Were you raised a leftist?

[Skyhilist]

What are the political backgrounds of your parents or whoever raised you?

Personally, my parents are liberal to borderline socialist and raised me very liberal/social democrat, although they aren't really against my anti-capitalism for the most part. Part of this might stem from the fact that social democrats somehow think they're anti-capitalist a lot of the time.

My mother is definitely a liberal, or social democrat at best. She even occasionally tries to argue with me about the fact that their is no such thing as sustainable capitalism.

My dad is an environmentalist, and would probably be considered either a social democrat or democratic socialist. I'd say probably democratic socialist because he agrees with me that there's no such thing as "green capitalism", yet he tends to take quite a reformist approach.

My mom voted for Obama this past election and my father voted for the Green Party candidate Jill Stein. Both of them rebuke my anti-voting sentiments whenever I express them.

What about you guys, what is the political background of your parents, and how were you raised?

[LOLseph Stalin]

My family isn't hugely political, but due to being poor my mom definitely sympathizes with much of my views. If a revolution were to happen I'm sure she would have no problem jumping on board then. I think it's just now more so due to a lack of understanding she's not actively promoting socialism.

As for my dad he's mostly apolitical. However, he does vote for whichever party I vote for because he knows I'm knowledgeble about this stuff. I got him to vote NDP(which are social democrats) so maybe I could convince him to vote communist :laugh:.

[Skyhilist]

Also sorry I forgot to add neoliberal, neoconservative, and libertarian capitalist to the options (although I think all of those could usually fall under conservative or "moderate" capitalist. If anyone knows how to add more options to the thread though, let me know and I'll add those and anything else that I may have missed).

[Chris]

I wasn't really raised in any overtly political fashion, and neither of my parents are very political. My mother votes for whatever party will benefit our family financially speaking (she tends to vote Socialist Left Party or the Labour Party, reformist democratic socialists and social-democrats respectively). She's more concerned with day-to-day affairs and local matters than national politics, let alone capitalism-socialism. She has said she'd flee the country if it 'became communist', though.

My father is a socialist and a trade unionist, although not a member of a political party. He tends to vote Labour because that's what our family has always voted, although he did say he'd vote Communist Party if we managed to run in our area (and he agreed to run as the last candidate on the Communist list in order for us to achieve the 8 candidate minimum). He's said he'd support communism if it was achieved, but he's content enough with the current system that he doesn't want to do anything beyond trade unionism.

So, my mother is a social-democrat/social-liberal, while my father is a socialist who doesn't mind communism as such, and is somewhat supportive of the Communist Party. The latter was I who convinced him of, though. They didn't really raise me in any political fashion, and I used to be a social-democrat. We did, however, discuss politics occasionally when I was a child, but that was single-issues rather than ideology.

[RedBrasil]

My mother is a democratic socialist, since my childhood I always liked egalitarian politics, when I read about communism in school I find it great, we didn't learn much, but the idea of a egalitarian society was great. When PT (Worker's party) won the elections in Brazil I thought we were going to enter in a communist era,because I didn't understand about constitution or the prliamentary system, my mom became dissapointed with PT too, but she is indeed a democratic socialist, I don't have a father, I'm adopted.

Since my 19 years old I became more interested in politics and started reading Marx, Lenin, Stalin, Kropotkin, Bakunin, Malatesta, Mao, I read a lot about the left, I consider myself a neo-marxist, I like the ideas of left communism, but I too support national liberation struggles

[Goblin]

My moms a social-democrat, and my dads a conservative. They never pushed their ideologies at me though.

[Red Banana]

My father is a hardcore reactionary/ tea party type who, even though he only reads/watches Republican-oriented publications and shows, votes for Republicans, and has been a registered Republican since he could first vote, still insists that he is an independent. Once I stopped engaging him (political discussions never turned out well/went nowhere, obviously) I began to be able to get a laugh out of some of the truly absurd things he parroted off of Limbaugh and Fox rather than get annoyed and pissed off.

My mother is an apolitical moderate who's views on politics are that "it's a circle and that the far left and far right are ultimately the same", which really only makes sense if you don't know how a circle is shaped. Generally she could give a shit less about politics though. Not much else to say there.

It still makes me shudder to this day when I think about how easily, given the environment I grew up in, I could've turned out to be some kind of reactionary, proto-fascist type.

[Flying Purple People Eater]

More left than your average liberal.

I remember accusing a teacher of supporting Israeli politics that mirrored Lebensraum in grade 6 or something.

