I didn't have school from 7th to 12th grade due to war. AMA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were schools closed for that long if the war lasted from 1992 till 1995?

The siege of Sarajevo did not end until 1996 and even after that, many schools were completely destroyed and everything was in shambles. They probably did not have spaces, teachers hired, etc. for a while.

Exactly, they sort of started school back in 1997 but it was a joke. I still made a typo though. I meant 10th grade. My bad.

[Anonymous]

Thanks for this post, OP. I work in a part of the world where education was massively disrupted for much of the 90s, and it's a mixed bag in terms of the "lost generation." Those with resources tended to emerge in an okay position, but the educational and social impact of that period can't be ignored.

However, that was almost a decade of disruption. We are talking about a year or two, with distance learning, and the impact will be much less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were schools closed for that long if the war lasted from 1992 till 1995?

My apologies, I made a typo in the title. I meant to say 10th grade, not 12th. I should have proofed that better.

Thanks! Do you have friends here from your country? Are you only sticking with your own ethnic group or are you friends with most of former Yugoslavs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for this post, OP. I work in a part of the world where education was massively disrupted for much of the 90s, and it's a mixed bag in terms of the "lost generation." Those with resources tended to emerge in an okay position, but the educational and social impact of that period can't be ignored.

However, that was almost a decade of disruption. We are talking about a year or two, with distance learning, and the impact will be much less.

Exactly!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were schools closed for that long if the war lasted from 1992 till 1995?

The siege of Sarajevo did not end until 1996 and even after that, many schools were completely destroyed and everything was in shambles. They probably did not have spaces, teachers hired, etc. for a while.

Hundreds of thousands of people were displaced, either internally or as refugees, and large swathes of the major cities were reduced to rubble. Signing the peace accords did not mean a return to normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were schools closed for that long if the war lasted from 1992 till 1995?

My apologies, I made a typo in the title. I meant to say 10th grade, not 12th. I should have proofed that better.

Thanks! Do you have friends here from your country? Are you only sticking with your own ethnic group or are you friends with most of former Yugoslavs?

I don't really have an ethnic group since I'm half Serb half Bosniac (what you'd consider ethnically Muslim). I have family on both sides. The only thing that matters to me is character. I do tend to stay away from Serb apologists and deniers of what happened.

[Anonymous]

Since it's an AMA:

1. Have you been back recently? How are things now? Do they still have "warning: land mines" signs all over the country side?

2. Was there any animosity against those who escaped to the safe havens in Europe during the war? I have friends who stayed and friends who left, so that's why I ask.

3. What was the dating scene like after? I was in Sarajevo and Bihac in the early 2000's, in my 20's, and a lot of the men I met in the same age range seemed to have serious PTSD (can't blame them) but the other issue is, there just weren't that many men left in that age range.

[Anonymous]

How are your children doing at this time? Do you think they are too soft and coddled? Do you feel like you don't understand what you endured (of you have shared with them)? Do you think they interrupted any epigenetic trauma through your experience?

Is your spouse an immigrant and of so, similar background as yours?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such an inspirational and calming post. Thank you so much, OP.

Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to provide some comfort and assurance that things will be ok in the end.

Everyone knows that this will work out just fine for the 5-10% who are some combination of rich/bright/driven.

Unfortunately, lots of kids are poor, not driven, average to below average intelligence, anxious, depressed, have special needs, have home security..... and the list goes on. By its very definition, 50% of kids are below average intelligence. I think that for most of those kids, things will not "be ok in the end". That doesn't even begin to take into account special needs, poverty, hunger, depression, inherent personality traits.....

Easily 70% (and i'd venture much more than that) of kids don't have the assets/resources/natural inclination to be the kid who gets a top university degree after surviving the Bosnian war. A huge number of those kids are definitely going to be worse off because of distance learning than they would have been with in person school. They may not die, or not go to college. But to act like everyone has the natural inclination to have the same success story as the OP is delusional.

That's not to say OP's story isn't motivating and nice to hear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Since it's an AMA:

1. Have you been back recently? How are things now? Do they still have "warning: land mines" signs all over the country side?

2. Was there any animosity against those who escaped to the safe havens in Europe during the war? I have friends who stayed and friends who left, so that's why I ask.

