What did 9/11 do to you kids? (Read beyond thread title and relate to the OP or so help me)

[Om Nom Nom]

I was a very young teen at the time. I remember thinking that people were overreacting. Nearly three thousand people? Yeah, that's bad, but it doesn't even make a blip in the numbers killed in actual disasters or comparable events.

Since then, it seems like even the smallest loss of life (a small handful of people) is suddenly reported as a massive tragedy. It's pathetic.

I've never been worried about terrorists. Reason being that they're ineffectual. They have very limited resources, limited numbers, and are based huge distances from their targets. They're not a serious threat at all with the current security in place.

 

[Seydaman]

No, things stayed the same, except for a large amount of complaining about security, the difficulty of travel...
In grade 4 I didn't really care about the situation, I still don't really now.
To me the most infuriating part of 9/11 are the conspiracy theories.
The number of civilians killed in all 3 impacts pales in comparison to the number killed by stray bombs dropped by the Americans since then.

Yup
And everyone started hating Muslims
\:

 

[Squarez]

Saw it happen as a 10-year-old live on the tellybox (well, the second impact anyways) from then on it didn't really get in the way of me playing Pokémon, so I wasn't that bothered (even though we did talk about it at school occasionally for about a week afterwards. As I got older, 9/11 mixed with the 7/7 bombings and my muslim best friend made me realise how much I hate conservative newspapers having a go at "the muslims" all the time, when 99.999999999% are perfectly normal people. And thus was born my liberalism.

Also, I HAVE TO TAKE OFF MY FUCKING SHOES AT THE AIRPORT! There's a fine line between security and taking it way too far, I draw the line at my shoes.

 

[jakkuss]

are fear and uncertainty something new? I grew up in the 70's and 80's, when we were certain we'd never make it to adulthood because of the looming nuclear war. It seemed like such a sure thing, especially to a ten year old. So, terrorists? Give me terrorists every day. I have a two-year-old who will grow up without the fear I lived through. So, 911?

 

[Evilsanta]

I dont even remember what i did that day. And not that i care.

Not that i want to be insensitive but those who died that day doesnt compare to all the other shit that is going on in the world and yet some (mostly americans i am not saying all) want us to feel sorry for them. I felt more sorry to the tsunami victims. No offense.

 

[Jedoro]

My family didn't really give a damn, we just kept on as we had been.

 

[PAGEToap44]

I was 8 when 9/11 happened. It's when I learnt the word "terrorist." And that is all I have to say... about.. that.

EDIT: 7/7 obviously felt a bit closer to home, but I still remain largly unaffected. To be honest, I think I'm more concerned with the recession.

 

[willsham45]

When I saw the fottage on TV I thought it was cool, big bang, cool a building fell down.
To this day I still think you US doods and doodets are just upset you no longer have the worlds tallest building.
But ye at the time I was more upset my TV shows were not on.

There was and is no fear, and I as most people did not really care, I sure did not, but brits don't care.
Are transport system was blown up we shook it off and continued as nornal.

War smore, we dont want it we never did want it but again BUT BIG WIGS AT THE TOP WANTED IT and there is no stopping what they want to do now is there so to war it is.

 

[Dorby5826and360]

I was in 6th grade on 9/11 I did not know what was going on at the time, but right afterwards I started paying more attention to what was happening in the world. I now am afraid of what it happening out there, even in our own county.

 

[Baron von Blitztank]

I was 5 back then and I live in the UK so I didn't care at all.
And to be honest, I still don't, it didn't affect me personally and all it really to me was cause mass paranoia in airports. Which I barely use.

 

[Lineoutt]

My mother wouldnt let it go on tv for fear of scaring me and my father didn't have cable. They mentioned it at my school but I never made a personal connection with it.

So your mother tried to shield you from it? Did you ever wonder why? Did you ask her questions about it? What would she tell you?

And when you said it got mentioned at school, did the teacher ever mention it or just shush those who did?

Lol I don't see why this matters, or why you take such interest in my personal experience. But nope, I didn't really know or care much about it. When I got older my mom told me about it and I accepted it as the tragedy it was and then move on. Oh, and no, the teacher didn't shush it. It just wasn't a huge deal to us as kids.

 

[Ledan]

Nope,
For me nothing changed, except that when I reflect on it I'm annoyed. Why? Because there have been days when so many more people died, due to Americans (bombs) or other people (Kongo War for example), yet no one remembers these folk. It shows how prejudiced our society is in the Western world.
But yeeeaaah, nothing much changes when you live outside America. I lived in Geneva, Lusaka and Nairobi afterwards, and people acted the same.

 

[wordsmith]

Just curious. I really think being young or adolescent around that time warped a fair number of folks.

I was 11 when the towers went down, I can remember coming home and seeing my parents on the sofa staring at the TV (they watch basically no TV normally). It didn't really register until my teacher told us that his sister had been caught up in it, she was pulled from the rubble about half way through the day. This guy was usually pretty professional, but he took a call on his mobile half way through a lesson, that was when he found out she was alive. It didn't occur that this was real life and death until I saw the look on his face...

The economy is fucked, and yes, I'm going into that. My sister is 4 years older than me, by the time she was 20 she'd got herself a mortgage and a flat. At my current rate, I'll be lucky if I can afford one by the time I'm 22. On the bright side, 70 years ago when my grandad was growing up, the Nazi's were starving the shit out of the locals, he's missing 2 toes from where one of the bastards "taught him a lesson" for helping one of the labourers to his feet when he went down. I'm not having to deal with that, I'm lucky enough to have a job and parents who will let me live at home until I can get my own place, so instead of feeling hard done by that I'm not part of the 90's adolescents, I count myself lucky that I'm not part of the 40's adolescents.

