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Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to ask you your opinion on 9/11 and millennials?

459 replies

CorianderDestroysFamilies · 05/08/2019 15:23

I read a tweet this weekend that went - why do millennials complain all the time and the answer is basically because we saw 2000 die on tv when we were 10 and the world has got worse ever since.
Reading the following tweets made me realise that actually it must have had a massive effect for the mindset of that group, myself included, and I’ve never really thought about it - obviously more so for those in the US but even in the UK I remember seeing it happen and then it does feel like everything has just got worse. The war in Iraq, the demonisation of Muslims, so so many mass shootings and terrorist attacks, it sometimes feels like we’re sitting on the edge of the abyss. I know a lot of this is to do with non stop news and how small the world has become but it just struck a nerve with me.
One thing I read that I’d never heard about before was that Nick Jr and PBS in the US played cartoons all day to basically distract the kids whilst the adults took in what had just happened and that alone made me want to cry.
Anyway I’m not putting it very well but hopefully it’s makes sense as I just wondered what other people thought because I can lose myself in MN debates and there’s always angles that I’ve not thought about.

OP posts:
lottiegarbanzo · 05/08/2019 17:26

So the message seems to be... people remember news events that occurred when they were about ten.

Alsohuman · 05/08/2019 17:26

Better than not having enough to eat in the 1930s or being bombed in the 1940s.

Home ownership is higher in the 25-34 age group than it was in 1960, when only 5% of the population had degrees. I hate this competitive race to the bottom. Every generation has its challenges, the difference is how they face them.

Thisandthat1248 · 05/08/2019 17:28

@escapade1234 what about weekly terrorist attacks? Racism from the president himself? Abortions being illegal? Kids getting shot in school so regularly nobody is even surprised anymore? Our environment crumbling and nobody listening?

The price of a house is the least of my worries.

Original poster
CorianderDestroysFamilies · 05/08/2019 17:29

Yeah @placemats it’s really not Hmm I just saw something that made me think and I like a MN debate because it always gives me stuff I didn’t think about and I like seeing other people’s views because i can be really self centred if I don’t keep myself in check Grin
I’m not saying that millennials have it worse than any other generation I’m just saying that I think 9/11 definitely impacted them in a different way. We were just about coming into the world and suddenly everything got turned on it’s head that’s all.

OP posts:
placemats · 05/08/2019 17:29

This is a mine crafting thread. Those who ask am I drunk will be reported.

Do not give out information on this thread.

About your age
About your thoughts
About anything else

I personally love a lemon cheesecake. With lime on the top.

placemats · 05/08/2019 17:30

As expected the OP responded to me.

It's a mine crafting thread.

ghostyslovesheets · 05/08/2019 17:30

Kids sent away, husbands, fathers, brothers sent to fight - little communication from either, bombs falling on your house, rationing, dangerous munitions work ….

...… can't buy a house

sums it up nicely!

ghostyslovesheets · 05/08/2019 17:31

I quiet like Minecraft - keeps the kids off my back

lottiegarbanzo · 05/08/2019 17:32

I must say, I think the WWI generation especially, those who struggled throught the great depression, then WWII, had it worse than any of us, by really quite a long way.

We're about to enter another recession post-Brexit. We would be extremely unlucky if it's as bad as the unemployment and poverty of the 1930s.

IABUQueen · 05/08/2019 17:32

What’s a mine crafting thread ?!

BrainFart · 05/08/2019 17:33

Having not read the whole thread, I would have to say that milennial reply that 9/11 has especially scarred their (my) generation more than anything any other generation had to contend with is utter mince.

I feel sure that everyone else has pointed out :

  • Cold War
  • 'The Troubles'
  • WW2
  • The Great Depression
  • WW1
  • The Spanish Flu pandemic
  • Any number of colonial wars, famines, etc... before then...

Just because previous generations had to read about it in a paper rather than watch it on live telly, doesn't mean it wasn't absolutely devastating to their lives, with an enormous impact on their world-view.

F'in babies...

lottiegarbanzo · 05/08/2019 17:34

Maybe you could explain what that means placemats rather than using jargon that people clearly don't understand?

ghostyslovesheets · 05/08/2019 17:34

being born in 1900 was apparently the worst - they had 2 world wars and the great depression to deal with!

leckford · 05/08/2019 17:34

I was brought up watching WW2 programmes including footage of concentration camps, millions died on all sides. I survived, millennials are being brought up not to cope with anything, if there is another war would they be able to fight?

AwkwardPaws27 · 05/08/2019 17:35

@lottiegarbanzo Millennials were born between 81-96 - so now aged 23-38 years. I was 12 when 9/11 happened, and I'm in the middle of the millennial age range.
I was 18 in March 2008 - I definitely felt the effects of the recession as I tried to start a career, the competition was stiff when there so many people with much more experience competing for fewer positions (sadly due to redundancies) when you are starting out. Wages have stagnated too (for everyone of working age, not just millennials) - I recently saw an advert for a position I held in 2012, still paying the same salary.

