Growing Up to be Something Your Father Hates
A Trump supporter and a liberal living together sounds more like the opening to a questionable political joke than a real-life occurrence. Growing up a Democrat in a conservative household, I know better than most how politics can create and destroy relationships. I learned the hard way how polarizing and vilifying opposing ideologies can be, especially at home.
Political views are something that almost every parent impresses onto their child as they grow.
Popular belief states that family is the primary influence on the politics of children [1]. However, distraught parents are discovering that forcing their views on their kids often has the opposite of the desired effect. A 2014 article published by the British Journal of Political Science found that “children who are most likely to initially acquire the political views of their parents are also most likely to later abandon them as a result of their own engagement with the political world” [2]. Put simply, if someone pushes their personal ideologies onto their kids, they could potentially risk them rebelling against what they were taught.
It’s strange to think of myself as a statistic. I used to believe that my situation was unique- nearly every person who I met in my teenage years had political views similar or identical to that of their parents. I could never have imagined that the phenomenon that was straining my relationship with my father was not only a common occurrence, but a symptom of an increasingly polarized society and a politically aggressive era where ideological divides are felt in even the most sacred and traditional of institutions.
Although my father didn’t take the balanced approach to parenting, his intent wasn’t malicious. Like most parents, my father had an intrinsic want for his child to grow up to reflect him. As such, my home was never an apolitical safe space. From a young age, my father instilled in me the importance of politics — more specifically, the importance of Republican politics and ideology.
But for as much time as we spent discussing politics, I didn’t realize just how important being a Republican was to my father until years later. I thought we had bonded over shared views, that it was our thing, like other father-daughter pairs have sports or chess. My misconception became abundantly clear once I started questioning what I was taught.
As I became more aware of politics, my relationship with my father soured. After one heated argument after another, my father took to calling me the very names that he used to reserve solely for untrustworthy Democrats and corrupt liberals, and I took to coming up with new words to insult him back. For all of my father’s great qualities, during these times, I did not respect him. I didn’t respect myself either. I was acting in a way that I hated, but with a different political stance.
I found my father-daughter bond when I embraced my father’s ideals, yet, as I discovered more about myself, I rejected the same principles my father taught me. Truthfully, I don’t know what I would be politically if my father hadn’t pushed me so far in one direction. Perhaps I would have been a conservative, just as passionate about politics as I am now. Maybe I would have ended up completely apolitical. I doubt however, that I would have ended up such a passionate liberal.
Ironically, the one lesson my father didn’t intend to teach me stuck with me. Being passionate about politics and having close family ties do not need to be mutually exclusive. I will not force politics on my children, as it was done to me. If they become Democrats, I will respect them. If they become Republicans, I will also respect them. If they are completely apolitical, I will still respect them. Human decency and parental love and understanding are more important than being right, and for that bit of wisdom, I have to thank my father.
References
[1] Davies, James C. “The Family’s Role in Political Socialization.” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 361. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1035983.
[2] Patterson, Te-Erika. “Do Children Just Take Their Parents’ Political Beliefs? It’s Not That Simple.” The Atlantic. April 13, 2016. Accessed July 16, 2018. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/05/parents-political-beliefs/361462/.
