We Are Parenting the Post 9-11 Generation
Sometimes, it feels like I can’t remember life before 9-11.
It’s the same feeling I got after I had my son, Ben. Within a week, it was almost like I couldn’t remember what life was like before I had him. Neither of those two things is true, of course. I can vaguely remember being able to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted — take naps, go out to eat in peace, spend two hours making dinner for my husband and myself. Likewise, I can vaguely remember a time before 9-11, a time when war was something I read about in history books or heard about on news reports from other countries. Terrorist attacks were a foreign notion, and war was unfathomable. It’s hard to remember what it was like to be so peaceful and innocent. It’s hard to remember what it was like to be so naïve.
I was in my senior year of high school that day, and like the rest of the country, experienced the flood of emotions: fear, anger, grief, shock. At school, we watched as the second plane flew into the second tower. We watched as people chose to jump to their deaths in order to escape the fiery hell burning inside the buildings. We listened to the tearful phone calls from on board the hijacked planes and wept at the loss of the heroes aboard Flight 93. We mourned the loss of the men and women who gave their lives to try to save others, the ones who ran in while everyone else was running out. The weeks following 9-11 were a blur of mourning and tears, of fear and confusion. At the time, I couldn’t understand how this happened, why it happened.
I understand now, of course. What I didn’t know, what I was never told, was that they had been trying to kill us for decades, that this was in no way the first time terrorists had attacked us. That peaceful, innocent naiveté was shattered to pieces that day.
Should be December 7.
I noticed that immediately also. And it’s almost appropriate that the author got the date of Pearl Harbor wrong. It emphasizes the point of her story.
I know when Pearl Harbor was… it was a typo and I somehow missed it. Apologies.
If you were at Pearl Harbor on that day it would have been Dec. 6th.
Since my first living memory is Dec 7th 1941 I’ll just say that if growing up during a war stops you being naive I’m all for it.
Don’t afraid to teach your precious little child WHO did this to us, WHERE they came from, WHAT they believe,and WHY they seek to destroy us.
And, of course, don’t forget to mention the biggest victims of 9-11: the poor, innocent, peace-loving Muslims who now have to contend with the racists and islamophobes who infest America.
It’s not a phobia if they really ARE out to kill you.
And, of course, don’t forget to mention the biggest victims of 9-11: the poor, innocent, peace-loving Muslims who now have to contend with the racists and islamophobes who infest America.
Comedian, subversive Islamo-fascist or clueless, koolaid-intoxicated troll? You decide…
I read that comment as a sarcastic comment on the deadly political correctness of today’s government and media spokespeople.
THIS is my answer to that.
I wonder if it was just to see how many of us caught it? My tour was Vietnam but I will not forget either Dec. 7th or 9-11. They will always be in my thoughts.
May your husband have a safe tour and you, your son and husband have a safe and happy life.
The thing I somewhat object to is the idea that 9-11 was the beginning of something, or the first blow. It was just one blow in a centuries-long war, the current round of which has been ongoing for a few decades now.
9-11 was a solid, jarring blow to be sure; it woke many people from their complacency about our distance and insulation from the reality that most people around the globe are forced to live with… the constant drumbeat of bombs and assassinations.
Welcome to reality, but bring your helmet – you may wish them no ill, but your enemy surely hates you enough to murder your children. They hate you enough to use their own children to kill yours.
My kids were 5, 3, and 6 weeks on 9-11. I wrote about that day in journals that I had just started keeping for each of them. At the time, I talked about not wanting them to have to know about the evil in the world. It was interesting to re-read it ten years later. My 5 year old son asked my why they flew the planes into the buildings. At the time, I told him I didn’t know because I just couldn’t explain it.
I sat down with them all this weekend and we talked about what happened and why. My middle child had heard the ‘poor innocent muslins that had to suffer after 9-11 because we were so racist’ talk at school. I calmly explained that there were a few bad incidents but that by and large Americans only blame the people who wish to do us harm. I told them there is not a place on earth more open and accepting of differences than America.
I am proud to be an American.
My youngest (12) had not really heard much of anything. The oldest (17 & 19) had heard the facts, but not much about the motives. I do know my daughter had seen that tribute video, the one set to Enya’s “Only Time.” That one pretty much says it all, so I watched it with the little guy and explained things as it went along. I don’t think future potential indoctrination will have much of an effect after seeing that video.
#3 and the experience of a child of #6 at school prove my point about how the jihadists have won the war against the West: offense to Islam and muslims has become a greater crime against humanity than Islamic terrorism.
As a parent, I often feel like a dissident in a communist country, having to “unbrainwash” my kids from the treasonous academics for whom America is evil and whites are racist. Our sons and daughters are being taught to hate their country, their religion, and their culture. How long before the next generations decide that America is not worth fighting for, and our “poor, oppressed” enemies are to be appeased and indulged in their every demand?
