How did you grow up?

[hyphenate]

What kind of parents or guardians did you have--conservatives or liberals? Did they get involved in politics? Did they teach you to speak your mind? Did they take you to events which shaped your politics?

Did they regale you of tales of their own misspent youth? Did they partake of mind-altering substances? Did they ever go to rallies, demonstrations or other politically charged happenings? Or were they typical middle America with only a shallow interest in politics?

My own dad did little to encourage me politically. He just didn't have any real interest in politics. His standard response to things political was he still had to work everyday regardless who was president.

My mom encouraged free thinking. She also taught me to make up my own mind about things. However, it wasn't really her doing that got me into politics, either. I never really cared a whole helluva lot about the subject for many years, until 1988 when Poppy began to fuck over our country, and took down Michael Dukakis, who I supported.

[Joe Power]

1. Who says I have? :P~

My dad was a hard drinking, two-fisted, barroom brawler. He considers himself conservative, but for the most part, that stems from bad experiences with labor unions and getting his political theory from the drunk on the next bar stool. To his credit, this long time Rush Limbaugh listener was able to cut through the shit and recognize that he had to register as a Democrat in Ohio to vote in the primaries, and he voted for Kerry in the election.

My mother, other than an inexplicable affair with Ross Perot, has usually voted Democrat. She instilled the value of creativity, knowledge, and civility in me. She also taught me mre about tenacity and toughness than my dad.

They're both getting up there these days, but mom is still much tougher than dad. ;)

[izzie]

2. My father must have been nuts.

He loved the whole thing and gave a lot of money to the GOP and told me to get into it. In college I worked for the Dem. and he laughed like crazy. He saw nothing wrong with it as I was in a college in Boston even if we all grew up to hear how evil FDR was. We also lived with "Church and State' mag. on the table and were told that was a no no. We were to keep church out of govt. He also said you help all in town as when you raise the water all boats go up. We grew up in the depression but lived very well.

[bertha katzenengel]

3. Zero politics in our house.

My 'rents were worthless on so many levels, I can't even begin to say.

I raised myself in a Baptist church so I turned out Republican. That began to change at age 23.

[Kathy in Cambridge]

4. I was raised by pro-union liberals

my parents are still very liberal...hate Bush with a passion.

[Blue Diadem]

5. Dad was an overly strict parent and a democrat

He's the one who taught me that Dems are, in his words, for the "working man or little guy" and Repubs are for the "big money corporations". When he was young, he participated in Union ralleys and was always pro-union. After my 1st brother went to Nam, he began telling me some of the things he saw in WWII and how different that war was from the war in Viet Nam. It took me years after his death to realize that some of my Dad's personal issues and treatment of his family stemmed from not only losing his Dad when he was 7, but also from the war. Right before his stroke, he relived his hand to hand fight and killing of a German soldier. After his stroke, he became the sweetest man and never mentioned the war again.

Even though my Mom was a fundie, she also taught me that the Gov. sometimes wouldn't always do things the right way and it was up to us, the people, to question them.