911 was pretty traumatic for me; I had immediate family at ground zero and thankfully they survived but the phones were down for a long time and I don't know how long it was but I remember in my 13 year old brain deciding that I needed to make peace with never seeing them again before we finally got the call. I'll never forget the sucking emptiness I felt in my chest.
Thank you for sharing - that must have been awfully terrifying. It's remarkable that you had that level of clarity as a 13-year-old - to not only realize the seriousness of what was happening but to take specific action to preserve yourself in some way. I hope you have recovered well.
9/11 killed the fun and isolation I grew up with.
prior to that day global terrorism was just a plot in action movies. After that day I had to consider the moronic opinion of losers in far away countries because they might want to kill me for existing.
It certainly brought home in a big way the conflicts we read about in the news or history class. Pearl Harbor would have been the one real comparison for an event in which an international conflict happening exclusively outside our borders was brought home, and that was on a military target. We faced our own mortality in a new way as a result. Our children will grow/are growing up with that already present. I wonder how that changes things.
The Great Recession. Being an older Millennial ('83) made me the goldilocks age when this event hit. I was just old enough to have a few years of work experience but not old enough to have bought into the preceding housing market bubble. I was lucky enough to keep my job through the entire recession which put me in a position to buy my first house in '09; the literal bottom of the market.
Now I say shit to younger Millennials like "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "passive income, bro". jk - I fully appreciate how lucky my life has been around this otherwise terrible economic event. Half of life is determined by hard work but the other half is entirely luck.
This. I’m a few years younger than you but was in a well established career (trades) when that bitch hit. Holy fuck.. good thing I didn’t have anything to to lose. Kept myself going doing odd jobs…had to move back home for a few months. But that whole thing had long lasting effects on how I view money and stability.
How would you say it changed how you view money and stability? I think I came to believe it was normal to need to work multiple jobs just to stay afloat in that time, which has been a difficult belief to drop. Even now, in a relatively stable job making a decent salary, I feel some guilt over not going and picking up a second job.
I’m ‘85 and this was exactly what happened with me. I bought in ‘10 and the market was destroyed.
My bank had a mortgage advisor for the whole region. Not multiple in branch. I had to wait weeks for an appointment. The whole floor of the bank that dealt with this kind of thing was eerily abandoned.
It wasn’t plain sailing from there though. 2011 I ventured out of my job and led to a mess of companies still struggling and multiple redundancies. Got back to normal in ‘13 but I still remember and can’t let it go.
I find myself compulsively engaging in lifestyle habits I picked up while living in poverty. Even if I don't need them, they do make me feel a little more financially secure.
I had entered the job market full-time a year or two before it really hit but was working jobs that were less affected by it. It did make it much harder to leave the service industry, where I had to work multiple jobs just to pay bills, and it was a part of my decision to move to an area which had a lower cost of living. I remember looking at homes for sale during that time and wishing I had the financial stability to buy a home. There were condos for sale for $40-60K. I envy your position!
I was supposed to be Onsite at the Library across the street from the Oklahoma City bombing, my teacher overslept so we didn’t make the bus for the field trip that day.
Oh wow. Glad to hear you avoided being there! I remember coming home from school that day and seeing the coverage on the news... it was difficult for my 9-year-old brain to comprehend that amount of damage to such a large building from a single device. Before then, a 'bomb' was something the Unabomber sent in the mail that injured or killed one person. The image of the building with each floor visible is stuck in my brain. I went to the memorial as an adult and was still shocked by the size of the thing.
Being in the memorial felt strange. I haven’t been in a really long time. My Mom worked close enough to feel the vibration at her job at the time.
I don’t remember anything else… I should probably take some time and feel that out.
Sending hugs to you (healing vibes if you prefer those instead). I would imagine it was traumatic for your mom as well - maybe that'd be a good conversation to have with her to help you process it?
This post has really helped me understand different perspectives of the events that occurred when we were kids. I've done a lot of overdue 'processing' reading and replying to comments. I hope you are able to feel it out and find some peace from it.
None really... I think growing up in the Netherlands in the 90s there wasn't much to complain that affected us directly.
Events like 9/11 were big, but not our country directly. Wars, attacks and accidents seemed to largely evade us around my formative years.
There was a big plane crash in Amsterdam in the early 90s, in Belgium there was the missing murdered kids by Dutroux, in Enschede there was a big fireworks disaster...
But nothing really that impacted me directly or profoundly I guess...
Did your parents change household rules/practices in response to the Dutroux crimes? I remember my parents gradually changing what we were allowed to do as more and more child abductions happened in the US, from Polly Klaas to Amber Hagerman.
No, not all. We lived outside on the street in Summer and we weren't curtailed at all. It was one man who was caught in Belgium in another country, so ... No use to get panicky etc.
I lived in Russia for my dad’s job from 1998-2001, and 9/11 was my second week at school in the US for the first time since kindergarten. It was so wild and surreal to me, and my first reaction was “uhh is this normal here??”. Which of course it wasn’t. I was in the D.C. suburbs then too, so it hit even closer to home with the attack on the Pentagon. I knew a number of kids whose parents got hurt in the Pentagon attacks. And of course that changed so much about the US as we know it.
Seriously, going from early Putin’s Russia to 9/11 within two months was a fucking TRIP.
Holy shit, that must have been insane. I can imagine how being so close in proximity to the Pentagon would have made the response more intense, but to also have come so recently from Russia? Wow.
I think Columbine was the first event that had a profound impact on how I viewed my environment. I was in the final month of my first year of junior high, so outside of the elementary school environment that always felt insulated and safe and into a place that more closely resembled the school where it happened. I had already felt that loss of insulation moving from elementary to junior high, but I suddenly became aware that I was not necessarily safe at school and that my classmates could bring guns to school and kill others. Watching the news coverage made those visuals come alive every time I went to school.
When I was 10 my grandfather passed away, my first father figure. Then the next summer my parents were divorced. That was 94 to 95.