IntoValhalla · 05/08/2019 17:35

They don’t think about how safe they are. They haven’t had to go to war

Have you met a military family lately? Hmm We worry most days about how safe we are. Pretty much since 9/11, we’ve had to seriously think about our personal security thanks to fanatical lunatics. Then Lee Rigby was murdered in the street simply for being a serving soldier and security protocols, mandatory security briefings (even in our children’s schools!), keeping what you/your partner does for a living to yourself when speaking to strangers, looking over your shoulder to see if anyone looks shifty etc is a normal part of life for most of us nowadays.

feelingverylazytoday · 05/08/2019 17:36

Who the hell would allow young children to watch rolling news coverage of 9/11? That's just bad parenting/teaching, IMO. There have always been horrible and frightening events covered in the media, it's the responsibility of adults to shield and support children through these events.
And yes to those posters who have pointed out that it's more traumatic to actually live through these events rather than watching it on TV. People die as a result of violence every single day somewhere in the world, ordinary people like us just going about their everyday lives.

ArgumentativeAardvaark · 05/08/2019 17:37

One thing I read that I’d never heard about before was that Nick Jr and PBS in the US played cartoons all day to basically distract the kids

Doesn’t Nick Jr play cartoons all day every day anyway? Hmm

Yes, it was a tragedy but if you want to compare generations (in the U.K. soecifically) have a think about how it must have been for kids growing up during or just after the Great War when their Dads and older brothers/uncles/cousins were going to the Front and dying, mothers losing all their sons. Or WWII when Britain was being bombed? Yes the world is fucked up now and seeing it on TV is bad but within living memory these horrors were happening to families in this country on a huge scale.

Namingetiquette · 05/08/2019 17:37

The one thing I'll say about previous generations is that it does seem like they cared about each other and their communities more. Neighbours knew neighbours and kids played outside. Now everyone's ready to report everyone and everyone's out for themselves. I do wish millennials were more like older generations to care more and to do things like join a union.

PamelaTodd · 05/08/2019 17:38

@Namingetiquette exactly

IABUQueen · 05/08/2019 17:39

The one thing I'll say about previous generations is that it does seem like they cared about each other and their communities more. Neighbours knew neighbours and kids played outside. Now everyone's ready to report everyone and everyone's out for themselves. I do wish millennials were more like older generations to care more and to do things like join a union.

I agree. This is THE coping mechanism missing from this generation, which makes things seem more traumatising even though they might not be.

Alpacathebag · 05/08/2019 17:40

I think each generation has the events that define them. There's no arguing that the two world wars had massive psychological impact on all who lived through them, for example. I think 9/11 and then 7/7 did have a huge effect on Millenials, but it's not necessarily been any more damaging than say the blitz, or Chernobyl.

I think the difference is that everything is just so much more in your face all the time now, with rolling news and social media amplifying things and becoming echo chambers in a way. I think older generations engage with news and politics in a different way to Millenials and Gen Z because they spent longer getting their news in very set ways and are perhaps less likely to have it coming at them all the time.

Each generation faces different pressures, but perhaps now there's less escape from them for those under 35?

Mintychoc1 · 05/08/2019 17:40

I was coming into my teens in the early 80s. We had leaflets through the door and had to watch the film Protect and Survive, telling us what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. We were told to hide in a cupboard or under a table.

Nothing I have seen in the news before or since has made me feel so helpless and frightened.

As a medical student during the gulf war we had to learn how to treat victims of poison gas attacks. And the wards we worked on were closed to keep them free for casualties.
That all felt very real and close.

I think every generation has its defining traumatic moments.

lottiegarbanzo · 05/08/2019 17:43

Something I find interesting is Brits, most of whom knew no-one who died in 9/11 (sure, some did, you're the exceptions), talking about it as something more immediate and personal to them - almost as something that 'happened to us' than the similarly televised, striking and horrific events of Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Ethiopia, Cambodia etc.

Is it because it was so immediate - a single event on one day?

Is it because Americans speak English?

Or, what?

TSSDNCOP · 05/08/2019 17:44

I have lived on this planet for 5 decades. I absolutely refuse to accept that any age group was more or less effected by 9/11. It was a defining moment for anyone with a TV set. I don’t believe anyone be they 10 or 90 wasn’t shrieking in their brains as we watched those people jump. What the fuck was behind them that their choice were reduced to that.

I accept that the world has got smaller, more crowded and financially more garrotting for millennials. It’s no picnic for anyone, and god knows what’s coming next.

But rather than blame other generations or play down the horrid that my 14 year old self woke up with in the face of mutually assured destruction we should work out a way for whatever letter generation comes next to survive.