This is so strange. We all have memories from when we are 8 years old. We would know if we were taken from our home. A lot of Questions.
The mind works in mysterious ways, sometimes children forget things because they are too bad to remember. (repressed memories...) Then there is the possibility of Stockholm syndrome, where the victim feels empathy towards its captor. If this is the missing Robbie, he might be shying away from the police because he doesn't want the woman who raised him the last 11 years to get into trouble.
Now, This is going to go a little bit off-topic, but I'm curious about what kinds of memories people do have of when they were under 8 years old?
For me, my vivid memories - the kind that I can shut my eyes and still see clearly close to 50 years later are the things that were hurtful emotionally, physically or both. When I was 4, my family returned home from vacation and found that our house had been broken into. I remember the fear and can still see myself trying to keep close to my parents for protection.
At about the age of 3 or 4, I stepped on a bee hive and several bees were caught in my shirt. I was stung several times and my Dad ripped the shirt off me, hence, loosing the little ducky buttons that ran down the front of my favorite shirt. I remember the bee stings and loosing those buttons!
When I was 5 and about to start school, my Mom took me and had all my blonde curls cut off really short. I went from the pretty little blonde to my parents calling me their little "boy-girl". (I still wear my hair long and will never get it cut short.)
Also getting ready for the first day of school, we went out and bought me a new pair of shoes. I was skipping through the living room and my new shoes got caught on the carpeting. I fell and hit my head on the coffee table. I remember the accident and the resulting trip to the hospital, just to make sure I didn't have a concussion, which, in my brain was horribly life-threatening thing. (grammar format intentional to speak as we did in the 1960's)
Don't get me wrong, my childhood was generally happy and carefree. But the happy memories are all clouded and clogged with the photographs I have seen all my life and the stories people have told.
To me there is a pretty clear distinction between "vivid" or "real" memories vs. those that have been influenced by photographs and handed down stories.