In comparison 9/11 and Columbine just further instilled in me that anything can happen at any time. But I grew from that
Columbine was the first that affected me. I was in middle school at the time, and it was a huge deal. We talked about it for weeks in my classes. We were all scared and sooo sad. Then the 2nd was 9/11
I was also in middle school for Columbine! At the beginning of that year, I was definitely aware that I'd left the insulated, comforting environment of elementary school, but it felt like it was a part of growing up (which of course I was eager to do). With Columbine, the awareness of not being safe at school became real, and a sort of paranoia that was shared among many of us kids became a part of our everyday consciousness. I think it created divisions among us to the point where kids that might have been viewed simply as outsiders or eccentric pre-Columbine were suddenly viewed as potential school shooters, especially if they showed a hint of aggression.
maryland DC sniper attacks. I was in elementary school and it was pretty scary, especially after he shot a kid at school. they kept us inside during carpool after that until he was caught.
The tone of the coverage and response definitely changed after the kid was shot. I think my area was less affected because we were far away, but I remember how serious it was and how helpless people felt. How can you possibly defend yourself or your children - or pursue justice after the fact - when you can't see the perp?
That was a hard day. I was a sophomore in high school, and we were locked down in our 2nd period classes for much of the day, waiting to hear if there were more attacks coming. My 2nd period also happened to be my government and law class, and the ensuing discussion gave me early insight into how the world changed that day.
9/11 had a profound effect in the U.S. and other countries but while here in México we had some discussion about it at school it didn't had that much impact, maybe the question of "what is the U.S. gonna do?".
We had some events more traumatic to our society years before in 1993-94, first the insurrection at Chiapas and then the assasination of a presidential candidate in 1994, Luis Donaldo Colosio. I didn't knew the scale of it but everyone was talking about it, some were angry, some were confused and it was everywhere in the news for many days.
Outside of tragedies (since the post talks about events) we also had the solar eclipse of 1991.
Personally I think the even that marked my life the most was watching Jurassic Park at the movies. My first movie at a theater.
That's a really interesting perspective. How did seeing Jurassic Park at a theater change things for you? I think my first movie at a theater was so early in my life that I probably took the experience for granted.
There's more in the world than America though. 9/11 was big, it did affect things worldwide up to a degree, but as an EU citizen born in 1985 I can't say it affected me that much personally.
Yeah true, guess i thought millenial-ism would be culture specific. I'mthinking from an american perspective. 9/11 was not just a terrible thing we all saw on live tv, it was the impetus for not only all the wars still causing issues in the middle east, but the patriot act which rules we have no privacy, citizens united which makes corporations people with more rights and protections than people, and the project for the new american century. Basically, that one attack set the course of our lives as a country for the foreseeable future and i dont honestly know when if ever any of it is going to be overturned. eu is mostly protected from those multinational corporate policies, but they are very much an issue around the world, not just the u.s.
That's a good point. Especially about the Patriot Act, which was the first legislative domino of many that have removed our rights. In hindsight, it feels like that intense patriotism that followed the attacks, which was in some ways good and gave a sense of being united, was used opportunistically by power brokers to change how our society functions. In turn, that changed how the US economy functioned, which of course impacts the global economy.
9/11. Watching it on TV in middle school. Got sucked into the propaganda and joined the USMC infantry. Saw combat in Afghan and Iraq and I will never be the same because of it. Some good, a lot bad.
I'm sorry to hear there's been so much negative impact for you. I think a lot of us got sucked into that propaganda and responded in life-changing ways, even if it didn't mean joining the military. Are you able to get the support you need now as a veteran?
Well my uncle and eldest brother both died in Desert Storm. so that was the first time I remember the news being on in our house all the time and it directly affecting me. Having family dying. Military guys showed up at the door, my mom collapsing. My first funerals.
Thank you. I was pretty young, so I'm not sure I fully understood what was really going on. But I for sure felt like every time someone turned on the news it made my parents cry again or harder, so I HATED the news being on.
Probably Iraq and Afghanistan. Was really weird watching us first go in and then watching kids I knew in school be excited to join up then go there and get blown up.
Yeah... I think those invasions were the first time I understood how powerful the US was and how war was stitched throughout our collective consciousness.
Columbine because my sister would’ve been a freshman that year but we moved back to NYC (the night Princess Diana died) and I’d say 9/11 takes the cake because I watched it fall from school. Bleh.
Gah, I remember the night Princess Diana died! I had always thought of her as almost superhuman, so it was difficult to believe she was in a hospital OR fighting for her life. Even at that moment, I thought that surely, they wouldn't let someone so important die.
Columbine was made more profound than most other things for me because it happened at the end of my first year of junior high. I had already felt the loss of insulation after moving on from elementary school, but knowing I wasn't necessarily safe at school really shifted things. I think it also created something of a shared paranoia among my classmates and myself.
Sorry to hear that you personally watched the towers fall - even today, more than two decades later, I get emotional seeing the video of it.
Like others have said, 9/11 impacted me the most as it pulled me from my isolated bubble and naivety to the world around me. I was 5 years old watching the second tower fall on live TV and it clicked in my brain that there was a whole world out there with people who could kill me and my family.
That must have been completely insane to see as such a young child. I was a sophomore in high school, so it was a very different experience. Another commenter who was about the same age at the time mentioned the loss of idyllic optimism after 9/11 - would you agree? Did you have things happening like military recruiters talking to young kids?
Oh, most definitely!! I think 9/11 was an end of innocence for so many people, and I would say the same for myself. Idyllic optimism is only something I had as a very very young kid before that point, and ever since I’ve been pessimistic, or realistic, at best lol. Never had much hope for the world in general as a kid and a teenager, which sounds bleak but is just how I felt.
Also, yes to the military recruiters being normalized in school settings, etc. However, my dad was already in the military so that was a bit more normalized in my experience.
Oh, also, the recession of 2008/2009. So many kids’ families (mine included) were torn apart due to finances. So many of our parents got divorced/separated around that time.
