';
For our final spring break in 2019 with our eldest in the home, we went to NYC including the 9/11 memorial I had been to but the family had not. We also visited Shanksville in Pennsylvania, where flight 93 crashed on 9/11. On a previous vacation to DC the kids also got to see the Pentagon memorial from 9/11.
Our eldest was just a baby on 9/11, the other two yet to be born. I was thinking about how my kids were really experiencing all these things as American HISTORY whereas for me it is an experience. This was highlighted by the fact that I am reading Robert Caro’s 4th volume in his huge LBJ biographies, and he outlines the Kennedy assassination behind the scenes. I read that all as history, but my parent’s generation remember it all happening in real time.
These are the “where were you when you heard….” events for most Americans (and for some of them, they are really not isolated to America at all, and are really world events, each having distinct world-impacting implications or even victims.
It has made me think that perhaps generations are not at all defined not by dates, which might explain why we are all somewhat skeptical of “generation” talk defined by dates. Perhaps generations are instead hard to define demographics that are indelibly marked as they came age during shocking events & the aftermath, such as…
- Gen 1 – Pearl Harbor
- Gen 2 – Kennedy Assassination
- Gen 3 – Challenger Space Shuttle Explosion
- Gen 4 – 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
Each of these, and perhaps others you suggest, are those “where were you when you heard” type of traumatic events.
Pearl Harbor – those who remember this “day that will live in infamy” must inexplicably tie them to the the fact that because of it America would join WW2–one of the most consequential changes in policy in all of world history. The takeaway: the death of isolationism & peace, and the death of so many in battle, and the change of the global power landscape. How do you think this marked that generation in contrast to these others?
Kennedy Assassination – the first truly televised tragedy (all TV stations cancelled all programming for 4 days and had wall to wall coverage of it without commercials. Americans watched that coverage for an average of more than 30 hours total that weekend). Perhaps an age of innocence died that day–certainly with all that followed, LBJ as president in the Vietnam years, then Nixon and the distrust of the government. The takeaway: the death of hope perhaps. How do you think this marked that generation in contrast to these others?
Challenger Space Shuttle Explosion – what made this unique as an experience for a generation in so many ways is the schoolteacher, Christa McAuliffe, who was on the shuttle which caused so many (including my own schoolteacher) to show this LIVE in class–so many, if not most American schoolchildren experienced this tragedy with their friends in a school-room, without their family close. I’m not entirely sure what this signified for my generation, as this one hits home for me. How do you think this marked that generation in contrast to these others?
9/11 Terrorist Attacks – Much more recent to our memories is this and the subsequent wars on Al-Qaeda and terror worldwide, and specifically in Afghanistan and the additional war in Iraq, and even recently against ISIS (who have just this last month lost the last of their territory). I was stunned how tears came to my eyes at the Flight 93 memorial to think of these everyday flight commuters who courageously called family, then had a meeting, then a vote (how very democratic of them to vote at a time like that) and then fought back against the terrorists with utensils, boiling water, and broken plates. How do you think this marked that generation in contrast to these others?
In all, the photo here of my children looking out on the field where Flight 93 crashed made me consider the fact that my three children are really not a part of ANY of the above generations. My oldest was just 10 years old when Osama Bin Laden was killed by Navy Seals. He doesn’t remember even that.
A sobering thought to me is that the traumatic event, the “where were you when you heard” tragedy that they will always remember, is still in the future for them and their generation.
Praying today that they are ready for it, my time raising them is nearly over–and is in fact starting to come to a close for the oldest who will no longer spring break with us.
Part of me hopes their generation rises to the challenge in ways previous generations did–there are stories of courage, faith, and dignity in those tragedies for sure. May they follow in those footsteps. Part of me hopes they learn lessons from our history, and that they do things differently than we did. May they find new and better paths as well. For that is the hope of parenting, is it not? Parents don’t want their kids to just be as good as they are, but that they’ll be better.
As I see the picture of my family here at Ellis Island, where so million American stories began, I was thinking of all my close friends who are first generation immigrants raising the next young Americans, even younger than my own. I was also thinking of raising kids in an environment where they can become better than I am. Perhaps that’s all the new world dream ever was in the first place.
May it be so, Lord willing.