[JPSartre12]

The majority of my family is profoundly Republican - I have one family member who supports the Constitution Party, and one other who is a tree-hugging progressive.

[Mackenzie_Blanc]

My dad is a hardcore Reaganite Republican who constantly is against that "socialist Obama" despite receiving S.S and Medicaid. :confused:

My mother is a European-style social democrat against unions. :lol:

I became a leftist through the internet, recognizing the inherent structural inequalities of the modern economic system, and reading some valuable literature (Marx, Kropotkin, Bakunin).

[zoot_allures]

My dad is right-wing, with libertarian, environmentalist and fascist influences. He's got quite a strange mixture of views, I suppose. He sometimes calls himself a fascist, but I think he's joking about that... he seems to be serious about his opposition to democracy, though. I think he votes UKIP. Recently, he's developed an increasing hatred towards Muslims and it seems like it's starting to overshadow all of his other opinions.

My mum's on the left, but isn't really political. Her current partner is a hardcore socialist - though unfortunately of a very socially conservative, anti-feminist, homophobic, racist type.

I wasn't raised to be anything, really. Neither parents spoke to me very much about their political views when I was a kid. My mum's partner promotes socialism at every opportunity, but I was too old for him to have any influence when he came along.

[sixdollarchampagne]

My mom was a staunch Democrat, just like my aunt, whose house had a framed picture of FDR in their living room. I think my dad must have been somehow affected by radicalism or left liberalism when he was young, since I remember him explaining to me, when I was very young, what a "reactionary" was. That was the most explicit political memory I had from my childhood. I also vaguely remember the adults talking about some teacher that had lost his job, because of some loyalty issue. Later on, I grasped that was about McCarthyism, very probably.

When I was a college student, I remember my mom coming to the realization that, as a participant in the antiwar movement, I never actually broke the law: we just organized really big demonstrations against LBJ and then Nixon, because the richest country on earth (namely us) was bombing one of the poorest, i.e., Vietnam. After she understood the antiwar movement was nonviolent and legal, she became a critic of the war herself, putting up a peace poster of some kind in her office, which was pretty neat, since she was a federal employee. :)

[Philosophos]

I was raised by an apolitical mother (you could say she's slightly nationalist) because she was VERY religious.

My father on the other hand is an interesting guy. He is mostly a nationalist racist , with right-wing views but after the Golden Dawn rised he started feeling like a fascist.

It's funny though how he reacted when I first told him I'm a commie... Funny times...

[Pleb]

My parent never gave a shit although they did vote Labour (Old Labour). Mum was pretty racist and member of Orange lodge as a kid, Dad Catholic but we were all raised without God.

[Fourth Internationalist]

I never knew what my parents' political views were really or what politics was until, of course, I actually knew what politics was. Before I knew anything about politics, my dad would talk about McCain being better than Obama during the 2008 election when I was in like 4th or 5th grade. I got into politics in 6th and 7th grade, when I considered myself a liberal. By then, I had learned my dad was a conservative, obviously for voting for McCain, eventually Romney, and owning a picture of George Bush giving a speech with a quote from his speeches, which was a part with a Bible verse in it, of course. Also, his anti-socialist comments are quite indicating of a little hint of McCarthyism possibly in him, though I am not sure to what extent. And his side of his family seems to me like a republican/conservative type people. After I became a communist in the 8th grade (9th grade right now), my mom had never even stated anything political in her life for as long as I knew her until she said she would probably vote for re-electing Obama, and her once to-herself-comment about ridiculous conservatives talking about gun control in the news. Also, her tolerance for the LGBT community and her to-herself-comment criticism of the Pope while watching a documentary on the sex scandal (yet still making me get confirmed at a Catholic church, knowing I'm an atheist) would make me she's a moderate or a liberal, but surely not a social democrat, as far as I know. I know very little, to be honest, about her beliefs, and have little to judge her on, so I'm not entirely sure what to put my parents as, together. Other? Conservative? Moderate?

[Proteus2]

My parents were killed in a freak yachting accident when I was 4. After the funeral I was sent to live with a free-market loving foster couple. They banged on about their love of free-market day and night and how socialism was an abomination in the eyes of Ayn Rand. They particularly hated the disabled octogenarian widow next door who survived only on meager state handouts. Her suffering was the fault of her late husbands bad investments they said, and her benefits, along with her electricity, should be cut off. One day on my eighth birthday, surrounded by presents and a huge cake I commented that their taking me in was in itself an act of altruism and thus a display of weakness. Immediately realising their mistake, they threw me out.

