To be more specific, my parents raised my siblings and me to “respect” them, saying "yes sir, and “no ma’am” to everything they said. Spankings, all of that. Typical super conservative evangelical parents. Before I learned better, I was that way too. I went to college and since then have embraced the left more and more.
They’ll say things now and then that are really distasteful politically. Today I made an Instagram post about DeSantis lying about liberal states allowing post-birth abortions and I got several family members railing against me. I’m tired of staying quiet when this happens. I think that, because how my parents raised me, I’m afraid to speak my mind to older family members. Fuck that though.
Has anyone else had this experience? I wonder if therapy would help. I just don’t know how to explain it.
It’s a good question and you’ve gotten some good answers. I’m going to lock this as it is getting political and we don’t have the bandwidth to mod it well.
Here’s my experience:
My wife and I both grew up very conservative evangelical. Over the last 15 years, we went from right to left (which I’m so happy to have had someone on that path).
Meanwhile, a good chunk of our family has gone hard right or turned a blind eye to those who do. My wife and I have taken different approaches. I dropped off all social media where family was. I’ve established my own boundaries based on how batshit crazy they are and how much I want to stay in touch.
Cousin who posts all the conspiracy shit? I’ll see you at wedding and funerals.
Dad who was an amazing father but listens to Tucker Carlson too much? We typically have 2 hours of conversation before we get to politics. So that’s how long we spend together.
My wife deals with that stuff better. She posts on social media but in a kind and persuasive way, never arguing or getting mad on there, even though she is.
For me, the biggest reason why it’s been good to take the more soft approach is the number of people who reach out to us (mostly my wife) because they are beginning to change their views too. They need a safe place to ask questions. This has included a niece who confided that she’s gay and a sibling who went from moderate republican to climate activist vegan. Coming out the other side together bonds us even more.
So, boundaries. Be firm, but kind. Be patient and inviting for those asking questions. Also, yes therapy.
This is solid advice. The importance of setting and enforcing boundaries cannot be overstated, particularly when things are emotionally charged.
I’ve made it very clear that I won’t talk with my parents about politics. Mom can’t help taking the odd pot shot, but I just deflect or ignore it. I don’t engage anymore because there is zero benefit to engaging.
We talk about the things we can talk about and let the rest go. If that becomes not enough for them or they can’t respect boundaries, we scale back contact until they do.
Stay strong!
I don’t argue anymore. You can’t logic them out of something they didn’t logic themselves into.
My father is too far gone and considered an “intellectual” man. My mom thinks she’s “not that smart” (cool, thanks da), but she’s become so much more open and accepting as she’s gotten older and has shifted a lot of her views to be more progressive. Maybe because she realizes that my father, despite being very intelligent, is also an absolute moron who wrecks all his relationships. They’re still together, though.
Therapy can help you cope with the situation, yeah.
My siblings are almost fully split on our views on religion and stuff.
Youngest to oldest: pastor, party girl, anxious wreck withdrawn from society, ex-military, brow-beaten family man, severe mental-illness-ridden mother, literal cult member, golden child/took over family business, ex-Rainbow gathering stereotype, and depressed IT guy who loves drugs, dogs, and the outdoors.
Things get better when you get far away from parents like this. Seriously.
Holy fucking shit your parents had TEN kids?
Religion is a hell of a drug.
Yeah, it wasn’t great. They didn’t believe in birth control and did very much believe that if they had another child, it was God’s will & He would provide.
We’re all pretty fucked up mentally. Don’t love that part.
Whoever downvotes this man, out of touch. We have almost 8 fucking billion people on this planet. Our resources are already stretching. We have enough kids already, 10 is just purely arrogant, and seriously do people not think about what sort of world their kids will grow up in?
We hit 8 billion a few months ago actually.
I feel cynical about this and don’t think we live in a time when most people’s minds can truly be changed. Therefore I choose not to engage most people about politics and so find it easier to like people.
I wish I could find it easier to simply ignore my aging parents’ political views like I do with most acquaintances in the deep red state I live in, but I can’t.
The people who raised me to be kind and emphasize with others now base their worldview in fear and hatred. As far as I’m concerned my parents died sometime around 2016 (or perhaps before then), and there are some kind of racist pod people in their place.
Agreed. I’m old enough to remember when you could have a rational debate with conservatives on a foreign policy question or government budget priorities or economic policy. But how do you argue with someone who believes that millions of illegal votes were cast in 2020 or that Jews secretly control the world financial system or that white people are the real victims of racism?
You can’t argue with someone who lives in a different reality than you do because there are no common points of reference. It’s the most insidious effect of over-exposure to conservative media and I have no idea how people can be deprogrammed.
That’s the approach I’ve taken but not because I’m cynical about it, rather I hate conflict.
Don’t forget who raised you to hate conflict in the first place.
Which means they’ll be easy to beat in political debate! /s
Many people in this thread changed their mind over time.
