What was going on when I was born?

A number of the nation's major banks with loans to Argentina will be required to report substantially lower earnings because of a hotly disputed interpretation of accounting rules by Federal bank regulators. Although the ruling does not officially become effective until the third quarter, most banks are expected to report their earnings for the second quarter on the basis of it. The statement in which the strict interpretation of accounting rules is detailed was mailed last Saturday by the Federal Reserve System and the Comptroller of the Currency to chief executive officers of commercial banks across the country. Some analysts cheered the decision, saying it would help clear the air of doubts about the banking system although the immediate effect would be lower bank earnings.

TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1984 Companies Lower earnings for some banks with loans to Argentina would be reported under a strict Federal interpretation of rules involving late interest payments. Some analysts said that, despite the immediate effect on earnings, the move would help clear the air of doubts about the banking system. (Page A1.) A bid for Conrail was submitted by a Citicorp group. The bank holding company said it hoped to include itself, other investors, Conrail unions and management. The unions, meanwhile, sweetened their cash offer. The Transportation Department said it had received a total of 13 bids by the midnight deadline. (D1.)

In the four months since Konstantin U. Chernenko became the Soviet leader, the Kremlin has settled into a hostile mood of a kind that has rarely been seen since the height of the cold war 30 years ago. Recent weeks have seen a sharp turning inward, a curtailment of ties with the West and a resort to something approaching rudeness in dealing with official visitors who have sought a return to compromise. Little is known about the workings of the Kremlin under Mr. Chernenko, but one view among Western diplomats is that the mood owes at least something to the character of the new Soviet leader, a peasant's son from Siberia, who has shown over the years that he has strong instincts of the kind associated with conservative Russian leaders. Apparently his views are reinforced in the current climate by those of Foreign Minister Andrei A. Gromyko, who has emerged as the most powerful figure around Mr. Chernenko. Those attitudes include suspicion of the West, a rigid pride in the Soviet Union and a quick hostility toward anything seen as denigrating or threatening.

THE passengers, several of them wearing ''Save the Whales'' T-shirts, filed aboard the whale-watching boat Dolphin V at the municipal pier in Provincetown, Mass., hoping that they would be lucky enough to see the animals at close quarters and watch them spout, leap out of the water, slap their huge tail flukes on the surface or raise them high in the air before making deep dives. Two hours into last week's four-hour ocean trip their hopes were realized, and for the next hour they watched seven of the marine giants spout and dive. Two whales swam under the 100-foot boat, surfacing only a few feet away on the other side. But many scientists believe whale-watching has become part of a widespread and worsening ecological paradox: The very people who have exhibited so much interest in and compassion for whales may have themselves become a serious factor in the dangers that confront the great beasts. The whale-watchers often harass them, the scientists say, either intentionally or unintentionally, disrupting their feeding, mating and sleeping habits and on rare occasions even wounding them severely by running over them with boats and deadly propellers.

White House plans for a smooth Republican convention in August are being ruffled by talk of potential platform disputes between conservatives and moderates, Reagan Administration and campaign officials said today. Officials connected with President Reagan's re-election campaign said that a preliminary draft of the platform contained a call for a ''flat tax,'' a favorite idea of Republican conservatives. Under it, all taxpayers would pay Federal income taxes at the same rate. Some versions of the flat tax would call for graduated levels with the wealthier generally paying more.

A plan to curtail the military role of the United States in Central America was rejected by the Republican-controlled Senate. By a vote of 63 to 31, the Senate defeated a proposed measure that would have prohibited use of military forces in or over Nicaragua and El Salvador for combat purposes without the prior approval of Congress. (Page A1, Column 6.) Japanese ineptness with chopsticks is reported to be increasing. In a new Government report, only 48.4 percent of elementary school pupils surveyed said they could correctly wield chopsticks. (A1:2-4.) National

Without fanfare or even much attention, New York City's five borough presidents have received approval to nearly triple the amount of city money they may spend as they want. The money - a total of $7 million, or $1.4 million for each of the five - was added as part of the last- minute changes to the budget for the 1985 fiscal year that the city recently adopted. The comparable amount was $2.5 million last year and $1.5 million two years ago. The money is in addition to the borough presidents' regular budgets, which total about $14 million this year. Although some of the $7 million is to be given to cultural and community groups, most of it has not been earmarked for specific projects, according to lists that the borough presidents submitted to the city's Office of Management and Budget. Rather, the money was given to them under such vague headings as ''boroughwide needs'' and ''borough hall.''

An article in Weekend last Friday, on ''Bloomsday III'' at the Symphony Space, gave an incorrect publisher for the Critical and Synoptic Edition of Joyce's ''Ulysses.'' The publisher is Garland.

BABIES, as everyone knows, have intense feelings from the moment of birth. But their early feelings are few, limited to the most primitive such as distress and disgust. Only with the passage of time does the full emotional panoply blossom. And it grows, one or two feelings at a time, in a lawful, orderly fashion - a progression which scientists are tracking with greater precision than was possible before. For instance, the capacity for joy has been found to precede that for sadness by many months. And years after the development of those two come the capacities for envy and for social confidence. Among the main practical benefits of this research, the psy chologists say, should be a more realistic standard of emotional growth. Such a standard could act as an antidote to the tendency of some adults - parents and teachers foremost among them - to judge children's emotional reactions by adult standards rather than by a yardstick gauged to their actual stages of maturation. Thus, since humility typically is not part of a child's emotional repertoire until around the age of 5, the seemingly outrageous bragging of a 4-year-old can be seen as, in all likelihood, the most normal of expressions.

THE second graders in Room 210 at Public School 11 in the Highbridge section of the Bronx knew something special was happening one morning last week when several authors showed up in person to read from their works. The authors, books in hand, stood anxiously at the front of the room and took turns reading aloud, occasionally stumbling over a multisyllable word. Never mind that the authors were Stephanie Raphael, Rosalind Burgess, Glenn Kenney and Marie Rolling, whose own second grade class meets in Room 208, just down the hall. This was Author's Day at P.S. 11, and though all the authors were first and second graders it was a celebration of books and of the energies that go into creating them. The bound, laminated pages of the ''books'' the students had written were the culmination of a serious attempt to enhance their reading and writing skills.

The main hotel in this thriving provincial city is crowded with visiting businessmen most week nights, while dozens of job offers are advertised daily in local newspapers. The streets are deserted during working hours - evidence that most local workers are indeed employed. But Franca is not only a rare corner of prosperity in a Brazil crippled by recession. The trucks loaded with boxes of shoes that leave here around the clock for the port of Santos are proof that the town is also contributing to a broader economic recovery.

House and Senate tax conferees set new restrictions today that will limit tax benefits for many items, such as personal computers that are utilized for business and personal use. They also approved sharp reductions in business tax deductions for luxury automobiles selling for more than $16,000. A business tax deduction for home computers used in connection with work will no longer be allowed unless the computer is required by the employer. And the business tax deductions allowed for a home computer used to manage personal investments will be sharply reduced.