I wandered the streets for hours until I remembered a speech that Tony Blair had recently made promising to eliminate child poverty again. I knew of a New-Labour family living a few streets away in a nice house. Armed with their leader's promise I marched round and knocked on their door. They took me in [their spare room being as empty as Tony's promise] but only on the conviction that if I didn't live with them, the only alternative would be being put in the care of a Tory family. Whilst I was happy to have a roof over my head and relieved the Tories didn't get their hands on me, over the years I grew sick of talk of ethical foreign policy and left.

I spent the next 8 years in various political foster care homes, Lib-Dem, Green Party, CPGB and UKIP. At one point I even found myself in the care of a couple of fundamentalist-christian lunatics who insisted to me the world was only 6 thousand years old and not 4.5 billion like my science teacher claimed. For all their hatred of logic and reason I still appreciate the day they took me to hospital when I had a nasty fall from my bike. As I limped home that day pushing my bike I was convinced they would leave the healing process in the hands of god. Thankfully the doctors help was engaged before prayers.

I'm grown up now and looking back on the various homes I was in, if I had my choice, I wouldn't pick any of them. Whilst their spare rooms were as empty as their promises, they were never big enough for the dreams of a working class kid. I'm with an anarchist family now and they taught me to fight, not beg, and I'm finally home.

[Arakir]

My parents are both Republicans, although ideologically they are more libertarian than conservative. There isn't really a specific ideology that I can classify my political position that I held as a child as. I had a mix of political positions, but I would say that I may have leaned more to the left than to the right.

[The Intransigent Faction]

My Mom's...I'm not sure. She worked for John Tory once and swore she would never vote Conservative again, but ended up wandering back in that direction and voting for them for some reason of which I can't make any sense. She's very progressive in terms of social issues (gay marriage, tolerance of other cultures, all that jazz), but on economics she talks a lot about how she's afraid of all the pressure on the "middle class" and seems to resent that 'it gets pressured while the poorer get social assistance', etc.

My dad is either a troll or a reactionary Harperite, or some mixture of both. although generally liberal on social issues.

[B5C]

My mother have been voting Democrat since the early days of Clinton. My father is apolitical & doesn't like either party.

[Willin']

I was raised in Social Democrat family,but when my parents went to work my grandma and my aunt watched over me,and they thought me far leftist ideology and they told stories from Ex-Yugoslavia. If you listen to this crap since you are 4 years old it's really no surprise you grow up into a commie.

I regret nothing!

[Blake's Baby]

Trades unionists, both of them. My dad's a christian socialist, my mother is a very 'left' liberal, who associates 'communism' with Stalinism and especially Hungary '56 and consequently hates it with a passion that has been undimmed by the intervening 57 years.

[Thirsty Crow]

I voted "other".

Though my family voted social democrat as long as I can remember, it wouldn't be accurate to say I was raised in a "liberal/social democrat way". When upbringing is concerned, what was imparted were the values that can easily be associated with some form of "collectivism" (though I dread the term and think it is a stick to beat communists with; I can't think of a better word) - basic fairness, reciprocity, autonomy and personal dignity. In strictly political terms, the rabid reaction against nationalism - while at the same time supporting some aspects of it, paradoxically - was quite important in my early formative years (90s, when new generations of nationalists and crypto-fascists were being formed very easily). More recently, some nostalgia for the Yugoslav welfare state (yes, welfare state) has also played a part I guess.

[Zukunftsmusik]

voted borderline socialist, but was unsure whether liberal/social democrat was better fitting. Both parents are too young to be 68'ers, but only barely. both vote "left socialist" party (support party for social democrats) as far as I'm aware. But I wasn't really raised into any politics, they of course uphold vaguely "leftist values", but it stops there.

[Narcissus]

Dad completely apolitical. Just couldn't give a shit - works and works and watches sport. Mum voted Tory in her 20s because she thought Maggie was doing good by getting those pesky union folk in order. She is now ashamed of ever having done so - now votes green, lib dem last time (but never again) and I think she is probably a social democrat. Never imposed anything upon me though. I have always been a lot smarter than them though.

Essentially both are woefully misinformed about communism. They are good people, and I'm sure that if it weren't for being trodden down for nearly half a century by capitalist propaganda they would be right next to me.

