Parental Influence on Political/Religious Choices of A2Kers

I doubt anyone didn't figure it out with your first post, nimh. :wink:

<big grin>

Well, you'd be surprised at what i've been called on this board, Tico.. not just have I been called liberal, but centrist too, and even assumed <gasp> conservative... more than once!

My late mother, part Irish, part Hungarian and part Austrian, was both superstitious and religious.

My dad, a blue-collar union man, always bragged about eating lunch with the Blacks and Jews. He was Catholic but not religious although he was active in the Church as far as community affairs went. He's grown religious with age.

My parents pretended not to discuss politics and never told us for whom they voted until after the election. However, my mother never let my father live down having twice voted for Eisenhower.

This thread is so interesting.

I was raised Roman Catholic, though a loose version of. The rituals were given importance, but the rules were bent shamelessly. My father was Catholic, my mother considered herself Anglican though she didn't go to church. Her religious practice consisted of observing a few traditions and 'talking to the big guy one on one'. My dad was much the same. Even though the atmosphere seemed so liberal, I always had the sense that they both had a strong belief in a very personal God. They just went about it in different ways.

My parents didn't vote, and didn't talk about politics much except to say 'you decide what you want to do, and I don't ever want to hear you complaining about a politician.' In reality, they were politically rather conservative.

I liked church as a child, yet never did consider myself religious. I would fight bitterly with the more staunch members of my family. There were some tuffs with my dad when I told him I did not believe in God. Mom would only take a deep breath and say something to the effect of 'That is between you and whatever or whoever you believe in'.

I don't follow one religion now, and yet I do not consider myself an atheist either.

I kind of do feel the same as my folks: there is something I can commune with, and it can't really be talked about. People express it in many beautiful ways - not necessarily in a religion at all.

Politically, I differ from my family rather strongly. We can not talk about politics without tempers flaring. My brother is the most conservative of my close family, and a nationalist. Extended family are mainly conservative-right.

Re: Parental Influence on Political/Religious Choices of A2K

Kinda. My mother is a liberal but observant Lutheran. My father rarely talks about religion but is probably an agnostic. He remains a member of the Lutheran church mostly for my mother. I was baptised and confirmed in the Lutheran faith. But when I was around 20, I gradually converted into an agnostic, then into an atheist. Even so, however, I very much remain culturally Lutheran. I continue to love the plain architecture of old Lutheran churches, as well as Lutheran music from Luther to Bach to Brahms. And I am deeply entrenched in the Lutheran approach to texts and ideas: read for yourself, make up your own mind based on what you've read, don't rely on authorities, priesthood of all believers whether the belief is about science, philosophy, ethics or just belletristics.

When I was a teenager, my piano teacher, a Russian Jew, put me in touch with the Jewish community of the city we lived in. Most members there were Russian immigrants and hardened atheists. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt they were culturally Jewish. I'm like that with Lutheranism.


Pretty much, though I'm more radical than my parents. My path here is that I associated with Green, environmentalist, peace movement circles as a teenager. That brought with it a deep respect for grass roots democracy. Later, in my early twenties, I discovered that the free market is really a non-standard variant of grass roots democracy. It has advantages and disadvantages over the traditional kind, but mostly advantages. That brought me back to classical liberalism.

My parents believed in the Christian God, but were almost wholly oblivious to religion. I never once saw them in a church. The only time they spoke of religion, they were a bit dismissive and condescending to some ministers. The lone exception, my Mom got hooked on the Oral Roberts TV show, when he was "healing" people. This interest passed, with time.

Politically, my step father was totally silent, except I think he might have given vibes disrespective of politicians. My Mom was not Republican or Democrat, early on, because she liked Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy. In later years, she liked Democrats.

Neither of my parents expressed much racism, if any at all.

They were incurious in lots of ways, concerning the outer world, being from dirt poor backgrounds and mainly concentrated on survival. As my stepfather's alcoholism got worse, he spent more time away from home than anything, and he probably shared his thoughts more with his partying friends.

To say they did not influence my thought would be foolish. I have tried to do what I believe is right, and my decisions are more informed than theirs seemed to be, but I know I had to be influenced by them in many ways.

Re: Parental Influence on Political/Religious Choices of A2K

I was raised in a rather odd environment which included introduction to several religious practices; but, only one political approach.

I was raised somewhat Methodist, with a Jewish heritage and in fact my first religious rite/experience was Jewish in nature. Keep in mind that in those days we lived upstairs from a Synagogue and a Rabbi and his wife, so somewhere in week 1 or 2 of life...well, no sense going into all the details. At 4 months I was baptized Methodist and at 7 I was in a Moravian Church. At 12 I went to a Greek Orthodox Church and I ended up passing out from all the incense (or was it just the hand of God slapping me?). I was briefly a member of the United Methodist Church but got out of there at about age 20. Tried Catholicism for a short while, and I liked it. They seemed friendlier and more welcoming than the Protestant sects had been (I had also dabbled in Presbyterian and Baptist). Mother was not happy about my visits to Catholic churches since they had statues and candles which were clearly evil and pagan. Little did she know how much my political views would bug her! After a while I drifted from all churchs since they seemed to be competing with each other and my feeling is the innards of them all are the same: Do good and believe in God and that God is looking out for you. Don't hurt another, don't lie, cheat or steal or kill etc. I considered investing time and investigating Judaism but never felt a strong enough pull towards it...maybe that early life ritual kept me away. You know the one I mean...every Saturday having to relight the pilot light on the gas stove for the Rabbi and his wife since that constituted work and was not allowed for them on The Sabbath. My brother Frank went back to the Jewish roots as did our sister.

