More liberal now, much, much less religious and as a result less judgmental.
I feel free now; before, I felt oppressed.
I am far less fiscally liberal than I was when I was young. I used to believe in social programs, but the longer I work hard to support myself, the less I feel like supporting anyone else. My father used to have a sign in his office that says “Failure to plan on your part does not constitute and emergency on my part”, and I believe that.
Not that I don’t believe that people never deserve help - I believe children and animals particularly deserve the essentials. But if you have the mental capacity to work, then you should. If you only have the capacity to bag groceries, you should do that. If you’ve been physically incapacitated but still have the ability to talk on the phone and type in a computer, you should be working. If you chose to get a Master’s degree in 17th Century literature and the only job you can get is stocking at Wal-Mart, you’d better be willing to don a blue apron. And don’t expect me to foot the bill for your education. When I was young, I probably would’ve loved the movie Rent. Seeing it as a 48 year old, I just wanted to tell the adults to grow up and support themselves. Adults should take care of themselves.
StG
Change of opinion? About myself, absolutely. I’ve gone from a depressed (it got pretty bad yes), confused, wishywashy, directionless, shy wallflower with absolutely no clue as to whom I was to, well, where most of those things have turned around 180 degrees (or 540, or something). If I had known many things I now know about myself that I was completely ignorant of back then, well, you know.
I can’t think of anything I’ve changed my opinion on since adulthood, which makes me wonder if I am foolishly stubborn or if I was just right all along.
There are lots of things I can think of. Here are only a few:
I thought fat people were lazy slobs who didn’t have any self control. Until I started working full time, had a couple kids and - voila! - overweight. I’m correcting it, but never realized how insidious weight gain can be until reality set in, along with 20 extra pounds.
I made promises to myself about what I would do when I was a parent. I’ll never formula feed, I’ll never cosleep, I’ll never feed my baby store-bought baby food, let him/her use a pacifier, threaten to pull over the car, etc. I’ve broken every single one of those promises with the exception of the pacifier, but not for lack of trying (neither would take one).
I used to look down on women who chose not to work as “just housewives.” Now I think that the feminist movement, while in many cases invaluable, actually backed many women into a corner with respect to their careers. Most women I know who admit to being stay-at-home moms or housewives say it kind of sheepishly like it’s something they should be ashamed of, and I think that sucks.
I guess going from Catholic to atheist.
This time a million.
Something that got on my nerves a long time ago, was a friend’s father who always had an answer for every situation. It took me years to figure out why that truly bothered me. I thought it was just because I disagreed with his point of view at first. Then I realized that he sometimes had decent points, but I couldn’t stand his approach to any argument.
Because in his mind he was never wrong. If he was wrong in the past, then surely it was just some sort of misunderstanding.
My personal opinions have been silly in the past due to youth. My opinions are silly now due to lack of experience. My opinions will continue to change with age due to my own experiences, and how I choose to view them. Anyone who thinks they are done growing by any age that doesn’t kill them is an idiot.
This is coming from a 31 year old by the way.
Not going to think about ‘biggest’, 'cause that’s too much work right now.
But…
…I can recall, relive, EXACTLY what I felt and thought as I made various decisions and did various things when I was 16, everything from first sex to first sneaking out of the house to first drink; and I thought then, and STILL THINK, that everything I did was something I’d do again, given the same information. I was fairly practical.
Knowing all of that, I still can’t imagine my 16-year old niece going through any of that without my thinking ‘OMG NO CRAP SHE’S TOO YOUNG AND GOING TO SCREW UP!!’
It’s VERY weird having those two points of view at one time, and agreeing with both of them. O.o
I had already gone through my major changes by my late teens . . . then spent the remaining years transforming from Objectivist to Recovering Objectivist. The major changes have been political, changing from Libertarian to something like a Clinton Democrat. Sadly, it looks like whichever group is in power has an equal chance of making a horrible mess of everything. I’m quickly becoming apolitical.
I went from fairly communist in upbringing to a hardcore capitalist in university to a fairly staunch anarchist the last 10 years.
Despite my personal pacifism, I’ve come around to the pro-gun-ownership (for others) side of the gun control debate, as a direct result of debates I’ve lurked in here.
ETA; Oh, and I guess going from thinking I was gay in my twenties to being more of a slightly-bisexual-but-really-likes-the-ladies-more should be in there.
I used to think that it was more important to be right than to be kind.
I now think the opposite.
Same here.
I guess my adult life overall could be characterized by my becoming gradually more accepting of people, and less neurotically protective of myself. If I were to live to 1000, I might have some hope of getting to where I’d really like to be.
