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.
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.