 

[zombays]

To be honest, it didn't affect me at all I live in Illinois all the way in the suburbs, so even IF the terrorists bomb chicago (which they most likely won't, do to location) It won't affend me much, except that I won't see the willis tower high in the horizon anymore. But to be honest, everyone already know that most of the war is about the oil "business" which includes deaths of the millions, while some VERY small fraction is truly about the events of 9/11. But to be honest, almost everyone got over it 4 years ago.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

snip

A very interesting read. I noticed you remember quite a bit, but much of it sounds detached as I was expecting to hear how some of that stuff made you feel. Maybe it's too long or too much for the forums. It does sound like you thought about your environment hard enough to start seeking out your own knowledge a bit early in development. Hard enough to reflect on it.

Some of the small details you pick out would make for some interesting writing though.

It was all really surreal, seeing the burning building on live TV and the second plane and everything hitting. It just didn't seem possible that we were under attack. For the first seven years of my life, I thought the only thing we had left to be afraid of in the U.S. were muggers and murderers and other domestic threats. I heard my family saying that Bush would hurt the country, as they had lived in Texas with him as governor, but I didn't really know how. Before that, I just sort of assumed that war was a thing of the past for us, and we were totally secure. I was only seven, and hadn't really learned a lot of our history, and certainly didn't understand that what I did learn. I thought that conflict was over with the end of the Cold War, and that nobody could hate the U.S. enough to attack us.

Had the attacks not happened, I might still be a Christian. If they hadn't happened, I probably would never have started reading about politics, and wouldn't be a Socialist. If they hadn't happened, my brother wouldn't have been to Iraq twice, and he wouldn't be shipping off to hot-zones in Afghanistan. Nationalism, and anti-Islamic sentiment probably wouldn't be so high. All the effects of the attack seem very real to me. However, the attacks were so surreal at the time that, while I know that they happened as a point of historical fact, while the effects of the attacks have changed me so much, and while I've learned about the method and religious and political motivations of the attacks, it just still doesn't register as real. I tend to seem sort of detached when talking about the attacks, because the attacks on the towers, followed by the anthrax attacks, really just seemed so surreal at the time that I still can't really get my head around it. Sometimes thinking about it, the reality of it just sort of hits me, and its crazy, but then its gone.

This might not make a lot of sense the way I worded it, but its the best explanation I can give.

 

[Godavari]

I'm a '94 kid. I guess the whole thing just didn't effect me very much. I've always been a bit apathetic, and so when I heard about some planes crashing in to buildings I just kind of went "That's too bad. Can I watch cartoons now?" Being about 7-8 during the event and aftermath just meant that adults were gloomy, but it wasn't anything serious. I remember asking my mom why everyone was so scared, and she told me they were frightened that terrorists could get them. I just thought to myself "Yeah, right. Why would the bad guys care about suburban Missouri?"

Basically, my life has been pretty unaffected by all the fear and paranoia of the past decade. I grew up fairly happy with life and today all I really think about the whole global terror situation is "Why can't everyone just get along?" In fact, I kind of feel like I've inherited the woes of the last generation. Their fears are my problems to solve. In fact, that's a good summary. The world is crap, but I'm hopeful and confident that my generation will fix it. Overall, I'm pretty optimistic.

 

[Kirky]

Honestly speaking, I can barely remember anything about 9/11. All I've got are some faded memories of someone going on about the "twin-towers" (I remember that's specifically what my parents called them), and I think I did see an image on TV of smoke rising from one of the towers. I was six, so really, at the time I had bigger fish to fry. Like finding that translucent dish thing I needed to complete my Lego spaceship, or trying to figure out how to get up to the cupboard we kept the HobNobs in.

Really, that's all there is to it. I'm British, so the issue wasn't at all close to home for me, and as a six year old I was pretty much incapable of thinking about anything as complex as terrorists and suicide bombers. My life just moved on, and it's only now that I'm starting to get annoyed at the state of the world. Mainly because I'm on my summer holidays right now, and despite asking around at every shop in my town centre, I didn't manage to get a summer job.

I mean, Mafia 2 is out in five days, and I still don't have enough cash to buy it.

 

[gjendemsjo]

The only way it affected me was the day afterwards when everyone mobbed me because my birthday was the same day D:

 

[inFAMOUSCowZ]

my parents stayed the same way there are. Maybe a little upset since my dad and bro are in the U.S military and had to go over seas. In order to fight over something that wouldn't have happened if the terrorists werent well terrorists. And me I dont let all this fear and other stuff get to me. Since if you let fear get out of hand the gov't will put restictions on things and life will be even worse.

 

[Ham_authority95]

snip.

Looking back, I didn't read the OP properly, so I'll respond with a better answer:

How the after effects have effected me: The economy could be a hot contender, but seeing as how my dad is business owner and it still hasn't effect how much food is put on the table, that one is out.

Anti-Muslim sentiments: This is a bigger thing, and while most of the anti-muslim thing I hear my peer say are retarded jokes they got off South Park, there are many kids that I know who actually hate Muslims. I can't speak for any of the adults around where I live, though.

The "Fear, war, and so little hope" that you mentioned above: Except for extremely political people, families with people in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people out of work, most people I know and myself are generally indifferent and/or un-fazed by the state of the world.

So while 9/11 is a HUGE turning point for modern history, it really hasn't personally effected me in a huge way that I know of.

And you're right about how I don't know how different I would be if it never happened.

Hopefully that was a more proper answer for you.