Same. I’ll rail against people spreading disinformation online, but try to ignore politics as much as possible with friends and family because nobody is going to change their beliefs and we’ll just both wind up pissed at each other.
Remember to debate with your brain not your heart. When you feel emotions taking hold relax and breathe.
Obviously the DeSantis thing is a lie. Ask them to show you you proof, they won’t. I’ve flat out told friends that if they fall for a lie that’s one thing. If they go around repeating it without seeing if it’s true first then they are a tool of the person lying to them
Well, things went well for a while because we didn’t talk about things. Now we don’t talk at all.
For context I’m left, and most of my relatives are some flavor of far right christo-fascist, white nationalist, or literal neo-nazis.
I openly speak out against their bullshit when they start spewing it.
I also did this with any of my relatives.
Of course at this point most of my relatives openly wish to hunt people like me (lefty queer folk) so most of us have blocked each other. Funnily enough primarily they’ve blocked me rather than me blocking them.
Something about calling them snowflakes when they’d inevitably lose their shit when faced with facts seemed to trigger them.
Edit: Here’s a bit of advice more people should take to heart and something that I learned as a teen. Family is the relationship, blood doesn’t matter. So if your relatives are terrible people, feel free to no longer consider them family.
One of my brothers is in an interracial gay marriage, my sister is in an interracial international gay marriage, and I married a trans woman. So they’re kind of running out of things they can bitch about in front of us.
Dad and my stepmom are handled in radically different ways. I can talk with dad. When it comes to politics, we don’t agree on much, but we have similar ideas of right and wrong. He’s intelligent and thoughtful. I often ask him for his perspective on things in the news. We’ll usually come to different conclusions, but he can explain his point of view in a respectful way. I appreciate that. We probably both look at each other and think “he’s a knucklehead sometimes, but at least his heart is in the right place”.
My stepmom is something else entirely. There are a lot of things I like about her, but I absolutely can’t stand her politics, or her manner of “discussing” them. She can’t even say the name “Biden” without sounding like she’s spitting out something rotten. Her idea of “discussion” is a shallow, mindless summary of the last thing she saw on Fox News, and she interrupts you if you disagree even slightly. She gets louder, more emotional, and even more harsh and defensive the longer the conversation goes on (the most I’ve been able to withstand is about three minutes). I go out of my way to avoid mentioning anything political when she’s within earshot.
I remind myself that compared to a lot of people, I have it easy.
It depends on how open they are to listening. If they won’t listen, I don’t talk about my views.
Try to understand why they believe what they do. Ask them about their sources, and their experiences. Be friendly, and ready to question your own convictions, if you want a dialogue and not a fight.
Make understanding your main objective, don’t expect to change their minds. Understanding why they think like they do will make your life easier. Them understanding your motives, that you’re not simply a brainwashed woke brat, will make your life easier.
I know why they think the way they do, and it’s brainwashing from being raised Christian. I was raised that way so I do understand the thought behind it, but it’s so hard to have compassion for people who never care to try to understand people who don’t believe in that. I’ll try though.
Aye. Understanding it doesn’t make them easier to get along with.
My da has unprocessed trauma yet refuses to address it, saying that his mental illness is cured because of Jesus. And if I was a good Christian, I would be cured, too.
Like… my dude: a big part of my mental illnesses stem from my upbringing with you, but okay.
But also know that understanding isn’t always going to bring resolution. Sometimes all you come to understand is that the people who raised you are, in actuality, thoroughly racist.
The days of trying to be understanding to the other side are long over.
We discuss it and agree to disagree on some things. We don’t disagree on all things. But my parents are generally a bit more liberal than me on certain things.
Interestingly the biggest things we disagree on on subjects that generally require deep technical knowledge to understand and where the talking points often completely miss that.
So things like privacy/telecom/technical regulation (ie Patriot Act stuff), guns, tax/economic policy etc.
In the subjects I’m not well versed on, my reliance on more simplistic talking points often don’t pan/scale to the nuance. And the same goes the other way.
There’s a book about talking to people on different sides of the isle by Justin Lee, I recommend it! But otherwise I prefer to just show love in whatever ways they can receive. I’m fine with respectful discussions but will happily excuse myself from arguments I didn’t sign up for.
I ended up going very low contact with my arch-conservative family. Parents, sister and brother are all very right wing and loud about it. I haven’t spoken with my siblings in over a decade and speak to my parents about twice a year.
It has made my life calmer and more peaceful.
My mother always voted center-left, I always voted center-right (this is not the US, we have some 40 parties), my sister voted left when young, then center-right after she started paying taxes.
We lived in the same home, we made healthy fun about each other’s candidates.
We were all stubborn and we all knew it. We did not “respect” each other’s opinions (we made fun of them), but we respected each other’s right to have stupid (in each other’s point of views) opinions. We knew the differences between criticizing opinions and making personal attacks, between disagreeing and death wish.
I guess before social media convinced everyone they’re the bearer and defender of the only absolute truth, people were just easier to talk to.
