I'm not from the U.S.A., but yes, still terrible conditions in my region and obviously internationally. My older siblings and my cousins (all older) had great childhoods in the 80s and early 90s. I was a late child. Everyone was old and everyone was busy. My parents struggled more and more economically, and my aunts kept telling me how I shouldn't normalize what I was living, but... how? I didn't have the maturity not to do so. I internalized a lot of sh*t. I needed healthcare, but there was not enough money or attention for that; today I live with the consequences. I guess I was sort of neglected. It's hard for me to accept because my mom tried her best, even my dad did. I feel like I'm unthankful if I say it, but it's a sad thing that happened even though they tried to prevent it (they just minimized it, I guess, which is nice).

I definitely don't want a long life. Add all this fascism and dark world that's always existed but now it's blatant and crushing. Now I am tired. I believe the world can be better, but that much better...? It seems that we always have peaceful or abundant times that, nonetheless, brew and cement darker times. Human vices never rest, they just get in check from time to time. It's a constant struggle against the greedy ones, the sadistic ones, etc. Of course I'm not having kids. You don't throw more wood into a fire, as some say. And I just hope that we can collectively achieve some better times, a better period in our history. I have little faith on that (and little interest to fully participate in it once achieved because I would still be tired), but it would be nice (and fighting for it is still a duty, so here I am trying to help as much as I can).

Sorry for the oversharing. Just the perspective from a person born in the mid 90s.

USian ‘90s born:

• 9/11 before kindergarten, watched it on live TV.

• Increasing school shootings year over year

• Incessant racism by paranoid family members and media writ large (which made even little me feel icky)

• 2008 Great Recession. Constant fear of where my next meal was coming from all through middle school.

• More school shootings

• Was supposed to idolize a man who dumped drone bombs on foreign kids because at least he wasn’t Bush. Still wondered why we had troops in the Middle East if things were supposed to be better?

• At least equal marriage was federally legalized in 2015. Yay

• Missed the deadline to vote in 2016 due to moving issues, had to watch hell happen in real time.

• Lived in a major city, therefore in constant fear of nuclear holocaust due to a deranged rapist not keeping his mouth shut. After growing up in fear of anthrax in the mail and getting gunned down at school :)))

• Told that college was the only way I’d make anything of myself. Graduated into COVID.

• Watched reproductive rights get ripped away from millions after my family scoffed that they wouldn’t. My own grandmother had bodily rights longer than I did.

• Been pinching my nose and voting consistently since 2018, but still see fascism come roaring back full swing and transphobia+racism+now pedophilia get openly celebrated by a majority of rubes.

Plus a ton of my own health issues that only worsened after getting COVID (and that’s with the vaccine, I fear for what would have happened without it)? Yeah, I’m waiting to get off the ride but refuse to do it myself out of spite.

I want to see the obituaries of at least a few of these bastards, first.

Lol yep. Except it's weird, I remember the world generally getting worse, but people getting less bad for a lot of my childhood. Around the beginning of my memories every adult in the country lost their goddamn mind and a lot of them got super racist to middle eastern folks. So yeah over the course of the 00s I watched as insane people chilled out and my generation became increasingly chill with people of different skin colors, religions, genders, and sexual orientations. I watched as Obama was elected, homophobia became uncool, and Americans learned to get over themselves and eat a falafel.

Then in college gamergare happened and the one area where things had been improving became a constant battle. So yeah hope faded to anger. I still have hope, but it's a very different hope than one of my youth

‘90-‘99 checking in, yep.