Let him be. As he grows up, pays taxes, works and experiences the real world he will see reality. And reality is conservative.
Orthodox are among the more conservative of denominations.
Be kind, call a truce, agree to disagree, agree that difficult topics are off-limits to both of you. Be respectful of him. Listen and say that’s interesting, thank you, I see you have put a lot of thought into this, I will need to think about this.
Find topics you can agree on, whether it be coffee, sports, football, music. If there isn’t any, pretend to agree and be interested in a non-controversial subject that he is interested in. My father sat through countless football games with with my brother, in order to forge a relationship that was strong til my father’s death.
Mouth shut and listen. Smile and non-committal.
Don’t argue.
My father disliked football.
Don’t feel guilty. Stand strong.
Look into, read up on *Tough Love* program.
Perhaps there is some help for you at this link:
https://www.empoweringparents.com/articles/
God bless. Prayers.
Reality of work, taxes and PC bull crap are about to hit him in the face. Don’t worry by the time he is thirty he will be to the right of Attila the Hun.
Now that he’s moved out and has to pay taxes and other bills, I think he will slowly learn. At home, its just not the same, you have a 100% guarantee on the roof staying over your head.
Living at home with parents after college is like an extension of college in a way... no big responsibility, a little work to help pay some bills, but otherwise its very easy and comfortable because you have two great people taking care of lots of things... cleaning, keeping the fridge stocked etc. If he was sick for a week, no big deal, no danger of eviction or losing his job.
Anyway, now that he has a job working for strangers, he has his feet to the fire every day. He has rent and bills to pay. He may start noticing taxes! Maybe the tax conversation is a good conversation topic that isn’t too political once in a while.
Over the next few months, I think people will realize Trump isn’t a bad guy. If you do have any political conversation opportunities, focus on Trump’s anti war stance and compare that to the last administration. Talk about how the DNC literally fixed the primaries for Bernie to lose. Point out some fake news stories where the media actually manipulated audio, video to alter a story. People hat being lied to no matter who they voted for.. hope that helps!
He sounds like is well behind the curve age wise with respect to thinking y’all are idiots. Keep it pleasant and get some distance between yourselves, he may grow up yet.
Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Wait until he starts paying taxes and his tune may change.
he’ll be fine. He’s got a job to go to, he not drinking/drugging himself into a coma. Sometimes we have to let them figure it out on their own.
Just “keep the door open” for a relationship. If he does screw up, he may need you to talk to. and if he moves that far away, he’ll miss you. Maybe not right away (sweet freedom!!!) but he will miss you.
I was very different than my older siblings and I am sure my mom was worried about the road I would take.
Good Luck!
I understand how you feel. I have a nephew who is in college now for political science, and he has turned into a extreme liberal. But when he was 14 or so, at Thanksgiving dinner, the subject came up about the American flag, when to fly it, etc, and he said “The American flag is a symbol of oppression, there is no reason to celebrate it” or something along those lines, and I remember just staring at him in disbelief, then said “How can you say that? How? Your grandfather served his whole life under that flag, and was buried under it. How can you say that?”
I was dumbstruck. I know he was just a kid then, and now an adult, but that is how he has gone. I can’t even go over to my brother’s house now, it brings me that much pain.
Granted, his whole family are full in liberals, but I never thought they were the anti-American variety. But at least one is,and he wants to go into politics.
My parents are huge liberals, and now they’re dealing with my having voted for Trump. But I am always respectful of their views, and we are very close, with our relationship being far more focused on the well-being of my son than politics.
My advice would be to do everything you can to separate your political differences from your relationship. He’s young still, and it’s quite likely that he’ll eventually come back to what he was taught in his youth. At that point, any distance that came between you as a result of politics will seem silly and unnecessary.
Where is he moving? Does he have a full-time job? My brother-in-law was a raving Marxist until he got a good job, took a gander at what was taken out of his paycheck by the government, and is now a raving Conservative. It does happen! And it happens more than you know. Former liberals are often embarrassed by their past.
YOU paid to have him indoctrinated against YOUR values. People should be choosing a college that will teach their children what THEY believe. Look at Hillsdale College as an example...and there are many others. “School Choice”? For the paying parent this should be key to THEIR selection for the college education THEY pay for for THEIR children.
You are walking my journey....somewhat.
My two oldest daughters are unapologetic liberals (the younger has always followed the lead of the older) who were Hillary supporters, subscribe to the NYT, listen to NPR, did the women’s walk etc... It is the realm they live in and I just have to love them despite it. I finally had to have a frank discussion with one of them about how the love of family vastly outweighs our political views. Once those words were spoken, our relationship improved immensely. Any discussion we have about politics (which are few) are cordial and respectful. We all became better about focusing on what we had in common and I just have to pray that they break loose from the hold that has gripped them.
What is even more heartbreaking for me is that they also walked away from the faith that is so central to my being. That is much more personal — I feel that the core of my existence is rejected and disregarded. I’m tearing up just writing that sentence — definitely hits a tender spot!
But I’ve turned them over to the Lord and I’m beginning to see glimmers of hope around the edges with them. Not about politics, but about Jesus. And I’m so, so grateful to Him for not giving up. And neither will I.
“Our older son is finally moving out next week. “
Here’s the problem. It’s easy to be a hard-core liberal when someone else is supporting you.
This happens all the time. Unfortunately, someone has to take the high ground in these situations, and it’s usually the conservative of the two. My brother and I have been best friends for life. He’s 2 years older and I always looked up to him.
We were raised in the same loving traditional household. Played the same sports, had the same friends, etc. We both earned 4-year ROTC scholarships and went to conservative-type colleges (him Holy Cross, me Norwich). He was an officer in the USMC for 5 years. I was an Army officer for 23 years. We’re both married with 3 boys each.
He is as a screaming Bernie Sanders leftist. Full-on Trump is Hitler etc. I just don’t get it. He is an engineer project manager for a big defense contractor. We just can’t talk politics. Have to avoid it during all family meetings. We agree on only 2 topics - guns and Abortion. We’re both pro-life and pro gun. I know that causes him problems in his crew of leftists, so at least there’s that.
Bottom line, I will always love him and want to hang out with him, but we have both quietly agreed to not try and convert one another. Just wash your hands of it and take the high ground.
My heart goes out to you.
There are so many challenges in our increasingly coarse and divided culture.
Time and patience, trust in God.
I once enjoyed spending time with my niece, and now she is so anti-Trump pro Bernie; at can’t enjoy her company just a Christmas!
Much is cleaving around us....
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.
“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.