Absolutely! I turned 18 in 1963 (less than a month before the assassination of President Kennedy). I was brought up to believe that being a housewife was the ultimate goal for women, that jobs were only “something to fall back on” if things got tough. And although homosexuality wasn’t much discussed in my group of friends or in my family, I knew that it was unacceptably icky. Now I know that women should be as free as men to pursue the options they choose, whether that is a career or full-time momhood. And I believe that as long as marriage is the only route to some benefits and privileges, it should be available to any who want to make that commitment. Even my belief that “living in sin” was, well, a sin, has fallen by the wayside.
But I honestly don’t know which of these changes were the result of my own soul-searching and which were a response to the growing enlightenment of the times. I don’t know if I could have reached my current beliefs completely on my own against the tide of popular opinion.
I’m 43 and it wasn’t until I was 40 that I got somewhat comfortable having babies and kids around. I really never had many dealings with them because my social circle was pretty much child free/less singles or if they did have kids they were older and in school. My nephews and neice have always been several hours away and I’d usually only see them for the holidays or family get togethers so they’d be busy with their parents, cousins so I really didn’t see too much of them.
I recently got married and my wife has a son who has a 3 year old and another on the way. I am much more comfortable around babies now and at times even enjoy it. I still don’t want any of my own and don’t want to live with any, but overall, I’ve grown more tolerant to there presence.
I used to be a republican, and spoken with pride. I disagreed with a few social issues (abortion at the time, SSM wasn’t a big issue when I started down the repub road), but thought that they were more fiscally conservative.
Now, it seems like the party is all about telling everyone else how to live (abortion, SSM) and doesn’t practice the fiscal conservatism they way I thought they did. Plus, its now super religious and I just am not interested in supporting a party that makes such a big deal out of a person’s private beliefs.
Now, I certainly would not say I am a Dem, as they have issues that I disagree with as well. It just seems that there are fewer people over there trying to bludgeon everyone with their religion, and not minding their own damn business when it comes to people’s personal choices.
Does it count as a change of opinion if you end up back where you started? If it does, then my other huge change of opinion is similar to jsgoddess’ experience, except that I was an atheist as a young person, tried like hell to convince myself that I was religious in my mid-20’s through my 30’s. Only in the last few years have I accepted that I really don’t believe in a deity, that I need not act as though I believe in one, and that I’m not doing anyone any favors by letting people think I do.
Catholic to atheist was a big switch, but that really started in my teens, so it doesn’t count.
Probably the biggest change as a more-or-less adult has been my attitude about language. I was your typical lay-grammarian: someone who’d read a lot and paid attention in school and thought they knew what was “good” or “proper” English and what was “bad” English. A dialect like “Ebonics” (scare quotes there because I hate the term, since AAVE isn’t just phonetic features) was just “lazy English.” Then I took my first course in sociolinguistics in college, and very quickly (by the end of the first lecture, I think) realized how ignorant I’d been. Even now, I remember that first rush of realization, feeling rather like a poleaxed cow.
Since my late teens, I felt no desire to ever be a parent. Babies had absolutely zero appeal for me (in fact, my honest reaction to a baby was revulsion); older children had no effect or interest for me; I didn’t like or dislike them – just nothing. Only when they reached their early teens could I began to relate to them as pre-adults.
My wife cared even less than I did about children, so we chose to remain childless. That was 40 years ago, we’re still happily married, and we’ve never felt the slightest twinge of regret.
So I think it’s safe to say that I never had a “Daddy chromosome” or whatever. BUT… about twenty years ago, when I hit 40, my “Grandfather” switch must have gotten turned on, and for the first time in my life I found myself enjoying the little sticky people, and that appreciation has only grown stronger since then. (Although babies still repel me.)
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I used to be judgmental and intolerant, and now I understand that everyone is fighting some sort of personal battle, and I have much more empathy, and give people more slack. I’m far slower to take offense, and far quicker to offer friendship.
I’ve gone from being very liberal on issues like defense and international relations, to being pretty conservative. Ten years in the military, seeing the world’s trouble spots with my own two eyes, and fighting in the Gulf War had a lot to do with this.
I don’t believe that any one political group has all the answers now, or ever will. If the candidate’s lips are moving, they’re lying, and any choice will always be the lesser of two evils.
On other issues I’ve become more liberal. I don’t care about your sex life, don’t want to know about it, and don’t want the government to interfere with it. I don’t believe in the death penalty anymore. Too many innocent people have died, and DNA is setting wrongly imprisoned people free everyday.
I have a much different view of marriage, relationships and women now than I did at 20. I’m happily divorced and enjoying some well-deserved solitude.