Posted on 03/17/2017 12:30:57 AM PDT by American72
Our older son is finally moving out next week. He is 23 and has worked for our small business throughout his young adult life, but hadn't been able to find full time work that would pay enough to live on his own. He did pay rent while living here after college.
The problem is that he has completely rejected our family values. I guess he was indoctrinated in college unfortunately. This was a kid that went with us to the original Bush rallies during the recount and was proud to be American, and even wrote a paper on my great great grandfather who was a Civil War veteran (Confederate).
He and I got into it last year after I caught him trying to indoctrinate my 13 year old about Bernie Sanders. I told him he could believe whatever he wanted but he would not push his views on his sister.
Later on he became a Hillary supporter and wrote blogs about how "horrified" he was about Trump. He wrote a blog recently called "Why Liberals Lose" and it basically said that liberals know they are smarter than conservatives, and they just have to learn how to convey their message better so that conservatives will understand it. WTH.
We rarely talk anymore outside of general pleasantries. It is upsetting to know he finds his Dad and I stupid and "intolerant." He said we haven't had anything good to say about Democrats in his lifetime. It's hard to have good things to say about them when their values and behaviors are completely 180 form what we believe.
The sad thing is, he is a big Christian. He was raised Lutheran, but has decided to convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. I honestly don't understand any of that, but I am staying out of it.
He rejects anything we say to him anymore. He is moving 800 miles away, and I'm sad to think this is it, and this is how this phase of our parenting is ending. I can pray he sees the light as he gets out in the real world.
Have any of you dealt with this? And if so, any advice or words of wisdom?
I feel like a failure here, and I'm sure I'll hear from some how I royally screwed up. I'm just praying there is hope for the future.
As I said(and you should say), it’s easy to be a liberal when someone is making the sacrifices for you.
Yes. I often make that same point from a military perspective, when questioning the anti-military viewpoints common in liberals.
There is an old feeling which basically says “a child grows into their teens and becomes a monster, goes off and comes back a human being”. What this means is as a child grows up it is natural that they become a giant pain in the rear as they break away from their parents. It makes the separation more tolerable for both parties. After the separation they usually re-bond. It was that way with my three daughters. As part of the separation process the child may reject their parent’s values. If the parents are conservative the kid becomes a liberal and vice versa. Let him establish himself as independent and he may return to his parent’s conservative roots.
I’ll tell you something telling.
My daughter is a screaming liberal BUT neither of us voted for Trump. She would LOVE it if I had voted for Trump. She could run that “Trump is a Nazi” flag up the pole and watch me dance to it. But I don’t. And I won’t. So it tempers her arguments. She seethes when I say “Well, let’s give him a chance before we take to our sick bed”. She hates it when I say “You better unplug the microwave before you say that”.
People in the 20’s love to rile people up. If you deny them, they eventually give up.
Hang in there.Growing up takes time.Not being able to get a job in his field makes it worst.I had 6 leave.Some were ugly and some were nice but they all came around.We have a Sherry rule.Once you move out you can’t move back.We let Sherry back and she tortured us.Thank God he is healthy and let it roll.
Correction: an old saying, not feeling.
“He wrote a blog recently called “Why Liberals Lose” and it basically said that liberals know they are smarter than conservatives, and they just have to learn how to convey their message better so that conservatives will understand it.”
Sorry to hear it about your kid, but the first part is right...conservatives are REALLY STUPID people in many ways. Just take the last campaign - you have 80% of the Republican base SCREAMING for border security and 16 candidates all saying treating it like some issue that Rush Limbaugh created, and therefore barely worthy of mention. As in “END OBAMACARE!, CUT TAXES!, END WASTEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING!, STRENGTHEN THE MILITARY!, and, oh yea, almost forgot, secure the border”. Thankfully the 17th candidate understood it. And then you have the ‘town halls’ last month - the Republicans were WARNED about the Soros-setups at those ‘town halls’, but they walked right into those traps - again thinking it was Limbaugh’s imagination. TOTAL IDIOTS.
The second part is simply wrong...and perhaps you may have some leverage there. The Democrats know full well that their policies, starting with Open Borders combined with huge increases in legal immigration from the Third World will simply END AMERICA as we know it - so the problem is not in conveying the message, but rather they need to PREVENT the message from being conveyed (which, again, the Republicans are more than happy to help them with) - so far they’ve done quite well there.
Explain the demographics to your daughter, and the fact that there simply is no country populated by Third World types that is first world. And maybe to get the point across, perhaps take her to a Third World country and let her visit the slums and learn for herself - maybe Nigeria would be a good start. Explain to her that even those countries have very smart and capable people, but the masses there won’t let them run the place. We have successful immigrants from all over the place (including Nigeria) - they come here, and they thrive. But there’s only a relative handful of Nigerians here, so they cannot do damage here - but if they (and people like them) became the majority, they would simply vote-in the corruption that keeps Nigeria in Third World hell-hole status.
