Anyone else have political opinions very different from your parents'?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve read in a number of places that people’s political opinions tend to correlate pretty well with the political opinions that their parents hold.

Not in my family. My parents are conservative and Republican (though pro-choice), and my sister and I are dyed-in-the-wool liberals. The really funny thing is, I can’t remember deciding to consciously reject their opinions- I’ve been a liberal pretty much ever since I started thinking about political issues.

Anyone else have political opinions that are totally different from your parents’ opinions? Do you remember deciding to disagree with their opinions, or have you just always been the way you are?

2

It’s kind of hard to say, for me. Back home in New Brunswick, Canada, my parents are Conservative. I thought myself a pretty proud little Liberal when I first was able to vote. Perhaps interesting to note that I actually voted for Bernard Lord, however, and was damn pleased with him as our Premier. Shawn Graham, on the other hand… meh. I loved Bernard. So… I might actually be more of a Conservative - as a Canadian.

Here in the US, on the other hand, I’m much more Liberal. If I could vote, I would be voting for a Democrat (except for money matters for local issues). My parents feel the same way; they loved Bill, don’t like the Bushes.

Conservative Canadian, Liberal American. But… I think my parents are, too.

3

Half and half.

My parents are both extremely liberal. I’m somewhere in the middle. My sister is also extremely liberal. As is my boyfriend. In fact, I’m one of the most conservative people I hang around with.

But we all follow a live and let live mentality, so we get along great. They don’t care that I support the death penalty, and I don’t care that they’re all treehuggers.

~Tasha

4

We get along by not discussing politics. I have no idea what they think about the war in Iraq, for example. Mr. Neville’s family does like to discuss politics, which was quite surprising to me when I first started seeing him- I was totally not used to the idea of discussing politics with one’s parents.

5

My family is a bit split in terms of political ideals. My dad’s family are Welsh nationalist and communists, my mother’s family are Irish nationalist but very conservative. I suppose I am somewhere in the middle, mostly socialist. So I guess I am different from both my parents. My brother has no interest in politics.

6

I have very different political opinions from most of the rest of my family. They are wealthy, conservative Catholics.

I am a middle class ultra-nonconservative atheist. I’m on the wacky side of liberal/libertarian thinking.

The change happened once I completely rejected Christianity. I realized that I was doing a lot of “God will sort it out” handwaving. Once I abandoned that, I realized that we’re all we’ve got, so it’d better be done right.

7

My parents are moderate conservatives (“New England Conservatives” as I like to say) while I am a moderate libertarian (note the small “L”).

My friends and I have a rule: Do not discuss politics when drinking.

8

Absolutely. I have no party affiliation, but I tend to be more liberal on many issues. My parents, on the other hand, are die-hard conservatives. Mom especially. She watches “The O’Reilly Factor” religiously and often tells me that Bush is the greatest president we’ve ever had. I can’t say anything remotely negative about the Bush administration when visiting my parents. If I do, they shout me down and tell me that I’ve been brainwashed by the “liberal media.” :rolleyes:

9

My parents are conservative, pro-life, antiwar, anti-death penalty. In 2004 my mother voted for Bush (Mom’s pro-life and worried about terrorism) and my father voted for Kerry (Dad’s *very *antiwar).

I’m now well to the left of both of them, as is one of my two sisters. But unlike many people, I didn’t change my politics until *after *college.

10

My mother has always been more conservative than me. She definitely taught me about the importance of treating everyone equally–but she has a weird kind of chip on her shoulder regarding inequality. You see, she had me when she was 19, and was on welfare while she attended college for her degree… a single parent much of the time, and had to really work hard to both simultaneously raise me and achieve her life goals.

But her attitude isn’t so much “Let’s acknowledge systemic equality in our government’s structure,” but rather, “If I could become an engineer as a single parent, ANYBODY can succeed!” She basically views sexism and racism as the same thing, and gets offended by help centers that single out any disadvantaged group–she once had a friendship breakdown with a black friend because he wanted to start a youth center for disadvantaged black youth–she saw the “black” requirement as discriminatory… she totally doesn’t understand that racism and systemic inequality still exist in this country. She’s pro-welfare but quite anti-union. She’s also fond of using expressions like, “Don’t let the terrorists win” and in all seriousness she has called me on the phone and said, “The government has told us that we must be vigilant…” as if her watching people out the blinds was going to protect us all from terrorism (remember that blackout that swept the north and the midwest a few years ago? She was utterly convinced it was the terrorists.) She has a “USA” license plate and all that, she prays to Jesus (which is weird–when I was growing up I was a bible-thumping Christian and she was quite agnostic.) She’s quite conservative in terms of her support for the president, the Iraq war, and her strict pro-life perspectives. She’s very much a proponent of the “people must pull themselves up by their own bootstraps” ideology.

