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

[xDarc]

It got me out of school about 3 hours early, and being a 2nd grader, I had no idea what was going on.

See, this is the thing right here. It's not so much the event itself, but the marking of a change in the times. Without having a point of reference, it's real hard to imagine your 2nd grade self growing up if none of this ever happened and things continued to be peaceful and the economy continued to expand.

You have to imagine if things had been different, which is very hard to do. I'd guess that some of you can remember things that struck you as a learning experience, a new understanding of the way the world worked; how things were or how something shaped your community.

Even for me, I can't isolate much of it. I remember seeing the fear sweep through the northern Detroit burbs at age 12, because a girl my age was abducted, raped and killed from around my area. I saw the change in the adults, and because they were afraid, so was I. I don't know if I could imagine watching adults go through everything that followed the turning point back in 2001; and how that might make me feel.

 

[Gunsang]

I was shocked, but the aftermath affected me much more than the occurrence. Being in Colorado I didn't really have to worry about anything. If the air force base didn't stop a hijacked airplane, the mountains would. And why would they attack Colorado anyways? So yeah, 9/11 really didn't affect me much.

 

[zehydra]

I was in 5th grade when 9/11 happened. I guess it was the moment in my life when it really occurred to me how real the world that was presented in the news really was.

 

[Lonan]

I was 11 at the time, and no one could have cared less. It didn't change anything except for when I was forced to go through Miami to get to Calgary, (4 years after) because the Americans are so paranoid about security they won't even let anyone fly over their country without spending hours in a line-up in Miami. And our Canadian passports let us go by without any digital photographs or fingerprints anyway, so the whole thing was flying thousands of kilometres east to Miami (coming from Quito) to stand in a line to get to Dallas Fort Worth to return to Calgary. All because no one thought of locking the cockpit doors until people flew planes into buildings. Dumbasses.

 

[TheGameXXVII]

i am in the UK and i was about...7-ish at the time it happened, so it didn't really affect me.

however, after our own terrorist attack, there has been some big changes around the capital, like when i went there on a trip for school, we walked past the parliament building and there were at least 2 armed guards on each entrance, holding SMGs, plus there are no bins in London at all after the attack, i suppose it is to make sure there are no "packages" left in them.

 

[Terminate421]

Your history report now makes me realize why our economy is failing, after 9/11, alot of America became depressing pussies who only wanted to "Make the children grow in a better environment"

Oh, as for 9/11, I felt awkward, like anyone could be the enemy but I can't judge people automatically.

 

[wolf thing]

children dont notice it, there children, they don't care. until puberty they live in there own world.

 

[xDarc]

The notion that 9/11 ruined everybody younger then you is just stupid. It really has very little to do with that incident itself, and more to do with the economic collapse and 9 years of war that followed.

I get that and it's in there between the lines. 9/11 is unquestionably the turning point in the times though. Y2K pales in comparison.

 

[Lonan]

children dont notice it, there children, they don't care. until puberty they live in there own world.

It's a good world. Nothing wrong with living in it.

 

[tomtom94]

Well in recent times it made me realise how much people generalise.
As in "Some extremist Muslims blew up the World Trade Centre! HATE CRIME TIME!"

At the time, neither 9/11 nor 7/7 had any real impact on me because I wasn't involved personally.

 

[Mcupobob]

Hmm I was in the 5th grade I think. I really didn't understand what was going on at the time, and living out in rural California I was far removed form the situation. I feel bad about it now but I never got parinode over it. Though it is sad how this has created abunch of cynical ultra liberals who think that 9/11 was justifed.

 

[The Procrastinated End]

Didn't really do that much, all it did was get me out of school that day and start a war and a lot of complaining.

 

[ArMartinez02]

by the time 9/11 happened i was still in school in Panama (its a country) and we got released early from school that day, didnt know much about it until i got home and my mom was crying over this, i didnt know what was going on but then i saw the cnn news (we had satellite cable) i counldnt believe it neither, i was shocked at a young age and i was in like 3rd or 4th grade, i dont remember, but honestly i never had that fear of getting attack by sum terrorist or something like that, well the panama canal got heavily defended by US forces after 9/11. but honestly i never had that fear, but after 9/11 i get nervous when im in a airplane with some middle eastern in it not beeing racist or anything, but its a fear u kno.

 

[Cynical skeptic]

it's real hard to imagine your 2nd grade self growing up if none of this ever happened and things continued to be peaceful and the economy continued to expand.

The economic expansion was a bubble. It was going to burst with or without a few buildings getting prematurely demolished by way of commercial aircraft.

So, W's administration would've been intensely shitty with or without the "war" or "the looming threat of terrorism."

Hell, it might've actually burst sooner if not for all that bullshit distracting everyone from W assraping the economy.

 

[fullbleed]

9/11 has never really affected me, aside from the fact they've rendered airports completely paranoid.

This is also my answer.

The same. 2,995 people died, but how many people have died in the middle east since then, how many have died from natrual disasters and continue to die? The whole '9/11 changed everything' attitude that some americans have kind of irks me sometimes. All it changed for me is that I now have to go through increasingly ludicrous degrees of security at the airport.

 

[Evilbunny]

I was 13 at the time, and I remember being scared for my dad since he was in the middle east at the time on business. However, at the same time the attack brought the country together. The world for me before the attack seemed cold and uncaring, but afterward it made me feel hope for the human race, like we could come together and care for one another when we needed to. So yes, I was a little scared, but I was not brought up in a world of fear and uncertainty. I was brought up in a world of love and togetherness.

 

[imnot]

Well I live in the UK and was 6 at the time so it wouldn't have effected me.

this, except the mum bit so i deleted it and im saying this to keep the mods of my back.

 

[Chainsauce]

It didn't affect me in any way. I guess I was a bit too young to comprehend.

 

[Shoqiyqa]

Paranoid? I was flying to the USA not that long after that, and due to the increased security checks all passengers for the USA had to check in at a particular set of desks with their own queue, which was moving rather slowly. It was moving so slowly, in fact, that more people than ever fit on one airliner were crammed together, with their luggage, in a dense block of juicy target extending from the desk out into the street.

We're a little more accustomed to the background threat than you over there, I think. For one example, nowhere in King's Cross Station will you find a bin. There used to be bins all over Britain, but then someone pointed out that having a metal box in a concrete shell where people abandon stuff all the time without anyone remarking on it in a place where hundreds of people congregate at entirely predictable times of the day was making things a little bit too easy for the PIRA ... so now we have to heap our litter in the corner and leave it for someone to sweep up.

Then again, I'm older than the OP, so I'm not really the target audience for the question.

At least this thread hasn't quite done this to me:

 

[xDarc]

The economic expansion was a bubble.

Thankyou, Alan Greenspan- just go with me hypothetically here. Haven't got one of you to respond reflecting on how your life might be different or what you really remember about the times. I think, as is par for the escapist, people are responding to the thread title.