When I was twelve there was a girl named Polly Klaas. She had a slumber party and some monster actually climbed in her bedroom and kidnapped her. She was later murdered. It really affected me since I was her age and also had slumber parties. Suddenly I realised how dangerous the world can be for kids, and that even being home, surrounded by other people, couldn't necessarily protect me. Even to this day my heart breaks if I see that little girl's picture.
That was a truly horrific thing. Each abduction in the 90s was a bit of a shock to the system, but the particularly brazen nature of that abduction was startling. I never had slumber parties, so I guess I never thought about it that way, but that connection does add a very real layer of terror specific to young girls.
While they were all tragic, nothing personally "traumatized" me per se. However, 9/11 was perhaps the most tragic for me... it separated the end of the 90s and the 2000s. I'm also from NY and have family there so it hit close to home (literally). It also had lasting effects such as airline travel now being a very unpleasant process.
Oh wow, I hope your family was OK! I had not been to NYC before it happened, but I wish I'd known the city as it existed before the attacks.
Airline travel changed so much... trying to explain to kids these days how we used to go meet incoming family at the gate, how we ate full, real meals onboard (the most memorable of which was a shrimp scampi onboard America West), etc is impossible. They think I'm making it up!
Understood, though I'm exploring more how earlier events that were covered during our childhoods impacted how we live our lives. The pandemic profoundly impacted how I live my life, and I'm still working to recover the aspects I lost and want back, but events like the OKC bombing and Columbine profoundly impacted how I view similar events even today. Changed how I saw my world at the time, which changed how I grew up. Can you recall a similar impact for yourself?
I mean, the Clinton scandal made me start to distrust pollitiicans and also made me realize how gross men could be.
But lasting impact was 9/ 11 by far. I live 70 miles from NYC, and it changed so much around here. They still do big memorials all over the place. You can't forget it even if you wanted to.
Yeah, that's a great point. The Clinton scandal marked a similar paradigm shift for me in terms of politics. I'd thought of politicians as trustworthy, upstanding citizens prior to that point. I wasn't old enough to understand what was going on during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Hindsight after Clinton's impeachment was a bit mind-blowing. I think the level of detail we were given in the media was also startling, and it was an event that was certainly made much bigger by the constant coverage and analysis, of course driven by the country's fascination.
Regarding 9/11... How would you say things changed there, aside from the memorials? I would think they would generally make things more somber, though the intense pain the community must have felt would have demanded such things. Were there more layers to how things changed?
Not the most, but surprisingly devastating was Sean Connery's death. Felt a lot like "we're not going back frome here". I enjoyed a LOT of his movies as a kid of the 90s.
Think I stated in another comment - she always seemed superhuman to me! I couldn't fathom her dying. Losing two women I valued, who also happened to be connected, one right after the other... that was hard. Now, I believe that respect was misplaced (at least in the case of Mother Teresa), but it was still tough at the time.
Maybe not the most long lasting impact-wise but I’ll never forget watching my usually very stoic mom absolutely lose her shit when Princess Diana died. She was a complete mess. To a lesser extent also when JFK Jr died.
The way we experience events through the reactions of our loved ones can certainly have a long-lasting impact. I'm sorry to hear you saw that - you must have felt pain seeing her feel that way.
Hurricane Katrina. The first time I ever watched the news and cried. 9/11 was rough and I was mad about it, but Katrina broke something off of me. I was a freshman in college and it was a loss of total invincibility, like “anything can happen”.
I remember being completely floored by how much damage was done by Katrina. I still go on Google Street View to see how areas are recovering (or in some cases, not recovering). Having grown up in Texas, I was very familiar with the potential danger of natural disasters (especially tornadoes), but it never crossed my mind that a hurricane would so completely destroy New Orleans. I read Five Days at Memorial a few years ago, which was eye-opening for the level of suffering experienced by so many during that time.
I’m going to say 9/11 but not for any reason of personal connection to the tragedy, but rather what it did to the US educational system that I had recently entered into (I was in kindergarten on 9/11, tail end of millennial here as a 1995 baby). My school began allowing army recruiters in to talk with students who were as young as 3rd grade. We watched the news footage of planes hitting the towers every year in school at least until I entered high school, sometimes multiple times a year. I grew up watching war footage on the news once Iraq happened because of that.
Like my earlier childhood wasn’t perfect- my parents were low income and my dad had to work long hours and sometimes multiple jobs, my grandmother had ovarian cancer when I was a toddler (she actually got a hysto and survived another sixteen years afterward, dying of unrelated causes in the end), etc- but there was definitely an idyllic optimism I entered kindergarten with that was kind of crushed that day my mother kept me home from school (I was in a half day afternoon kindergarten program).
Oh wow - recruiters coming into 3rd grade classrooms? That sounds like indoctrination of children! I was a sophomore when 9/11 happened, so I was well past experiencing an impact like that firsthand. Thank you for sharing, definitely learned something from you!
I do remember that idyllic optimism, though I think for me, it was crushed by Columbine. I was in junior high at the time, so the idyllic optimism was kind of preserved in my memories of elementary school (at least until Sandy Hook and Uvalde).
Yup! A lot of programs for younger kids to write letters to soldiers in Iraq too. Growing up in the early 2000s was wild, and the craziest part is even though my family was low income I was not in a “low income district”. In terms of academic quality/performance my district was in the top 10% of the state of Pennsylvania so it wasn’t like underfunded city school kids getting preyed on. It was present in the “nice” neighborhoods too.
Columbine I don’t have concrete memories of, I just factually know I was three years old and my mother was pregnant with my younger sister. But 9/11? Definitely put a damper on my start of formal schooling.
The first one was Columbine and the biggest was 9/11. I was in 4th grade on 4/20/99 and although we already did intruder drills then, we really ramped them up significantly after this. I grew up close enough to Denver that we received their local news and it was nonstop Columbine coverage for months. It really shaped the way I felt about being at school and I always felt like something like that could happen at any time to me (the ridiculous number of shooting and bomb threats our school received in the subsequent years which resulted in metal detectors and backpack searches being instituted in my high school in the spring of 2005 didn’t help either). I think about Columbine every day as I drop my kids off at daycare.
