Recession

Preface: This was written in Spring 2019 for my graduate school program. I made some minor edits.

I lived through a recession.

What does that mean exactly? I still don’t understand. A quick google search says the Great Recession happened between 2007 and 2013. It began when I was fourteen years old and ended when I was nineteen.

How did that affect me? My parents bought their house in 2003, before the crisis. My last little sister was born in 2008, which I suppose put a financial strain on my family. I spent every day after school, babysitting my little sisters. I hardly saw my parents for a few years there while my mom worked every night and my dad worked every day and both came home and slept, and I had to stay home and looked after my sisters.

Oh. That’s why that happened.

We needed money.

We were poor.

I remember my parents cancelling the cable for a point in time. Not a big deal, except it was because we had never had to cancel the cable before and to a teenager who is old enough to notice but not old enough to understand anything about it, a teenager whose best friend has just moved away, a teenager who uses television to escape, it is incredibly difficult. There is a lot of crying, though I do not understand still why it hits me so hard. Maybe because I knew at that point something was wrong. I was starting to understand that sometimes, things will not be okay, no matter how hard your parents want to protect you from the truth.

They protected me less than my sisters, who are currently being raised in a good economy. Or, well, a better one. They feel self-worth. There are articles talking about everything millennials have ruined, from the diamond industry to napkins to marriage. It makes sense. I still don't know how to buy new clothes. Even if there are holes or tears or stains, I hesitate to throw them away. My body has never felt the luxury of style, only of convenience.

They say millennials are a jaded generation of survivors. I do not disagree. My sisters have the chance to live, to have after school activities, to not spend their time changing diapers, to not worry if our parents are going to pay all the bills next month. They get to see them every day before they go to bed. Our parents can have reasonable hours. They have support.

The recession changed a generation, but I do not care about a generation. I do not care about the anxiety-stricken, jaded, nostalgic group of people that were created as a result. I am a little more selfish than that. I am upset because I wanted to lead the life my sisters have and I can’t. I was born too early or too late and now I am here. I am nostalgic for a past I did not get to have.

I’m still glad they are too young to remember.

My younger sister is a little more arrogant and conceited and cocky and comfortable. My youngest sibling is even worse. She is happy and spoiled. She knows what it is like to be coddled. However, you are supposed to want better for your children and, in essence, they are like my children. Trauma made them my children.

I have accepted that my childhood was different than theirs and that life is not fair. I had to grow up much faster than they did, but I would not trade them for the world.

Still. I really hate that godawful recession.