car (this was back when strangers weren't all dangerous).

The good Samaritan took me home and handed me over to my mother who took me off to hospital. It's one major incident in my life I'll never forget, but my mother has wiped it from her own memory, along with a bunch of other traumas me and my siblings suffered.

I was beginning to think it was a genetic thing - that women in the family started to suffer long-term memory loss. But last week my 95-year-old nan had her yearly assessment from the aged care team.

After a series of questions the assessor left, giving nan a clear bill of health. No sooner had she shut the door than nan was shaking her head. Part of the assessment involved remembering three words, which nan was told at the start of the hour-long conversation and asked to repeat at the end.

"I don't think she realises she's given me the same three words to remember for the past five years," Nan said.

"You'd think they could remember to change them."

Keeli Cambourne is a South Coast journalist and mother of three trying to find the perfect work/life balance.