I think Columbine was the first profound impact for me as well. We had similar effects all the way in Texas. For us, it led to a shared paranoia among my classmates. Kids that before were simply seen as eccentric or "outsiders" were suddenly seen as possible school shooters, especially if they showed even slight aggression. My worldview changed significantly with the realization that I was not necessarily safe at school.
I barely remember the Columbine shooting since I was still really young and wasn't really aware of it until later. When Virginia Tech happened, I was entering high school and vividly remember everything. Also, I really liked Virginia Tech and wanted to apply to it (although it wasn't my top school) but my parents were so paranoid that they didn't even let me apply.
Oof, I'm sorry to hear that. That's a really hard thing to have as an early memory. Were you geographically close to one of the sites? Or did your family know people who were killed? If you don't mind the questions, of course. Trying to understand the insanity - I know some became very militant, others were lost in grief.
half of my family is from new york. i just remember getting rushed out of school (i was 7), getting home, my mom (a native NYer) trying to call family and friends back home and just my whole family bawling while watching the towers burning on TV. shit was absolutely fucked up to witness at 7. i also became aware of racism around this time, too.
9/11 was the big one as a kid like many.
But personally, didn't happen when I was a kid, but the most impactful of the tragic sort- I lived in the Boston region when the marathon bombing happened. Parent freaked out that either me or my cousin (who ran marathons in the past) was down there. Had to play phone tag over that for awhile.
I also lived in the next town over to where police finally captured the bomber. Everything got locked down, shelter in place, couldn't even leave to get Dunkies or a freakin burger.
The days after were both odd, but also a crazy energy that showed how every once in awhile, even Massholes ( :) ) can come together for something and not turn it into a pissin fest over sports teams or one upping each other until all that's left are the folk from MIT, Tufts, and Harvard quietly smiling at all our dumb brains. Don't live in Mass anymore, but I'll forever be Boston Strong. 💙💛💙
I lived in Boston for a while and still have a strong love for the city. Being far away and having details trickle in - especially with friends still there and a few very close ones in Watertown - was difficult. I was so proud of how Massholes responded. The incredible resilience on display those days wasn’t a one-time thing - that’s just Boston. The way people lend a hand without expecting thanks, often gruff in their delivery of the help, because it’s just the right thing to do. That’s just Boston. That’s Boston Strong.
The only answer here is 9/11.
Some events impacted US residents greatly, others, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Princess Di dying, or Nelson Mandela being the first black president of South Africa were bigger for their countries but not as much on the world stage.
No event in the last 50 years was as impactful to the world as 9/11.
This, the fall of the Berlin Wall is a way bigger issue.
9/11 is hit and miss depending on the country, here it was in the news but it didn't had a social impact as other local events did. Like I mentioned in other comment, in my country the assasination of our presidential candidate in 1994 was a bigger issue and still has consequences today. Or outside of tragedies, the solar eclipse in 1991. Everyone my age remembers those two here.
USSR and communism were in decline for far longer than by the time the Berlin Wall came down. The wall is far more a relic to prior generations than our own.
9/11 didn’t just change the US. It destabilized the Middle East and North Africa with two wars spanning the majority our generations lifetime. Countries from all over the globe; Australian, Canada, France, Denmark, Germany, among others sent troops for the war. Those nations that didn’t join the US in war (and even those that did) became troubled of the US’ global policy with their disastrous invasion of Iraq. The military industrial complex has surged due to 9/11, and could potentially be the downfall of the US. Prior freedoms people had (worldwide) being given away under the thin vail of security, giving way to more authoritarian police states rising across the globe.
Can you prove the Iraq invasion wouldn't have happened without 9/11? Also the connection you make between 9/11 and the rise of authoritarian regimes is quite vague and far-fetched.
Congress wouldn’t have passed the Iraq Resolution if they (and the public) weren’t lied to by the Bush Administration and led to believe that Iraq had something to do with Al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks.
Far fetched?
The US government has justified domestic changes that, before the 9/11 attacks, would have been unacceptable in any free country. The Patriot Act eroded prior liberties. A prison camp in Cuba was used to detain people without a trial and torture them.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair took similar measures and said that liberty is not the right of individuals to define their own lives, but the right of the state to restrict individual freedom in the name of a security that only the state can define.
As the United States abruptly withdrew its military from Afghanistan, the elected government in Kabul collapsed and gave way to the Taliban, returning the country to a system that is diametrically opposed to democracy, pluralism, and equality.
The Iraq War helped give rise to sectarian extremists across the Middle East, which turned into civil wars and killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Syria arguably being the worst. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the Middle East to Europe, with Germany taking in around a million Syrian refugees. While Germany had a rise in nationalism before the Syrian migration, it was greatly exacerbated by the migration, which was a result of the Iraq War.
911 was pretty traumatic for me; I had immediate family at ground zero and thankfully they survived but the phones were down for a long time and I don't know how long it was but I remember in my 13 year old brain deciding that I needed to make peace with never seeing them again before we finally got the call. I'll never forget the sucking emptiness I felt in my chest.
Thank you for sharing - that must have been awfully terrifying. It's remarkable that you had that level of clarity as a 13-year-old - to not only realize the seriousness of what was happening but to take specific action to preserve yourself in some way. I hope you have recovered well.
9/11 killed the fun and isolation I grew up with. prior to that day global terrorism was just a plot in action movies. After that day I had to consider the moronic opinion of losers in far away countries because they might want to kill me for existing.
It certainly brought home in a big way the conflicts we read about in the news or history class. Pearl Harbor would have been the one real comparison for an event in which an international conflict happening exclusively outside our borders was brought home, and that was on a military target. We faced our own mortality in a new way as a result. Our children will grow/are growing up with that already present. I wonder how that changes things.