3. What was the dating scene like after? I was in Sarajevo and Bihac in the early 2000's, in my 20's, and a lot of the men I met in the same age range seemed to have serious PTSD (can't blame them) but the other issue is, there just weren't that many men left in that age range.

1. I went back 3 years ago. Most of my immediate family is either dead or elsewhere in the world so I don't have a reason to go more often. I didn't see any land mine warnings this time around. I think they finally cleaned up most of them.

2. I think there was jealousy of course that some made it out. The only animosity occurred when they tried to tell us how hard their life was in other countries. However hard their lives were tyring to learn new languages and starting their life over, they did it under much better circumstances. And, of course, they lived to tell us about it.

3. I left in 1999 and dated some before I left. I can't say I noticed their PTSD since it probably seemed normal to me at the time. I think the shortage of men was more obvous in smaller towns rather than Sarajevo. I avoided dating Bosnian men (even the very few I met) because most of them are still very old fashioned when it comes to women. Not all, of course, but I never found one I considered making my life with. Now that I'm divorced, I wonder if it wouldn't have been better to be with someone I have more in common with as far as history. I think being in a long term relationship with someone who has been through this much trauma is very, very hard (me included).

What were you doing in Sarajevo and Bihac in 2000?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How are your children doing at this time? Do you think they are too soft and coddled? Do you feel like you don't understand what you endured (of you have shared with them)? Do you think they interrupted any epigenetic trauma through your experience?

Is your spouse an immigrant and of so, similar background as yours?

In some ways I think my child is coddled. In other ways my child has to live with me so how coddled can he be

I tell my child some things, but he is too young to comprehend all of it or even most of it. Perhaps when he is an adult I'll share more especially if we travel back to Bosnia together. I have not heard of epigenetic trauma. I'll have to research that.

My child lives with a mother who has PTDS and extreme anxiety and I'd be a fool if I thought that doesn't impact him greatly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why were schools closed for that long if the war lasted from 1992 till 1995?

My apologies, I made a typo in the title. I meant to say 10th grade, not 12th. I should have proofed that better.

Thanks! Do you have friends here from your country? Are you only sticking with your own ethnic group or are you friends with most of former Yugoslavs?

I don't really have an ethnic group since I'm half Serb half Bosniac (what you'd consider ethnically Muslim). I have family on both sides. The only thing that matters to me is character. I do tend to stay away from Serb apologists and deniers of what happened.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Are you in the DMV?

[Anonymous]

Thank you for your perspective. My mother was a child living in Europe during WWII and survived Nazi occupation, hunger and near-starvation, death of both parents due to no medical care, and many other horrors but still managed to get a good education. I think there was some psychological damage but she and her classmates survived and went on to have good lives.

We will be okay. Our kids will be okay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is such an inspirational and calming post. Thank you so much, OP.

Thank you. That's exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to provide some comfort and assurance that things will be ok in the end.

Everyone knows that this will work out just fine for the 5-10% who are some combination of rich/bright/driven.

Unfortunately, lots of kids are poor, not driven, average to below average intelligence, anxious, depressed, have special needs, have home security..... and the list goes on. By its very definition, 50% of kids are below average intelligence. I think that for most of those kids, things will not "be ok in the end". That doesn't even begin to take into account special needs, poverty, hunger, depression, inherent personality traits.....

Easily 70% (and i'd venture much more than that) of kids don't have the assets/resources/natural inclination to be the kid who gets a top university degree after surviving the Bosnian war. A huge number of those kids are definitely going to be worse off because of distance learning than they would have been with in person school. They may not die, or not go to college. But to act like everyone has the natural inclination to have the same success story as the OP is delusional.

That's not to say OP's story isn't motivating and nice to hear.

This is a post about my experience, of course, so I can only speak for myself. I offer my story not as a way of minimizing concerns about our children but to relieve at least some of the anxiety about what is going on today. I do not think that everything will be as if we didn't go through this. I don't think I made that claim anywhre in my posts. Of course there will be effects and it will imact the disadvantaged group the most.

What I am saying is that this generation is not doomed because they aren't having in person instruction for a period of time. The world is not ending as some of the posts from the school forums suggest. Our kids will the the OPPORTUNITY to make up for lost time.