9/11 through the Eyes of a Child

The day, 11 September 2001, will never be forgotten. Suddenly, without warning, thousands of innocent people lost their lives in a senseless, violent attack against civilians. For those of us who witnessed it, either live on a TV screen or in person, the image of people willingly throwing themselves off the building to prevent themselves from being crushed by thousands of tons of burning steel and concrete burned into our minds. The trauma this caused to the families who lost loved ones, survivors, and the American nation cannot be understated. A trauma whose effects would trickle down and have devastating repercussions, especially for those who were in the formative years of their childhood when it happened. A trauma that would transform the way an entire generation would socialize and interact with the world for decades to come.

To those who lived through it, we can all remember where we were when the attacks began. I will never forget being in 2nd-grade Spanish class first thing in the morning, learning the basic colors in Spanish, when an announcement came over the intercom. I remember the confusion and slight panic in my Spanish teacher’s eyes as she stepped outside, and another announcement came over the intercom, stating all students were to be sent home. And I will never forget, as a 7-year-old, watching the footage of the second plane hitting the second tower. That singular event would go on to completely transform how children across the United States lived their lives from that moment on.

‘That happy-go-lucky, free lifestyle ended for most children the day after 9/11’

Online, you can find a plethora of YouTubers, Instagrammers, and TikTok stars constantly reminiscing about life as a child in the 1990s and late 80s. Scores of channels and accounts have been made just to bring up feelings of nostalgia in viewers. A nostalgia that makes many who grew up in that time period, or those who raised children then, think that the world was a much better place then than it is today. And it’s hard to argue against it. Having personally grown up as a young child in the early to mid-90s, I have vivid memories of playing outside by myself as young as three or four years old—drawing with sidewalk chalk next to the road, riding a big wheel, dragging a wagon around the neighborhood unsupervised, and meeting up with the local kids without telling my parents where we were going. This was the golden age for childhood, and Halloween during the mid to late 90s was its crown jewel. Running around in costumes without adult supervision, accompanied by only a cousin or two who may be a year or so older, we’d gladly enter strangers’ homes that they’d decorated as haunted houses, and gleefully run from neighborhood dads dressed as Jason Vorhees, wielding real chainsaws as they chased us around. And nobody had a second thought about it. It was all in good fun, and it was unthinkable that anything could happen to your child. It was Halloween after all, and everyone just wanted to have a bit of fun.

That happy-go-lucky, free lifestyle ended for most children the day after 9/11. We instantly went from a world where we could roam free to being locked in our houses, and suddenly, parents preferred we play inside rather than out. This was the era when child leashes began appearing, and it wasn’t uncommon to see a new mother or father in a park with their toddler wearing a child harness with a leash on it. I was even responsible for holding my younger brother on one of those leashes whenever we went on a family outing. Parents began actively wanting their children to stay indoors and invested heavily in toys and games that would keep them inside, under their supervision.

Many of the older generations who raised us, 90s and later 2000s kids, will complain that we are addicted to social media, computers, and video games, and that we spend way too much time in front of screens. Let us remember, however, that it was they who put us in front of those screens in the first place. Imagining terrorists behind every corner, parents after the attacks eagerly invested in computers and video games that kept their children within arm’s reach. They encouraged us to start chatting with each other in chat rooms on America Online (AOL), and bought us headsets to go with our controllers so we could talk with fellow players in virtual video game lobbies. They helped us set up our first Facebook accounts and taught us to post pictures and things we thought were funny online. Their fear of terrorists and boogeymen around every corner drastically increased the demand and the development of these new socialization alternatives that evolved into the massive social media giants and phone screens we are addicted to today.

‘We yearn for the childhood of our past and want our children to run free and have adventures of their own’

Now we are at the point where we, 90s kids, are becoming parents ourselves. As the newest generation of parents, many of us born in the early and mid-90s are starting to have similar complaints. On the one hand, we yearn for the childhood of our past and want our children to run free and have adventures of their own. On the other hand, we’ve thrust them in front of screens earlier than ever, to the point that we have specialized tablets for toddlers and social media designed specifically for children under ten. While it should be obvious that we can’t escape or fear technological progress, and we will, of course, be buying video games, computers, and more new emerging technologies for our children. Given our experience, we should strive to provide balance to our children’s lives. We can provide the best of both worlds to our children and the next generation. We need to let the nostalgia fuel us to create an environment and a community where we would feel comfortable letting our young children run around unsupervised, as we did. We shouldn’t be afraid of screen time or shy away from our children socializing online, but we should also heavily encourage them to spend time outside. Invest in the outdoor toys of our youth, from the wacky giant sprinklers that spray you at random, to skip-its, moon shoes, and all the other toys that got us outside in the sun, even if it’s just spending an afternoon with our kids playing with sidewalk chalk by the road. And just maybe, if we can rebuild the sense of community we had in the 90s and not be fearful of each other, together, we can make Halloween great again.

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