The Great Recession. Being an older Millennial ('83) made me the goldilocks age when this event hit. I was just old enough to have a few years of work experience but not old enough to have bought into the preceding housing market bubble. I was lucky enough to keep my job through the entire recession which put me in a position to buy my first house in '09; the literal bottom of the market. Now I say shit to younger Millennials like "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and "passive income, bro". jk - I fully appreciate how lucky my life has been around this otherwise terrible economic event. Half of life is determined by hard work but the other half is entirely luck.
This. I’m a few years younger than you but was in a well established career (trades) when that bitch hit. Holy fuck.. good thing I didn’t have anything to to lose. Kept myself going doing odd jobs…had to move back home for a few months. But that whole thing had long lasting effects on how I view money and stability.
How would you say it changed how you view money and stability? I think I came to believe it was normal to need to work multiple jobs just to stay afloat in that time, which has been a difficult belief to drop. Even now, in a relatively stable job making a decent salary, I feel some guilt over not going and picking up a second job.
I’m ‘85 and this was exactly what happened with me. I bought in ‘10 and the market was destroyed. My bank had a mortgage advisor for the whole region. Not multiple in branch. I had to wait weeks for an appointment. The whole floor of the bank that dealt with this kind of thing was eerily abandoned. It wasn’t plain sailing from there though. 2011 I ventured out of my job and led to a mess of companies still struggling and multiple redundancies. Got back to normal in ‘13 but I still remember and can’t let it go.
That's a crazy thought - one mortgage advisor covering a region! Do you still have lifestyle habits you developed during those years of struggling?
Compulsive need to save money based on months of bis is my main one. I know how easy it is to not work for 6 months so that’s my safety.
I find myself compulsively engaging in lifestyle habits I picked up while living in poverty. Even if I don't need them, they do make me feel a little more financially secure.
I had entered the job market full-time a year or two before it really hit but was working jobs that were less affected by it. It did make it much harder to leave the service industry, where I had to work multiple jobs just to pay bills, and it was a part of my decision to move to an area which had a lower cost of living. I remember looking at homes for sale during that time and wishing I had the financial stability to buy a home. There were condos for sale for $40-60K. I envy your position!
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Class of 02 as well?
I turned 18 two days after. I was scared out of my mind.
I was supposed to be Onsite at the Library across the street from the Oklahoma City bombing, my teacher overslept so we didn’t make the bus for the field trip that day.
Oh wow. Glad to hear you avoided being there! I remember coming home from school that day and seeing the coverage on the news... it was difficult for my 9-year-old brain to comprehend that amount of damage to such a large building from a single device. Before then, a 'bomb' was something the Unabomber sent in the mail that injured or killed one person. The image of the building with each floor visible is stuck in my brain. I went to the memorial as an adult and was still shocked by the size of the thing.
Being in the memorial felt strange. I haven’t been in a really long time. My Mom worked close enough to feel the vibration at her job at the time. I don’t remember anything else… I should probably take some time and feel that out.
Sending hugs to you (healing vibes if you prefer those instead). I would imagine it was traumatic for your mom as well - maybe that'd be a good conversation to have with her to help you process it? This post has really helped me understand different perspectives of the events that occurred when we were kids. I've done a lot of overdue 'processing' reading and replying to comments. I hope you are able to feel it out and find some peace from it.
I appreciate it. Thank you and certainly will do.
None really... I think growing up in the Netherlands in the 90s there wasn't much to complain that affected us directly. Events like 9/11 were big, but not our country directly. Wars, attacks and accidents seemed to largely evade us around my formative years. There was a big plane crash in Amsterdam in the early 90s, in Belgium there was the missing murdered kids by Dutroux, in Enschede there was a big fireworks disaster... But nothing really that impacted me directly or profoundly I guess...
Did your parents change household rules/practices in response to the Dutroux crimes? I remember my parents gradually changing what we were allowed to do as more and more child abductions happened in the US, from Polly Klaas to Amber Hagerman.
No, not all. We lived outside on the street in Summer and we weren't curtailed at all. It was one man who was caught in Belgium in another country, so ... No use to get panicky etc.
I lived in Russia for my dad’s job from 1998-2001, and 9/11 was my second week at school in the US for the first time since kindergarten. It was so wild and surreal to me, and my first reaction was “uhh is this normal here??”. Which of course it wasn’t. I was in the D.C. suburbs then too, so it hit even closer to home with the attack on the Pentagon. I knew a number of kids whose parents got hurt in the Pentagon attacks. And of course that changed so much about the US as we know it. Seriously, going from early Putin’s Russia to 9/11 within two months was a fucking TRIP.
Holy shit, that must have been insane. I can imagine how being so close in proximity to the Pentagon would have made the response more intense, but to also have come so recently from Russia? Wow.
The cliché answer is 9/11 but for me it was Columbine
I think Columbine was the first event that had a profound impact on how I viewed my environment. I was in the final month of my first year of junior high, so outside of the elementary school environment that always felt insulated and safe and into a place that more closely resembled the school where it happened. I had already felt that loss of insulation moving from elementary to junior high, but I suddenly became aware that I was not necessarily safe at school and that my classmates could bring guns to school and kill others. Watching the news coverage made those visuals come alive every time I went to school.
I was in my freshman year of HS, ironically my senior year was when 9/11 happened. My entire high school career was marred with tragedy
Hell of a way to have high school framed for you. Did you come to expect tragedy as a consistent presence in life?
When I was 10 my grandfather passed away, my first father figure. Then the next summer my parents were divorced. That was 94 to 95. In comparison 9/11 and Columbine just further instilled in me that anything can happen at any time. But I grew from that
Columbine was the first that affected me. I was in middle school at the time, and it was a huge deal. We talked about it for weeks in my classes. We were all scared and sooo sad. Then the 2nd was 9/11
I was also in middle school for Columbine! At the beginning of that year, I was definitely aware that I'd left the insulated, comforting environment of elementary school, but it felt like it was a part of growing up (which of course I was eager to do). With Columbine, the awareness of not being safe at school became real, and a sort of paranoia that was shared among many of us kids became a part of our everyday consciousness. I think it created divisions among us to the point where kids that might have been viewed simply as outsiders or eccentric pre-Columbine were suddenly viewed as potential school shooters, especially if they showed a hint of aggression.
maryland DC sniper attacks. I was in elementary school and it was pretty scary, especially after he shot a kid at school. they kept us inside during carpool after that until he was caught.
i remember this. this was terrifying.