[a_wild_MAGIKARP]

My mom doesn't care at all about politics. My dad has some opinions on politics, but I don't think he identifies with any particular ideology. They don't really know anything about communism, but since my dad was raised in the US during the cold war, he probably thinks it's something bad. Anyway, they never raised me with any political ideology and I just became a communist on my own.

[Ligeia]

Both of my parents are trade unionists. My mother is an old-school Latin-American leftist. She studied politics in the 60s and read a lot of different works by socialists and communists (and other leftists) and has a little book shelf full of those books, but also Latin-American leftists and even stuff about Guerillas. But she admits she was just a "coffee-house revolutionary".
My father on the other hand lived in Poland. He's more influenced by agriculture.....and less of a leftist than my mother. He accuses my mother of being a "Castrista"...so and I was raised a leftist, too. They constantly talked and talk about politics,..yes, even about socialism, communism and capitalism as systems. And even in casual day to day talk, some political stuff would slip away, like "you look like a soviet princess" (my father would say, which doesn't make much sense, but you get it).
I think my mother raised me more in a political fashion than my father did. She always tried to show me stuff, works, a lot about politics, but also compassion, solidarity,..etc.etc. I don't know how to even summarise all of it accurately. I won't even try.

[Lev Bronsteinovich]

My mom was a "fighting liberal," always voted for Democrats and was rather indignant about social injustice (she was a social worker at a time when most women, esp. married women, did not work). She was very smart and my family was, early on against the war in Vietnam. The first elections that I can remember, 1968, my family supported Eugene McCarthy because he was the most anti-war candidate. When I was ten, Mom took the whole family down to DC for the largest anti-war demonstration that took place (over a million people). It was a very cool experience for me. I would describe my mother as a much shorter, jewish version of the sitcom character Maude.

My dad was active in the SPUSA in his youth -- he was an organizer for them by the time he was 20 (late 1930s). He supported the right wing led by Norman Thomas.

By the time I became politically active at age 17, my mother was no longer alive. My dad was moderately tolerant, but by then he was simply a liberal (with zionist leanings). He did, on occasion note that "The Trotskyites (sic) entered the SP with then intention of splitting it, not building it liked they said." I would respond, "yeah, and it worked out extremely well."

I should add that my oldest sister was pretty radical and I started reading her books when I was 16.

[TheIrrationalist]

My father and mother are moderate capitalist or apolitical, and they are VERY petite bourgeois. Usually they have voted for the 'National Coalition Party', a Finnish liberal conservative party, but they don't hold any specific political view. And for them 'Social Democratic Party' is synonymous with 'Communist Party'.

[Landsharks eat metal]

My mother is sort of liberal-ish, but was registered as Republican for a long time just to fit in in Lancaster ever since she moved from California. She never really talked to me about politics. My dad is still a Republican and sort of conservative, and he never used to really talk to me about politics until I started to have interest in the revolutionary left. Now he takes every opportunity to remind me of how stupid and unthinking I am. [And tell me the constantly changing story of how he used to be a communist at my age until he figured out it was against human nature, or he was only saying it to get people riled up, or he was never actually a communist because he was smart enough to read things from all sides, unlike me, who is the most closed-minded person in the world.]

[TheRedAnarchist23]

My family of the father's side is mostly communist, my father is a democratic socialist who votes for the PCP. My mother is just someone who loves the idea of cutting the heads of the bankers and the bosses. The result was me.

[LewisQ]

Other - anti-communist "left nationalist"/social conservative.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

My moms a liberal and my dads a "social democrat-fiscal conservative". They only thing I got out of it was be accepting.

[PartiyaKarkerênKurdistan!]

I was raised as nothing. My parents were apolitical.

But when I knew of my people's struggle and especially PKK's struggle and its ideologies, I took a stand against capitalism. But I really don't use far-left & far-right terms, as they're misused in a way. Formerly, these terms were used for economic believes, but now it is mixed up with social related issues. To get a better understanding of my political views, then I am left-wing economically and far-right socially. You will find many Kurds with the same view as I, since it is natural for most Kurds to have a view like this, since we have a very traditionalist society.

My people in the south (Iraqi Kurdistan) has accepted capitalism. You can see this with the lucrative deals they make with foreign oil companies, but I don't blame them. We're surrounded by wolves, for now, they're "protected" this way.

[The Cheshire Cat]

...To get a better understanding of my political views, then I am left-wing economically and far-right socially.

Eh.. what?

And how exactly is this 'natural' for Kurdish people?