One set of my grandparents were old fashioned Bohemians in style, having fled to the new world as youngin's (when they were brought over, he was 15 at the time, she had drifted over at 10). They met up in Greenwich Village in the early 1920s and headed over to Paris which was all the rage in those days, with Hemingway, Fitzgerald and others at the various locations of artistic hanging outism. Then in the early '30s they returned to the states and somewhere along the line became registered with the Communist party. Yipes! I was raised by a dominating and domineering mother who shoved Democratic idealism down our throats in a way quite akin to how she shoved her dry pot roast down our throats...with very limited amounts of tepid water and a lot of screaming. Her view was vote Democrat at all times, never cross party lines and if there is a minority or a woman then give them your vote, it did not matter whether they were qualified for the position or not. My father went along with whatever she said...at least outwardly, I have no idea what he did in the voting booth but he never voiced anything which differed from Mother's views.

My Uncle Bert, now he was a breath of fresh air. Whereas the rest of the family...both sides...never strayed from Democrat and liberal lines (except that stint my grandparents did as Commies which they mercifully abandoned in favor of Democrat), he occasionally would say something. His wife would glare at him and he'd get a strange grin on his face. Well, he used to set me down for talks away from the others and go on about anything and everything, including religion and politics. He told me to go with what made me feel right and proper inside, and to do that in all parts of my life. That is what I have done. I am more conservative in views than anyone else in the entire family...this includes distant cousins and persons married into the family. So, I am not connected religiously or politically to any other member of my family...which is darned nice.

My wife and I are both agnostics. Our kids are not baptised. They can decide for themselves.

Thomas, I appreciate your implicit distinction between culture and religion (the latter being subsumed within but not identical with the former) as expressed in the following:
"When I was a teenager, my piano teacher, a Russian Jew, put me in touch with the Jewish community of the city we lived in. Most members there were Russian immigrants and hardened atheists. Nevertheless, there could be no doubt they were culturally Jewish. I'm like that with Lutheranism. "

It is also like that with American Catholics (as well as Italian and Mexican Catholics I've known). They are "catholic" as an aspect of their aesthetics, feelings and values, but not Catholics as part of their ideological worldview.

Phoenix, great thread... I'm getting a better perspective of many of the people posting here than ever before. It's amazing how much of our persona can be summed up in political and religious manifestations of who we are.

I followed in my parents' liberal footsteps, although I differ with them on some issues-- I'm more radically liberal on some things and a bit more conservative on others. But basically the same; we'd vote the same on pretty much everything, I'd think.

Neither of them said much about religion when I was a kid-- lots of church goers on both sides of the family, but we never went. So they were never vocally against religion or church going, but not really for it, either. I got to make up my own mind entirely, and ended up being agnostic as a teenager and basically apatheist now (thank you for giving me a name to put to it, Phoenix! ). And I still don't really know where my parents stand on it, but my mom once sounded offended and upset at the idea that I was an atheist, so I guess we differ on it somewhat. I never know my dad's feelings on anything, so who knows about his views?

Please don't be offended, Sturgis, but I think I love your sainted democratic mother, dry pot roast and all.

By the way, that was fascinating reading. You should be proud of your rich past.

But she used canned potatoes...how can I hold my head high knowing that I was subjected to the horrors of canned potatoes?

Sturgis -- Go to the vegetable thread where canned potatoes are a current topic. I think its ossobucco's.

I think there are many honest responses here.

Sturgis -- Here it is:

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=2342667#2342667

Sturgin, how superficial do you think I am?

By the way, I believe frozen vegetables are more nutritious than the fresh kind that gradually lose their value as they move from the fields through the many distribution phases to your table. The nutritional value of frozen, and perhaps canned, is "arrested" early in the process. The problem with canned veggies is their taste and high sodium loads.

But I love dry democratic pot roast with any kind of veggies and roast potatoes.

I agree with all JL says about fresh versus canned and frozen, except if a veggie is directly out of your back yard some minutes before dinner.

Still, I go - or have gone, what a spoiled woman I was - for local fresh instead of packaged stuff, not least re the mark up and not least re some additives to some products. But, most, just because they look good to my eye. In my old home that I called north north California, up by the Oregon border on the coast, there was a great growing area about an hour away. Back in Venice, your own few feet of land could be abundant almost all year.

Still trying to figure out New Mexico.. whole new thing re growing.

Eek, pardon digression from parental influence to veggie talk.

We have a farm that operates year round in the next town. Try to buy my veggies there because they're much fresher.