To ask about the end of innocence for you?

I watched my father knock my mother out with one punch and when I ran over trying to get her to wake up he told me she was dead and he went to bed leaving me holding her hand for hours (I was 5)

Due to my upbringing I always knew life wasn't rainbows and unicorns

It was when the Twin Towers were hit. I remember feeling that my parents couldn't protect me from everything any more and make all right in the world. I was a young adult and it really affected me.

Me too. Some of my earliest memories are very sad ones. Naturally I have sheltered and protected my children but I dread the day when they will feel emotional pain :(.

I don't think there was one defining moment. I was a child of the 80s and the miners strikes were a huge deal for my family and the whole area where I lived I think that stripped a lot of innocence at a young age.

@doodleschnoodle same, it was the day before my 11th birthday.

I was thinking Dunblane too. I grew up in Glasgow and was 11 when it happened.

For me? Holly Wells & Jessica Chapman, I was a similar age and felt shocked when finding out that someone so trusted like a teaching assistant would help cover it up.

For my son? Unfortunately, he got cancer last year when he was 8 and though he's in remission now and doing well, it did take away his innocence.

I think I’ve always been aware of bad things happening in the world, but on a personal level, it was slowly discovering that my first long-term boyfriend was a sexist, coercively controlling psycho.
I’d grown up in an environment where everyone believed that girls could do and be whatever they want and I’d never encountered sexism before. I had no idea how to deal with it and didn’t believe he could really think that way, so I stayed with him for far longer than I should have.

I had a part time job when I was at university and we used to sit around after the shift talking. We were talking about films that make you cry and I said Schindler's List.

A woman asked me why and then said, "I think Hitler was an idealist."

I think for me personally it was when I had dd, I’d always believed most people were good and kind but sadly found that not to be the case when I decided to go it alone with a baby.

I was also v unwell when I was pregnant and needed surgery and that shocked me as had always taken my health for granted until then.

9/11 or the aftermath, until this point I hadn’t really experienced too much racism, but it really changed after that, I can remember the police advising us to either buy those see through blow up rucksacks for school or to use a carrier bag, as that way we were less likely to be attacked or have the police called on us.

It was also the first ‘big’ event I was old enough to almost understand, I had just started year 8 I think at school. Being very young I didn’t know what the world trade centre was so I thought it was a bit like a big warehouse that has things that were going to be sold all over the world, so I asked my teacher why they made two really tall buildings as it would be hard to get everything on the lorries. I still can’t believe how long ago it was, and so many victims still suffering awful ill health due to the debris etc.

Trigger warning CSA

I was never innocent. I had my childhood robbed from me at 2. I dont remember a time where I wasn't anxious or hyper alert. I'm nearly 50 and i still jump if someone comes into my room.

Probably when my mum died when I was 12.

My earliest memory was my father being furious because I'd asked for more dinner and asking me which toy I'd received for Christmas was my favourite. I was 3 and didn't understand, despite one of my siblings trying to help, what was about to happen and I told him it was my dolly.

He slapped me several times, chucked my doll on the fire and made me sit on a chair and watch it burn.

I learned to keep secrets and that lying was necessary that day.

Just an overwhelming fear of nuclear attack, from about age 11 onwards. When I was 13 I was in Guide Camp (miserable tbh) and the local siren was tested. I think the general atmosphere in the UK then was scary as it was the Falklands war so lots of military stuff on TV, reservists leaving to fight. So hearing the siren I thought my worst fear was coming true, nuclear attack while I was away from my parents. Total panic.

More basic; my first proper job in the magazine industry. So exciting as I loved magazines. And finding it was not just straightforwardly commercial and also very boring, but actively corrupt. Hated it. Got out within 10 months.

Honestly it was probably in my early 20s. Even though lots of bad things had happened to me personally and in the wider world - I grew up in poverty and witnessed a lot more, I grew up in an abusive home and witnessed my friends growing up the same way, I was almost raped at 18 and was a witness in a rape case at 14. There were some awful things happening in the world at times - someone mentioned Dunblane up the thread and that was a very hard one that still scars many people in Scotland. But bizarrely it was only when I ended up in an abusive relationship myself in my early 20s that it really clouded my view of the world and made me so cynical and so much harder. I don't know if by that point it was just one thing too many, or the sinking feeling of repeating history, or something else, but it fundamentally changed me and I'll always wish I'd got out at the beginning.

Aberfan I had just started primary the and even though it was surrounded by fields, and people didn’t really discuss it in front of the children, it was horrifying. The idea that you could just be sitting at your desk in school, and that could happen. It was impossible to understand.

I never had that kind of innocence. Some of my earliest memories are of my dad hitting my mum, threatening her, smashing up the house and of her self harming.

When one of the girls in my year died quite suddenly from an illness, I was 9 or 10. It had never really occurred to me before that kids like me could just suddenly be gone.

Same. My parents never tried to shelter us from the real world.
I grew up in the 80s, in France, so the news were quite grim, lot of wars, USSR ussring, strikes, aftermath of Chernobyl, 200thanniversary of French Revolution so guillotine imagery everywhere...

Even the kids' programs we had were quite bleak. There was a anime about a kid who's been sold by his parents.

I remember however a sense of elation when the wall fell down, the day after we only talked about that in school, my dad brought a piece of the wall after one on his travels to GDR, it was crazy.

My parents’ divorce, grandfather’s death and mother’s depression all in the same year. I was six and gripped by uncertainty and everything felt laden with sadness.

Being raped by my maternal uncle when I was ten years old and no one believing me. He and his nasty wife did leave the village very soon afterwards and never being seen or heard of again.
My father dying from a sudden heart attack later that year and being sent home from school on the bus which took an hour. When I got there, I was told to go for a long ride on my pony. When I returned home, I was told to sit in the kitchen and wait for my tea. Whilst I was there, I heard his coffin being bumped down the stairs from my parents bedroom. His death was never mentioned again in my hearing by anyone. I was sent to school the next day.