[PartiyaKarkerênKurdistan!]

Sorry, ignore the last part. I thought of something completely different. :)

[Skyhilist]

Partiya, could you explain what you mean by "far-right socially"? I think you may have a few misconceptions about what the revolutionary left is.

[Comrade Dracula]

Voted other. My parents both lived in the former SFR Yugoslavia, and as such I was brought up hearing about the "good old times" of Tito's (market) socialism.
However, their politics happened to be on the exact opposite spectrum from that which they were nostalgic about.

They supported the Radical Party, a right-wing populist, ultranationalist, chuvanist social-conservative party. As such, I grew up with rather fucked up politics, them being a mix of ultranationalism, sexism (I nearly became one of those Men's Rights anti-feminist cretins), social-conservatism and radical social democracy.

So yeah, other.

[Red Commissar]

My folks are apolitical, especially my mother. Father was an active member of a left-nationalist outfit from overseas but nowadays he's no where near as involved in it anymore.

If I had to put a label on them I'd just say centrist, I guess straddling the boundary of "moderate" capitalist and soc-dem views. I remember being in an area where my father was one of thew few, without fault, to vote for Clinton and later Gore in the 90s and 2000. Later he voted for Bush in 2004 and McCain in 2008 (even though he expressed interest in Hillary Clinton in the primaries), only to vote for Obama in 2012. As far as I know he voted for Democrats before the 90s too. He really only went after people he thought would help with his life rather than something concretely ideological.

In this sense I never grew up in a house where I was raised to hate certain people or hold strong views. My parents were pretty chill all things considered.

[Agathor]

My family is pretty political but I wasn't "raised" in an ideology, as my parents are not twats. My grandfather on my dad's side was a communist when he was in university and almost got elected to parliament as a Labour MP in the sixties or seventies; he's the only left-wing branch in the family tree that I'm aware of. Everyone else is sort-of Guardian-reading cosmopolitan bourgeois who admire left-wingers like Orwell but would probably vote Tory the instant Labour or Lib-Dems commits to raise the top rate of tax by more than a percent.

[Tifosi]

My entire family are all life long Labour (UK) voters. They don't talk much on political matters but I will always remember watching science programmes and listening to my Dad talk about things that interest him and having my Mum as a teacher. That I think gave me the ground work for some sort of critical brain.

But my Dad is more left-wing than my Mum. Sadly my Mum is slipping into the casual racism that my Gran is into :(. Still love them :)

[#FF0000]

My parents were center-right, for the most part.

[Yuppie Grinder]

My dad and my sister how is a nun are republicans, one of my sisters is a sort of weirdo spiritual anarcho-primitivist, and the rest are democrats.

[Starship Stormtrooper]

I voted "moderate" capitalist. My dad is a mechanic and he's always been fairly apolitical. That said, there are quite a few instances in my childhood that I could point to to make the case that he was more of a social democrat (for example, pointing out all of the food wasted at the school cafeteria or stopping to talk with homeless people). My mother on the other hand is relatively reactionary. I would classify her as more of a neo-liberal. She does things like read the Economist, passionately teach Atlas Shrugged (she's an English teacher), and complain about the children on welfare in her classes to me. Both sides of my family are overall quite reactionary, and the amount of "war heroes" and "settlers" drives me quite insane :cursing:. Luckily (especially now), we have relatively limited contact with them.

[aty]

From where i am from most people vote either socialdemocratic or socialist, and my parents vote either at the Socialdemocratic Party or the Left Party, this is how most families in my city vote.

My parents do not know very much about politics and different tendencies but they vote leftist because they know these parties are or have been a part of the workers movement. They went to some communist meetings in their youths but nothing more. I was not raised in an particular way, they just told me in my youth because I was a "popular child" with much influence among other childs and some even feared me that I had to treat every one as equals. I was raised to not leave any one behind and help those that needed the help because I was a very intelligent child and good at sports at the same time. Neither of my parents were either academics or athletic but just ordinary workers but very intelligent people i must say.

[Comrade Nasser]

My parents were both Apolitical. But I would much rather choose to be around and be raised by liberals than conservatives. We would have been constantly at each others throats.

[RedSonRising]

Parents are Democrats. Can't recall specific mentions about politics in the household beyond a mildly expressed dislike for Bush during his first election, but a few liberal sentiments came through I'm sure. My parents are sympathetic to the poor and my mom has to deal with a lot of racism and institutional marginalization of her students, which mostly come from poor immigrant households. Both of them being immigrants from Colombia also allowed them to gel with the Dems I'm sure.

