(When) Did Your Political Ideology Diverge From Your Parents'?

[Wake Me Up When The Hard Border Ends]

Firstly, I will state that my parents are left of centre (if they were American, and would be quite solid Democrats, they would have voted for Mondale in '84.)

My earliest stance on political matters came when I was in third grade, when I expressed my love for guns and money. By eighth grade, I was a very vocal supporter of George W. Bush and the war on terror. In ninth grade, however, my science teacher, who I believed was like a god (I was agnostic and religiously apathetic back then), was a strong supporter of the global warming theory, evolution, green energy, and the bird flu threat, which I lapped up like a cat does milk.

I retained much of these views over the next two years, in part because whenever I brought up opinions like my support for gun rights for example, I was responded to with a strong counter argument from my parents, and I didn't know how to respond very well to these arguments back then. Also, being a typical teenager, I thought the current Prime Minister (J W Howard, who would be a moderate Republican in the US), had been in for too long, purely on the basis of being in office for 10+ years.

My real interest in politics, however, began when I was in twelfth grade and began to watch the famous 1970s sitcom All In The Family. Also in twelfth grade, my father came up to me one day and said "Son, you really DO like George Bush, don't you?", and I became more of a social conservative when I saw something so disgusting on TV, it basically crashed my brain and made me rethink my moral positions. I also started to believe in God and Christianity (I was baptized undefined Christian) around this time.

Basically, I started the year supporting Obama, and by the election came around, I was the only person in my family who wanted McCain to win, even being shunned by a couple of family members. That was the year I began to think for myself, and my political views were more or less separated from my parents'. I realized I didn't have to agree with my parents on most things to be a good son.

Now, I identify with paleoconservatism more than neoconservatism, and I can't see my politics being similar to those of my parents any time soon.