Me? Oh god I’m crazy liberal. I didn’t have an interest in politics until I went to college. 9-11 happened my freshman year, and it had a HUGE impact on the way I view the world. It brought home how much our foreign policy impacts others–and, in a very obvious way that day–our own country. I had the opportunity to attend round-table discussions by students who were from the Middle East–I got the whole academic treatment, from a VERY liberal university. I understood then that the world is not as vast as people seem to insist it is… and that borders are not as relevant as they used to be, owing to the way globalization has impacted the world. I’m an agnostic Zen Buddhist. I’m extremely pro-labor rights, and pretty cynical about capitalism (though NOT a communist), very pro socialized healthcare, pro-immigration, etc. Ironically, I have had some similar experiences to my mother… I emancipated at 17, had to work full-time as a waitress while finishing high school, and have had quite an economic burden throughout college. I haven’t let it stop me from going after my dream of getting a Ph.D, but I view my success as a combination of determination, natural academic talent, government assistance–and LUCK.

For some reason, where my Mom said, “People need to suck it up,” I said, “The system needs to change.”

In a weird twist of fate, she is working a factory job currently. It will be interesting to see how her politics change now that she has working-class friends and has to face the job insecurity and unfairness of the employment system that so many Americans live with their entire lives. Her attitudes have already begun to shift based on her experience as a factory worker. 'Twill be interesting indeed.

11

I hold a lot of the same views my parents held when I was growing up, only they’ve grown out of them. They’re doing the liberal while young, growing ever more conservative as they age thing, complicated by the fact that the lines of D vs R have blurred considerably since their youth.

I think they figured I’d follow the same path, as if liberal ideals are a youthful phase one indulges in until one figures out The Way Things Really Are, but I haven’t and it works out better if we don’t discuss politics.

12

While I usually vote the same way as my mother, there’s many issues in which we disagree.

OTOH, her mother is a catalan independentist (who’s been known to received rebukes like “hey, if people born outside of Catalonia had ‘stayed the fuck off’, you wouldn’t have been born!”), her father took part in church-burnings and claims to have several dead priests under his belt (he avoided becoming the Comisario in a Republican prisoner camp because he was sure their side was going to lose)… she votes right-to-center “unionist” and is daily-mass. She often says that becoming a beata was the biggest rebellion she could take, with parents like those.

I always find it very funny that “Republican” means such different things in different contexts. In mine above it’s Socialists, Communists and Anarchists, definitely not GWB’s idea of perfect breakfast partners :slight_smile:

13

My parents are nutty right-wing hate radio listening Republicans. They are also rascist. I am a left of center Democrat. They try to bait me into arguments, and I refuse not to defend my beliefs. I try to see them as little as possible.

14

I’m not terribly clear on what my dad’s beliefs are, but I suspect that we wouldn’t be far off.

My mom closely guards all sources of information that hit her, so her politics are just imprintings of whatever the current Republican policy of the day is. You can dump a bunch of data on her and eventually she will admit that something she’s said holds all the reality of glowing rhinocerous, but by the next day she’ll have purged her memory of the conversation.

Since she doesn’t have opinions of her own, I couldn’t say that I had the same politics as her even if my politics exactly matched up with whatever was “in” that day.

waves

15

Most of my family is blue collar union-type Democrats. Culturally they lean pretty conservative; on economic issues they’re liberal or populist leaning.

One of my brothers is a centrist Republican, by all indications.

I have an aunt who was an elected official in a small Pennsylvania town (Democrat, of course), and one of my cousins is a very partisan Democrat. A couple of my cousins lean politically conservative, as do I, obviously.

16

Both my parents and my wife’s were pretty conservative. But we’re both pretty liberal.
(Nonetheless, my mom’s getting pretty annoyed at GWB)

17

I didn’t know that any Catholic outside the Kennedy family was allowed to be rich. :slight_smile:

Mine are all conservative republican Catholics whom, I’m pretty sure, have never really had an independent thought in their lives and just do as the previous generation has always done because It Worked For Them and That’s What You Do, Dontcha Know? They are alot of fun to be around, really, but when it gets to politics and religion it’s like we are in the Wayback Machine to the 40’s or something. I will say that all things considered, they have no qualms about sodomy or race stuff. Well, most of them.

The only political party I subscribe too is my own: None of the Above Party. Motto: Other Political Parties are here for our amusement.
I suppose I should just call my party: The Stadler and Waldorf Party

18

My father is a Rush Limbaugh quoting Republican who won’t hear a bad word said about GWB and my mother is a liberal Democrat. Needless to say, they’ve been divorced for almost 40 years. :wink:

My brother and I grew up living with our father. I considered myself as a centrist, but the center moved right on me and now I’m a moderate liberal. My brother is much more liberal than I.

19

My parents hate both parties more or less equally. I am much more forgiving to Democrats than I am to Republicans. We manage this by rarely discussing politics.

Interestingly enough, my parents are both vehemently opposed to the Electoral College, which is perceived as more of a liberal position in the US.

20

Yes. Parents were Democrats.