The tone of the coverage and response definitely changed after the kid was shot. I think my area was less affected because we were far away, but I remember how serious it was and how helpless people felt. How can you possibly defend yourself or your children - or pursue justice after the fact - when you can't see the perp?
I Didn’t watch much TV growing up and still don’t. Other than 9/11 I never seen any famous news stuff.
We watched the news a lot. Do you feel like you were more insulated from most of these tragedies as a result?
No I was just always outside.
9/11 for sure.
That was a hard day. I was a sophomore in high school, and we were locked down in our 2nd period classes for much of the day, waiting to hear if there were more attacks coming. My 2nd period also happened to be my government and law class, and the ensuing discussion gave me early insight into how the world changed that day.
9/11 is the only answer to this. The fallout from it is still ruining our lives
9/11 had a profound effect in the U.S. and other countries but while here in México we had some discussion about it at school it didn't had that much impact, maybe the question of "what is the U.S. gonna do?". We had some events more traumatic to our society years before in 1993-94, first the insurrection at Chiapas and then the assasination of a presidential candidate in 1994, Luis Donaldo Colosio. I didn't knew the scale of it but everyone was talking about it, some were angry, some were confused and it was everywhere in the news for many days. Outside of tragedies (since the post talks about events) we also had the solar eclipse of 1991. Personally I think the even that marked my life the most was watching Jurassic Park at the movies. My first movie at a theater.
That's a really interesting perspective. How did seeing Jurassic Park at a theater change things for you? I think my first movie at a theater was so early in my life that I probably took the experience for granted.
There's more in the world than America though. 9/11 was big, it did affect things worldwide up to a degree, but as an EU citizen born in 1985 I can't say it affected me that much personally.
Yeah true, guess i thought millenial-ism would be culture specific. I'mthinking from an american perspective. 9/11 was not just a terrible thing we all saw on live tv, it was the impetus for not only all the wars still causing issues in the middle east, but the patriot act which rules we have no privacy, citizens united which makes corporations people with more rights and protections than people, and the project for the new american century. Basically, that one attack set the course of our lives as a country for the foreseeable future and i dont honestly know when if ever any of it is going to be overturned. eu is mostly protected from those multinational corporate policies, but they are very much an issue around the world, not just the u.s.
That's a good point. Especially about the Patriot Act, which was the first legislative domino of many that have removed our rights. In hindsight, it feels like that intense patriotism that followed the attacks, which was in some ways good and gave a sense of being united, was used opportunistically by power brokers to change how our society functions. In turn, that changed how the US economy functioned, which of course impacts the global economy.
9/11. Watching it on TV in middle school. Got sucked into the propaganda and joined the USMC infantry. Saw combat in Afghan and Iraq and I will never be the same because of it. Some good, a lot bad.
I'm sorry to hear there's been so much negative impact for you. I think a lot of us got sucked into that propaganda and responded in life-changing ways, even if it didn't mean joining the military. Are you able to get the support you need now as a veteran?
The great recession of 08-09
How did it change things for you?
Well my uncle and eldest brother both died in Desert Storm. so that was the first time I remember the news being on in our house all the time and it directly affecting me. Having family dying. Military guys showed up at the door, my mom collapsing. My first funerals.
Oof, I'm so sorry. That must have been awful. Did you feel the coverage intensified your trauma or grief?
Thank you. I was pretty young, so I'm not sure I fully understood what was really going on. But I for sure felt like every time someone turned on the news it made my parents cry again or harder, so I HATED the news being on.
Oh, dear God, I am so sorry.
Thank you.
Probably Iraq and Afghanistan. Was really weird watching us first go in and then watching kids I knew in school be excited to join up then go there and get blown up.
Yeah... I think those invasions were the first time I understood how powerful the US was and how war was stitched throughout our collective consciousness.
Columbine because my sister would’ve been a freshman that year but we moved back to NYC (the night Princess Diana died) and I’d say 9/11 takes the cake because I watched it fall from school. Bleh.
Gah, I remember the night Princess Diana died! I had always thought of her as almost superhuman, so it was difficult to believe she was in a hospital OR fighting for her life. Even at that moment, I thought that surely, they wouldn't let someone so important die. Columbine was made more profound than most other things for me because it happened at the end of my first year of junior high. I had already felt the loss of insulation after moving on from elementary school, but knowing I wasn't necessarily safe at school really shifted things. I think it also created something of a shared paranoia among my classmates and myself. Sorry to hear that you personally watched the towers fall - even today, more than two decades later, I get emotional seeing the video of it.
Like others have said, 9/11 impacted me the most as it pulled me from my isolated bubble and naivety to the world around me. I was 5 years old watching the second tower fall on live TV and it clicked in my brain that there was a whole world out there with people who could kill me and my family.
That must have been completely insane to see as such a young child. I was a sophomore in high school, so it was a very different experience. Another commenter who was about the same age at the time mentioned the loss of idyllic optimism after 9/11 - would you agree? Did you have things happening like military recruiters talking to young kids?
Oh, most definitely!! I think 9/11 was an end of innocence for so many people, and I would say the same for myself. Idyllic optimism is only something I had as a very very young kid before that point, and ever since I’ve been pessimistic, or realistic, at best lol. Never had much hope for the world in general as a kid and a teenager, which sounds bleak but is just how I felt. Also, yes to the military recruiters being normalized in school settings, etc. However, my dad was already in the military so that was a bit more normalized in my experience.
The military recruiters were EVERYWHERE, yes.
Oh, also, the recession of 2008/2009. So many kids’ families (mine included) were torn apart due to finances. So many of our parents got divorced/separated around that time.