My brother and his wife felt the same way with their daughters. The last straw for them was a Thanksgiving pageant with the noble Native Americans saving the evil white murderers. They yanked the kids out of school and started homeschooling. I know that’s not an option for everyone, but they’ve been quite successful. The girls swim, fence, ride, and shoot for sport and competition, and combine with other home schoolers for socialization and for subjects that are out of their parents’ realm. It’s pretty awesome. And they haven’t been brainwashed. They’ve learned to think and analyze.
My twin sons were five when 9/11 happened. We had just returned from a family reunion at NYC and they remember seeing the twin towers. A few years later we visited the empty site. This year we visited the Pentagon Memorial. Throughout the years I taught them that throughout our history, our nation has had fierce enemies who hated us and each generation was called upon to stop evil. I told them of how I served in uniform and how their grandfather fought in WWII with the idea that someday they may be called to do the same. Today they are participate in their High School ROTC program and are doing well. My wife and I shed a tear whenever we see them in uniform. We are very proud but hope they never see violence. I can’t help but think that the War on Terror has brought out the best in our young people as so many are willing to step into the gap. In my day, many Americans looked down upon those in uniform. Today, they are honored, as they should be. Our enemies will regret having unleashed a stronger, more resilient America. Perhaps we should thank them before we kill them!
When my granddaughter asks me about Dec. 7 and 9-11 someday, I will tell her that it is strong in my memory; telling her where I was and what I was doing when the news broke. Maybe she will just nod her head and ask if it will ever happen again, and I will say yes it might, and that we have to love our nation which I believe has a special G-D sent mission for us all, and be ready to step forward to defend with our lives.
I think the reason December 7, 1941 no longer lives in infamy is because of closure. After terrible brutality Japan surrendered, the war ended, we helped Japan rebuild, and now we’re allies. December 7 can’t survive as a day of infamy, only as history.
The days of decisively crushing an opponent in war seem to be over. Muslim fundamentalists are still the enemy because modern ethical constraints prevent us from giving them the closure they need to admit defeat and move forward. Thus our modern world of endless war.
The Israelis have known that world for quite some time. I can’t remember American / Israeli relations ever being closer than in these past 11 years. Israel has been the land of “suicide bombers” since I can remember, but now we Americans get what that means, how it feels, the adaptations it compels on a people and a nation. The Palestinians dancing in the streets while Osama took his victory lap, preening about his “blessed and successful strikes” … We and the Israelis share the same enemies, the same fate. The Israelis aren’t just allies anymore, they’re us.
That is the world my children have always known. My daughter is barely old enough to remember 9/11. She has never known the pre-9/11 world, nor the concerns of that time which seem so distant and strange now. Her first memories are of the Israelis’ world; my world, the America I was born into, is gone.
Old TV shows, Seinfeld, The West Wing, display the phobias of the prevailing Leftist zeitgeist. Timothy McVeigh was the villain of a thousand faces in prime-time drama. The Unabomber, looking like Weird Al in sunglasses in that ridiculous police sketch, with his pretentious Manifesto and the pathetic yet creepy use of the Royal We: “We have had to kill people,” it made him a kind of comic book villain. That was terrorism in the 90′s.
The advice, too, “what to do if …”, spoke of a culture of overweening passivity and compliance: “Never antagonize a hijacker; always do what your attacker demands,” that was the prevailing attitude. “Stockholm Syndrome” was the plot line of every prime-time drama involving hostages; an episode of ER even portrayed hostage-takers as sympathetic and the nurse protagonist’s Stockholm Syndrome as a positive quality.
In my children’s world the Hostage Rescue Team “takes the shot”; if some yahoo storms the cockpit the passengers storm the yahoo; CHL’s are everywhere and trained to shoot back; if terrorists attack us and flee we follow, even back to Somalia. Our post-9/11 “Mogadishu Mile” faces forward. And compassionate nurses with Stockholm Syndrome gave way to the One True Avatar of the Post-9/11 Zeitgeist: Jack Bauer.
We’re stronger than we were, less prone to curl up in the fetal position and more prone to resist when threatened with violence, less willing to be victims, more prepared to put up a fight. These are qualities the Israelis have had for years which Americans lost somewhere along the way. But now my daughter can handle a firearm just as I could at her age and people consider it “normal”. When she’s old enough she’ll walk her college campus with the means to defend herself that only 9/11 made acceptable.
I wish 9/11 hadn’t happened, and I also wish it hadn’t taken 9/11 to make us believe in ourselves again. But we owe the United 93 Militia credit where it’s due. In the “culture of compliance” of the 90′s they showed us how to resist. Thanks to these heroes, our teachers, I don’t have to credit Osama bin Laden for making us strong again; it was Todd Beamer who said, “Let’s Roll”.