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Mommy Blogger Admits She Didn't Know People Died on 9/11


ViolaSebastian

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Katie Bower, a 35-year-old mommy blogger, admitted in an Instagram post recently that she didn't know that people died on 9/11. She's my exact age, so she would have been 18-years-old when it happened. How in the world she could have missed all this is beyond me, to say the least. Did she really think the planes weren't full of people? I have so many questions about this. It's horrifying, but also fascinating that someone could so, SO ignorant of arguably one of the biggest new stories in the history of the United States. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-6168163/Blogger-Katie-Bower-admits-didnt-realize-people-died-9-11.html

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I was six when 9/11 happened, and I’m not American. I knew people died (found out about it later). People were photographed jumping out of the building FFS!!

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She also notes that it took her "several years" to figure it all out. Maybe because 9/11 was one of the more traumatic events in my, and many others', lives, I'm completely stumped about how she could have missed what was going on. The paper flyers for missing people, the remembrance ceremonies that took hours to read out each name, the crying families. How on earth did she remain oblivious, and for seemingly a long time? 

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She does admit to being an incredibly self absorbed 18-year old, but it was still pretty had to miss.  Did she live in an isolated fundy family? 

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Wow. At least she realizes she was stupid.

I can't imagine how anyone could NOT have known people died.

Three airliners crashed. Those don't fly themselves! Even if that was ALL that happened you're looking at a bare minimum of 6-9 casualties, if three random empty repositioning flights had crashed with only minimum crew on board.

Two very tall buildings collapsed. In the middle of a large busy city. In the middle of the work day. People were shown jumping from the buildings. 

For days afterward there were NO PLANES IN THE SKY. That was the strangest part to me. So quiet, no planes, an empty sky. To this day if the sky is completely empty it makes me uneasy. For days and weeks there was continuous TV coverage of the disaster.

I'm not sure how it's possible for someone that incredibly stupid to have survived long enough to have children and blog about it. 

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3 minutes ago, Howl said:

She does admit to being an incredibly self absorbed 18-year old, but it was still pretty had to miss.  Did she live in an isolated fundy family? 

I think she's still incredibly self-absorbed. She's making her 9/11 post all. about. her. and her stupidity. IMO, she needs to shut her piehole.

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16 minutes ago, Howl said:

She does admit to being an incredibly self absorbed 18-year old, but it was still pretty had to miss.  Did she live in an isolated fundy family? 

She was at college at the time. No mention of Church or Jesus in her Christmas and Easter posts, and her mother is pictured wearing pants. I think she's just that dumb. 

ETA: She was born in New Jersey. Which means that she and her parents most likely lived there for awhile. HOW?

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19 minutes ago, Alisamer said:

For days afterward there were NO PLANES IN THE SKY. That was the strangest part to me. So quiet, no planes, an empty sky. To this day if the sky is completely empty it makes me uneasy. For days and weeks there was continuous TV coverage of the disaster.

I'm not sure how it's possible for someone that incredibly stupid to have survived long enough to have children and blog about it. 

For me, as well. I live very  close to a massive Navy air base, and when THEY stop flying, you notice it (in fact, I don't think it had ever happened before, and certainly hasn't happened since). It was so eerie not to hear the jets doing their usual flight ops every day, and to look up at the sky and not see the jet trails. I will never forget it.

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I was in college and had just turned 19 when it happened. I never watched much tv in college, I didn’t read the paper, and internet news sources were not updated regularly (meaning you often got news that was hours and hours old). However I understood that people died because I did turn on the tv and they talked about the number of casualties must be high. It was all guessing to start with. So it was a constant numbers guess fest by newscasters.

I fully admit that while I was in college, I was extremely caught up in my own stupid problems (boyfriend, roommate, friends, exams, partying, etc) and the gravity of 9/11 didn’t actually hit me right away. I was upset, but it didn’t really set in for a few weeks or maybe even months when the news would talk to survivors and the amount of so many people affected. Not just those who were injured or died. But the first responders that developed health problems later on and the story of the plane that tried to take it back from the hijackers and crashed in PA.

I remember people like her in college. They were just too engulfed in their own lives to begin to understand all that went down. 18 year olds are notoriously self centered. 

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1 minute ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

However I understood that people died because I did turn on the tv and they talked about the number of casualties must be high.

I recall that immediately after it happened, my dorm mates and I estimated that maybe 20,000 people died, just given a rough estimation of how many people were in the buildings. We didn't initially think that as many people were successfully evacuated as it, thankfully, ended up being. And that was just through basic deduction. It was a weekday and it was during hours in which businesses operate. Why on earth she would think those buildings were empty is :my_huh:

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5 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

I recall that immediately after it happened, my dorm mates and I estimated that maybe 20,000 people died, just given a rough estimation of how many people were in the buildings. We didn't initially think that as many people were successfully evacuated as it, thankfully, ended up being. And that was just through basic deduction. It was a weekday and it was during hours in which businesses operate. Why on earth she would think those buildings were empty is :my_huh:

Maybe just basic denial and being incredibly naive. I remember noticing how many 18 year old males had no clue how to do laundry in college. It was baffling. I think a lot of non fundie parents have not prepared their children for young adulthood and have kept them in a bubble for a lot of their lives. I’m glad she eventually “got it.” But it sounds like she was incredibly immature for 18. 