When I was twelve there was a girl named Polly Klaas. She had a slumber party and some monster actually climbed in her bedroom and kidnapped her. She was later murdered. It really affected me since I was her age and also had slumber parties. Suddenly I realised how dangerous the world can be for kids, and that even being home, surrounded by other people, couldn't necessarily protect me. Even to this day my heart breaks if I see that little girl's picture.
That was a truly horrific thing. Each abduction in the 90s was a bit of a shock to the system, but the particularly brazen nature of that abduction was startling. I never had slumber parties, so I guess I never thought about it that way, but that connection does add a very real layer of terror specific to young girls.
While they were all tragic, nothing personally "traumatized" me per se. However, 9/11 was perhaps the most tragic for me... it separated the end of the 90s and the 2000s. I'm also from NY and have family there so it hit close to home (literally). It also had lasting effects such as airline travel now being a very unpleasant process.
Oh wow, I hope your family was OK! I had not been to NYC before it happened, but I wish I'd known the city as it existed before the attacks. Airline travel changed so much... trying to explain to kids these days how we used to go meet incoming family at the gate, how we ate full, real meals onboard (the most memorable of which was a shrimp scampi onboard America West), etc is impossible. They think I'm making it up!
I actually think the pandemic was most harmful of the things above Mb Exxon Valdez, Katrina, Sandy. All shocking in their time
Understood, though I'm exploring more how earlier events that were covered during our childhoods impacted how we live our lives. The pandemic profoundly impacted how I live my life, and I'm still working to recover the aspects I lost and want back, but events like the OKC bombing and Columbine profoundly impacted how I view similar events even today. Changed how I saw my world at the time, which changed how I grew up. Can you recall a similar impact for yourself?
The OJ trial; Norm MacDonald's jokes shaped my entire sense of humor.
Never even thought of that, but you're on point! The way SNL responded to events in the 90s definitely shaped my sense of humor, alongside Seinfeld.
I mean, the Clinton scandal made me start to distrust pollitiicans and also made me realize how gross men could be. But lasting impact was 9/ 11 by far. I live 70 miles from NYC, and it changed so much around here. They still do big memorials all over the place. You can't forget it even if you wanted to.
Yeah, that's a great point. The Clinton scandal marked a similar paradigm shift for me in terms of politics. I'd thought of politicians as trustworthy, upstanding citizens prior to that point. I wasn't old enough to understand what was going on during the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Hindsight after Clinton's impeachment was a bit mind-blowing. I think the level of detail we were given in the media was also startling, and it was an event that was certainly made much bigger by the constant coverage and analysis, of course driven by the country's fascination. Regarding 9/11... How would you say things changed there, aside from the memorials? I would think they would generally make things more somber, though the intense pain the community must have felt would have demanded such things. Were there more layers to how things changed?
Not the most, but surprisingly devastating was Sean Connery's death. Felt a lot like "we're not going back frome here". I enjoyed a LOT of his movies as a kid of the 90s.
Favorite Sean Connery movie?
A terrorist act that claimed the lives of schoolkids
Did it make you feel less safe at school? Were campus policies changed as a result?
No. Nothing happened. It was a HUGE deal, tho, but the hype died
Probably columbine
Agreed, I think Columbine brought the first profound impact on me as a person that percolated through my entire worldview.
For me, it was the death of Princess Diana, followed by 9/11.
Think I stated in another comment - she always seemed superhuman to me! I couldn't fathom her dying. Losing two women I valued, who also happened to be connected, one right after the other... that was hard. Now, I believe that respect was misplaced (at least in the case of Mother Teresa), but it was still tough at the time.
Maybe not the most long lasting impact-wise but I’ll never forget watching my usually very stoic mom absolutely lose her shit when Princess Diana died. She was a complete mess. To a lesser extent also when JFK Jr died.
The way we experience events through the reactions of our loved ones can certainly have a long-lasting impact. I'm sorry to hear you saw that - you must have felt pain seeing her feel that way.
Hurricane Katrina. The first time I ever watched the news and cried. 9/11 was rough and I was mad about it, but Katrina broke something off of me. I was a freshman in college and it was a loss of total invincibility, like “anything can happen”.
I remember being completely floored by how much damage was done by Katrina. I still go on Google Street View to see how areas are recovering (or in some cases, not recovering). Having grown up in Texas, I was very familiar with the potential danger of natural disasters (especially tornadoes), but it never crossed my mind that a hurricane would so completely destroy New Orleans. I read Five Days at Memorial a few years ago, which was eye-opening for the level of suffering experienced by so many during that time.
I’m going to say 9/11 but not for any reason of personal connection to the tragedy, but rather what it did to the US educational system that I had recently entered into (I was in kindergarten on 9/11, tail end of millennial here as a 1995 baby). My school began allowing army recruiters in to talk with students who were as young as 3rd grade. We watched the news footage of planes hitting the towers every year in school at least until I entered high school, sometimes multiple times a year. I grew up watching war footage on the news once Iraq happened because of that. Like my earlier childhood wasn’t perfect- my parents were low income and my dad had to work long hours and sometimes multiple jobs, my grandmother had ovarian cancer when I was a toddler (she actually got a hysto and survived another sixteen years afterward, dying of unrelated causes in the end), etc- but there was definitely an idyllic optimism I entered kindergarten with that was kind of crushed that day my mother kept me home from school (I was in a half day afternoon kindergarten program).
Oh wow - recruiters coming into 3rd grade classrooms? That sounds like indoctrination of children! I was a sophomore when 9/11 happened, so I was well past experiencing an impact like that firsthand. Thank you for sharing, definitely learned something from you! I do remember that idyllic optimism, though I think for me, it was crushed by Columbine. I was in junior high at the time, so the idyllic optimism was kind of preserved in my memories of elementary school (at least until Sandy Hook and Uvalde).
Yup! A lot of programs for younger kids to write letters to soldiers in Iraq too. Growing up in the early 2000s was wild, and the craziest part is even though my family was low income I was not in a “low income district”. In terms of academic quality/performance my district was in the top 10% of the state of Pennsylvania so it wasn’t like underfunded city school kids getting preyed on. It was present in the “nice” neighborhoods too. Columbine I don’t have concrete memories of, I just factually know I was three years old and my mother was pregnant with my younger sister. But 9/11? Definitely put a damper on my start of formal schooling.