That is the LONG TERM Democrat plan for America - most Democrats don’t know that, you son obviously doesn’t know it. But the ONLY RESULT possible after re-population will be a Third World country. Ask her if she’d rather see her kids grow up in a country like Nigeria, or in the country she now lives in. Perhaps show her the white neighborhoods in South Africa, and that EVERY SINGLE HOME there now has a fence around it (I found that ‘driving’ on Google Maps)...people now are caged-in. It wasn’t that way in the past, when the whites ran the place, and kept the Third World types locked into ‘homelands’ but it is now.
Just some thoughts and good luck!
He will find his way back in time.
I’m praying Jesus meets your son quickly in his travels, truly opens his eyes and his heart for the things of God not of the world and false idols of leftist stuff.
Prayers for you and family to have peace and know God is in control and God is always there for your son if he but asks.
Also praying a hedge of protection around your son that whatever he encounters God protect him from the enemy in every moment.
Sounds to me you gave him a great foundation. Maybe this is just Gods way of showing him how right you were. I think you did fine. Doesn’t every kid go through some sort of phase? Put it in Gods hands. I hope for the best and I don’t think you need to place any blame on your part. Rest easy and congratulations on raising a child to the point of “Launch”. Far better than a snowflake living in mom’s basement posting on DUh...
Kids rebel. That is how they are wired. Especially ones that are dependent on mommy and daddy. I think it is an evolutionary trait that once kids get to be teenagers (especially boys) they have a natural urge to reject their parents. It probably has something to do with biology tricking them into leaving the nest and striking out on their own. It is far easier for them to only reject their parent’s values while still accepting their parent’s material help so lots of time you will see situations like yours.
Once he is out on his own, winning and losing every day based on his own merits, this natural urge to rebel will subside. Making rent or getting a raise will seem more important than Comrade Sander’s views on equality. Once he has a family of his own and is charged with defending, protecting and providing for them, he will not only stop rejecting you but will actively seek your advice and try to emulate things you have done.
My best advice on how to deal with him is to politely and peacefully counter any negative opinions he has of conservatism/traditional values/patriotism/etc.... Just simply tell him that his opinion on a particular subject is wrong and why it is wrong. Don’t let it get heated. Don’t let his opinions get under your skin. Know that you are ultimately right and eventually he will realize it.
I also think that 2017 in particular is adding to your troubles. People everywhere are split along partisan lines and are having trouble dealing with relatives that believe differently.
I didn't, but my parents did. With me. My folks were very conservative, although they mindlessly voted democrat all their lives. I thought I was the smartest guy in the world there for a few years in my early twenties. Socialism = good = compassionate, Capitalism = greedy and evil. "If Jesus was on earth today he'd be a socialist"...yada, yada, yada. I knew it all. All it took for me was a few years paying my own way and struggling to get by before I realized that I was wrong about sooooo much.
It slowly dawned on me that not only was I not the liberal genius I thought I was but that a lot of what President Ronald Reagan was saying were things that I instinctively knew were true. By 1984 I was a full throated, enthusiastic Reaganite and I've never looked back! I never did get me parents to come around away from the democrat party but they were thrilled that I was no longer a border line socialist.
He's still your son. Love him, support him when you can and pray that his eyes are opened. It may take longer for him than it did for me, the liberal indoctrination he's been through in school from K to college is much worse than what I experienced but he can change. Pray for him.
Life has a way of teaching.
Regarding “tolerance”, you could try challenging him to make a tolerant case against intolerance, but be sure to call out every instance of intolerance in his case against intolerance.
If his cognitive functions are working, it may make a crack in his liberal bent. One cannot make a “tolerant” argument against “intolerance”.
Wow, best advice of any in this thread.
23 is still pretty young. I was still a leftie at 23. I didn’t really get red-pilled till about 33.
He is rebelling
Try referring to him as your fake American son. That term works. Just keep insisting he is a fake American. It triggers hardcore. It may make him eventually ask what a real American is.
Aaaah, a VP or The Donald reader.
I read that last night myself.
For the most part, we have not discussed politics since then. He's tried to start a discussion a couple of times. Once, he was actually saying something we could agree upon. However, I would not continue the conversation. That made him angry. I reminded him how angry he'd been on the prior discussion, and said that, while we were in agreement to start with, the discussion could progress to where we were not. I did not ever want to see him that angry again. (Seriously, his neck veins pop out like he's some Cardassian, and a vein in his forehead pops out and makes me worry about him having a stroke!)
Lighten up dude. You know the saying about being liberal when you are young and conservative once you are older? And this ‘rejecting family values” what kind of horse manure is that? Kid not allowed to have his own mind about things? Who is trying to indoctrinate who? You simply love him and say son, you are entitled to your opinion and this is America where people are allowed to speak their mind. Be respectful. He obviously has no life experience because of his age. He will mature and his ideas will evolve. At least he is thinking about things. Be patient. He doesn’t have to swallow your “family values” hook line and sinker. It is better for him to come to his opinion based upon his own experience and thinking.
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