I’m hoping I don’t over protect my children so much that I stunt their maturity and understanding of the world. I know we see it all the time with fundies, but I think mainstream parents also do this. 

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When I taught American government, I frequently had high school juniors and seniors in the class who did not know anything about current politics beyond the president's name--and a few times, not even that if it had recently changed. In 2000 (a year in which I did not teach gov't), a 16 year old sophomore literally said this in my English classroom on Election Day: "Is there some election thing today? Is it for something big?". 

Why did this continually happen? Because so many parents have decided to "protect" ttheir kids from unpleasant news. Or news that might become unpleasant. Or any news. I never taught a semester of government without at least one parent complaining about classroom discussions of current events and politics on the grounds that it was all too negative and too stressful for their little darlings--who were either old enough to vote or very close to it--to handle. My standard answer was that you absolutely cannot expect kids who have been completely unaware of the world to flip a switch at 18 and become engaged and intelligent voters. Parents need to think twice about sheltering kids from everything. It is better to consider how to engage them in age appropriate ways. 

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I was 10 years old and the adults around us were all trying to keep us sheltered from it. But I most definitely realized, right away, that thousands of people had died. Maybe it was the fact that I grew up in fairly close proximity to the pentagon that made it more a part of daily life, but how could you not get that?

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That takes a whole lot of self absorption and/or repression. 

I remember 9/11 vividly - saw the second plane strike the tower in the live news just before I left for work. People on the bus were talking about it and there were a couple of people who were insisting that it had to be accidents or that the air traffic control people would have known where the planes were heading to so the buildings would have all been evacuated before the planes hit (WTF does not describe those people's reactions). One lady just would not stop talking - loudly - about her kid's upcoming birthday party until finally someone told her that nobody cared and to STFU.

Some people just go out of their way to block or minimise anything unpleasant. Meanwhile pessimistic kittikatz was wondering about a friend who worked for a firm located there and thinking that almost nobody was going to make it out while trying to calculate the average number of people per floor and trying to keep it together all day... I was surprised that so many did manage to evacuate. The whole disaster was just horrific, and the increased military and security checkpoints, and quiet skies for days afterwards were unnerving as was waiting to see how America would respond. 

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I was 10.  I remember my mom telling me when she picked me up from school, but it didn't really sink in until I saw the news footage.  What part of New Jersey, does anyone know? I grew up in New Jersey and I remember the skies were dark for a couple days after.  11 people from my hometown died, plus many people who were safe were trapped in the city until late at night.  I don't see how anyone could have missed it.

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19 minutes ago, TuringMachine said:

I was 10.  I remember my mom telling me when she picked me up from school, but it didn't really sink in until I saw the news footage.  What part of New Jersey, does anyone know? 

From what I can find, she says that it was a "very rural area." She was old enough to remember living there before they moved to Georgia and calls herself a "Jersey girl." It just adds a whole 'nother layer of what the fuck to all this that she has a direct connection with a state so heavily affected by 9/11.

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When I was a little girl growing up in South Jersey, we lived in a home that had woods behind the property.  I used to pretend that I was Pocohantas…except my Indian name was Cheetah girl. 

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Jeremy was a Tennessee boy when our romance began and me, well, I am a Jersey girl through and through. 

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When we moved from a very rural area in New Jersey to the suburbs of Atlanta, we were immediately enrolled in our local public schools.  My mom and dad were both educators in Jersey and when we moved, my dad took a position with a company that dealt with computers in the medical field.  It was a really good job for him financially but it meant that he was traveling alot and I think he missed the interaction that comes with teaching (and coaching since he was like a coach of a million sports at the highschool).  

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Seriously Katie…spotted cheetah jeans?!  Oh yes.  It’s my Jersey coming out.

 

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17 minutes ago, Kittikatz said:

That takes a whole lot of self absorption and/or repression. 

I remember 9/11 vividly - saw the second plane strike the tower in the live news just before I left for work. People on the bus were talking about it and there were a couple of people who were insisting that it had to be accidents or that the air traffic control people would have known where the planes were heading to so the buildings would have all been evacuated before the planes hit (WTF does not describe those people's reactions). One lady just would not stop talking - loudly - about her kid's upcoming birthday party until finally someone told her that nobody cared and to STFU.

Some people just go out of their way to block or minimise anything unpleasant. Meanwhile pessimistic kittikatz was wondering about a friend who worked for a firm located there and thinking that almost nobody was going to make it out while trying to calculate the average number of people per floor and trying to keep it together all day... I was surprised that so many did manage to evacuate. The whole disaster was just horrific, and the increased military and security checkpoints, and quiet skies for days afterwards were unnerving as was waiting to see how America would respond. 