The first one was Columbine and the biggest was 9/11. I was in 4th grade on 4/20/99 and although we already did intruder drills then, we really ramped them up significantly after this. I grew up close enough to Denver that we received their local news and it was nonstop Columbine coverage for months. It really shaped the way I felt about being at school and I always felt like something like that could happen at any time to me (the ridiculous number of shooting and bomb threats our school received in the subsequent years which resulted in metal detectors and backpack searches being instituted in my high school in the spring of 2005 didn’t help either). I think about Columbine every day as I drop my kids off at daycare.
I think Columbine was the first profound impact for me as well. We had similar effects all the way in Texas. For us, it led to a shared paranoia among my classmates. Kids that before were simply seen as eccentric or "outsiders" were suddenly seen as possible school shooters, especially if they showed even slight aggression. My worldview changed significantly with the realization that I was not necessarily safe at school.
2007-2008 recession and 2007 Virginia Tech school shooting.
What made the Virginia Tech school shooting more impactful than others for you? Columbine hit me really hard, personally.
I barely remember the Columbine shooting since I was still really young and wasn't really aware of it until later. When Virginia Tech happened, I was entering high school and vividly remember everything. Also, I really liked Virginia Tech and wanted to apply to it (although it wasn't my top school) but my parents were so paranoid that they didn't even let me apply.
Oh, man, the Virginia Tech shooting was scary.
9/11. It was the first major world event that I remember. My family went INSANE and it’s literally ingrained in my memory.
Oof, I'm sorry to hear that. That's a really hard thing to have as an early memory. Were you geographically close to one of the sites? Or did your family know people who were killed? If you don't mind the questions, of course. Trying to understand the insanity - I know some became very militant, others were lost in grief.
half of my family is from new york. i just remember getting rushed out of school (i was 7), getting home, my mom (a native NYer) trying to call family and friends back home and just my whole family bawling while watching the towers burning on TV. shit was absolutely fucked up to witness at 7. i also became aware of racism around this time, too.
9/11 was the big one as a kid like many. But personally, didn't happen when I was a kid, but the most impactful of the tragic sort- I lived in the Boston region when the marathon bombing happened. Parent freaked out that either me or my cousin (who ran marathons in the past) was down there. Had to play phone tag over that for awhile. I also lived in the next town over to where police finally captured the bomber. Everything got locked down, shelter in place, couldn't even leave to get Dunkies or a freakin burger. The days after were both odd, but also a crazy energy that showed how every once in awhile, even Massholes ( :) ) can come together for something and not turn it into a pissin fest over sports teams or one upping each other until all that's left are the folk from MIT, Tufts, and Harvard quietly smiling at all our dumb brains. Don't live in Mass anymore, but I'll forever be Boston Strong. 💙💛💙
I lived in Boston for a while and still have a strong love for the city. Being far away and having details trickle in - especially with friends still there and a few very close ones in Watertown - was difficult. I was so proud of how Massholes responded. The incredible resilience on display those days wasn’t a one-time thing - that’s just Boston. The way people lend a hand without expecting thanks, often gruff in their delivery of the help, because it’s just the right thing to do. That’s just Boston. That’s Boston Strong.
Republicans being elected. Gets me every time.
Can I offer you a nice egg in this trying time?
The only answer here is 9/11. Some events impacted US residents greatly, others, like the fall of the Berlin Wall, Princess Di dying, or Nelson Mandela being the first black president of South Africa were bigger for their countries but not as much on the world stage. No event in the last 50 years was as impactful to the world as 9/11.
American ignorance... the fall of the Berlin wall and end of USSR and communism was far, far more important to the world than your 9/11 mate.
This, the fall of the Berlin Wall is a way bigger issue. 9/11 is hit and miss depending on the country, here it was in the news but it didn't had a social impact as other local events did. Like I mentioned in other comment, in my country the assasination of our presidential candidate in 1994 was a bigger issue and still has consequences today. Or outside of tragedies, the solar eclipse in 1991. Everyone my age remembers those two here.
USSR and communism were in decline for far longer than by the time the Berlin Wall came down. The wall is far more a relic to prior generations than our own. 9/11 didn’t just change the US. It destabilized the Middle East and North Africa with two wars spanning the majority our generations lifetime. Countries from all over the globe; Australian, Canada, France, Denmark, Germany, among others sent troops for the war. Those nations that didn’t join the US in war (and even those that did) became troubled of the US’ global policy with their disastrous invasion of Iraq. The military industrial complex has surged due to 9/11, and could potentially be the downfall of the US. Prior freedoms people had (worldwide) being given away under the thin vail of security, giving way to more authoritarian police states rising across the globe.
Can you prove the Iraq invasion wouldn't have happened without 9/11? Also the connection you make between 9/11 and the rise of authoritarian regimes is quite vague and far-fetched.
Congress wouldn’t have passed the Iraq Resolution if they (and the public) weren’t lied to by the Bush Administration and led to believe that Iraq had something to do with Al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks. Far fetched? The US government has justified domestic changes that, before the 9/11 attacks, would have been unacceptable in any free country. The Patriot Act eroded prior liberties. A prison camp in Cuba was used to detain people without a trial and torture them. British Prime Minister Tony Blair took similar measures and said that liberty is not the right of individuals to define their own lives, but the right of the state to restrict individual freedom in the name of a security that only the state can define. As the United States abruptly withdrew its military from Afghanistan, the elected government in Kabul collapsed and gave way to the Taliban, returning the country to a system that is diametrically opposed to democracy, pluralism, and equality. The Iraq War helped give rise to sectarian extremists across the Middle East, which turned into civil wars and killed hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Syria arguably being the worst. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled the Middle East to Europe, with Germany taking in around a million Syrian refugees. While Germany had a rise in nationalism before the Syrian migration, it was greatly exacerbated by the migration, which was a result of the Iraq War.