I remember the discussion that it could have been an accident when the first plane hit (approx. 8:46 ET), but once the second plane hit (approx. 9:03 ET) we knew it wasn't an accident. (I mean, there wasn't proof at that point. But in your gut, you just knew...you know?)

God, I remember that day. I looked up the timeline to get the exact times above, and now it's all coming back to me. I am younger than this mommy blogger and I was so impacted - how the hell didn't she know what "the deal was"??

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16 minutes ago, wotdancer said:

God, I remember that day. 

I once made the mistake of watching the live footage from the Today Show. It brought it all back like it was yesterday. 

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45 minutes ago, ViolaSebastian said:

When I was a little girl growing up in South Jersey, we lived in a home that had woods behind the property.  I used to pretend that I was Pocohantas…except my Indian name was Cheetah girl.

She said this...on a public page...as an adult? Isn't she just special. :pb_rollseyes:

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1 hour ago, louisa05 said:

When I taught American government, I frequently had high school juniors and seniors in the class who did not know anything about current politics beyond the president's name--and a few times, not even that if it had recently changed. In 2000 (a year in which I did not teach gov't), a 16 year old sophomore literally said this in my English classroom on Election Day: "Is there some election thing today? Is it for something big?". 

Why did this continually happen? Because so many parents have decided to "protect" ttheir kids from unpleasant news. Or news that might become unpleasant. Or any news. I never taught a semester of government without at least one parent complaining about classroom discussions of current events and politics on the grounds that it was all too negative and too stressful for their little darlings--who were either old enough to vote or very close to it--to handle. My standard answer was that you absolutely cannot expect kids who have been completely unaware of the world to flip a switch at 18 and become engaged and intelligent voters. Parents need to think twice about sheltering kids from everything. It is better to consider how to engage them in age appropriate ways. 

It’s funny because my parents were strict about movies and tv shows. No sex or gore or even excessive cussing. Yet they always let us watch the news. No matter the topic. My mom watched a lot of news so in high school, I was always the best at the current events game we played in social studies class. My kids are still young so I don’t watch much news around them. But I don’t want to shield them forever. I don’t want to overload them with “bad news” but I also won’t put a bubble in place. Finding the happy medium will probably be hard for me.

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58 minutes ago, Kittikatz said:

I remember 9/11 vividly - saw the second plane strike the tower in the live news just before I left for work. People on the bus were talking about it and there were a couple of people who were insisting that it had to be accidents or that the air traffic control people would have known where the planes were heading to so the buildings would have all been evacuated before the planes hit (WTF does not describe those people's reactions). One lady just would not stop talking - loudly - about her kid's upcoming birthday party until finally someone told her that nobody cared and to STFU.

I remember seeing the feed on TV after the first tower was hit, but before the second, and thinking that it had to be an accident. I didn't realize yet that it was a jet and figured some little propeller plane had screwed up majorly and while some people would have been hurt or killed it only affected a few people, right? The tower wasn't going to collapse...

That lasted maybe fifteen minutes before I realized it was a jet and that another was crashing. I was in high school at the time. How could she have missed ANY of that?

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I am not American, I was two months shy of my 14th bday and I remember it as if it happened yesterday. How big was the rock she was hiding under?

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32 minutes ago, JermajestyDuggar said:

It’s funny because my parents were strict about movies and tv shows. No sex or gore or even excessive cussing. Yet they always let us watch the news. No matter the topic. My mom watched a lot of news so in high school, I was always the best at the current events game we played in social studies class. My kids are still young so I don’t watch much news around them. But I don’t want to shield them forever. I don’t want to overload them with “bad news” but I also won’t put a bubble in place. Finding the happy medium will probably be hard for me.

The notion that you can't have a news broadcast on around young children is really not a good one. What you are modeling to them is that you don't interact with current events. Read news in their presence, turn on the news on the radio--NPR is good about warning when a story might be explicit or unsettling to some listeners so then you can flip the station. Talk about current events that are age appropriate. Discuss events with your partner in their ear shot--again to model that it is good to be aware and interested. Take them with you when you vote or let them see the ballot if you vote by mail and explain what it is and why you do it. During presidential elections, talk about the candidates--again in an age appropriate manner. You're not going to tell a 4-5 year old that Trump brought up the size of his penis at a debate, but you can tell them who is running and that before we vote, we want to know what they think about important things. Talk about local issues that affect them. If you have a primary kid and there is a school bond in your district, explain that all the adults get to vote to decide if they get a new school/expanded school/whatever is on the bond. 

My nephew was 6 and in kindergarten when 9/11 happened. His mother explained to him that some bad men crashed planes into buildings and hurt a lot of people. We answered his questions. We let him see pictures and video of memorial services. We did not let him see the video of the planes or the buildings collapsing. Obviously, the most disturbing event in our recent history. It was not possible to hide that from a kid nor would it have been healthy so you explain it in an age appropriate way and let them interact with those things in the media that are appropriate for them to see. 

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