[Nevsky]

My parents never indoctrinated me directly with an ideology. My father is a doctor with maoist youth background, though. He lived through the years of lead in Italy, including fights with fascist bastards. I certainly got a few socialist values from him. My mother is rather apolitical but I try to convert her to marxism-leninism whenever I can :lol:

[AConfusedSocialDemocrat]

My mother is a nice CofE style liberal, consistently voted liberal democrats since she could vote. My father has weird political views, direct democracy, civic nationalism, republican, socialist, should lose your citizenship if you break the law, hates the tories with a passion.

[Brutus]

Mine were left of centre (just a tad)
Labour voters (any labour)

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Mother is largely apolitical, Father was a member of the League of Communists of Yugoslavia, and a fairly male-chauvinist, racist, homophobic and transphobic one. I suppose he has mellowed out a bit, but I don't find his caveman Titoism attractive, and never have.

[Taters]

My parents are Reaganites. I have no idea how I'm a communist right now. :laugh:

[Starship Stormtrooper]

My parents are Reaganites. I have no idea how I'm a communist right now. :laugh:

Perhaps a sense of youthful rebellion? I have no idea as to your age but that was/is certainly a factor for me. As I recall, there are studies cited by my government textbook that show the percentage of people who adhere to their parent's ideological views has declined to an extent over the last couple of decades (along with the percentage adhering to the parent's political party). Also, the propaganda machine against the USSR and other forms of un-Americanism seem to have "stopped" (or at least slowed down) in recent years, so such propaganda was undoubtedly a greater factor in the development of the ideological composition of our parent's generation than our own.

[Riveraxis]

My father is petty-bourgeois, owns his own insurance company. So I was raised pretty "conservative". I remember, when I was younger and had no interest in politics, Bush was running against Gore. I didn't even realize Gore ever ran for president until years later. Hah.
But they're mostly apolitical. They vote for president, and hold some really loose political views, but not really enough to debate even if I wanted to.

[melvin]

No, I was raised in a family that didn't pay attention to politics.

[DasFapital]

My mom is a Christian conservative who voted for Mitt Romney. My dad is a liberal (American liberal) leaning atheist. My brother is a lolbertarian who digs shitty redneck beer and weed.

[tehAdmrl]

Both of my parents are liberal, moderate on fiscal issues and quite leftist on social issues.

[MarxSchmarx]

Growing up, both my parents were basically advocates of "capitalism with a human face". They were both rather apolitical around children, although I remember my father taking me to go vote only to vote for the Vermin Supremes of the time.

However, my father was a Trot in his youth and of late has come to return to his earlier anti-capitalism. I've pushed him along and I think he eggs on my mother who has become somewhat more radical as well. However they are both deeply cynical but our politics get us along great.


Perhaps a sense of youthful rebellion? I have no idea as to your age but that was/is certainly a factor for me. As I recall, there are studies cited by my government textbook that show the percentage of people who adhere to their parent's ideological views has declined to an extent over the last couple of decades (along with the percentage adhering to the parent's political party). Also, the propaganda machine against the USSR and other forms of un-Americanism seem to have "stopped" (or at least slowed down) in recent years, so such propaganda was undoubtedly a greater factor in the development of the ideological composition of our parent's generation than our own.

A lot of this is that young people choose to be unaffiliated to one of the two American parties whilst this was less true of their parents.

[Os Cangaceiros]

My parents are right wing libertarians.

[Futility Personified]

My mum is a west german immigrant who shits her pants at the mention of East Germany. Any mention of socialism, communism or anarchism results in the same script of how horrible it was with no critical thinking or understanding of the concepts at large. My old man used to be a lib dem voter but is now a bluer than you tory largely influenced by his UKIP voting pseudo-fascist chum. He cracks racist jokes to wind me up and bait me but on the whole he's a reasonable dude although a huge devotee to the stock market and a mormon (lol). Love them to bits though. Seeing as my older brother stayed at mine since I was young I guess his views are relevant, he used to be a bit harder to pin down, he told me he formerly had an influence in socialism and expressed a lot of sentiments I related to vis a vis the state. However David Icke, Alex Jones and all that right wing "libertarian" horseshit is what he predominantly relates to now. He's a misogynist, who thinks capitalism has been taken over by communists, that global warming and carbon tax is a communist scam to get more control (but let's be honest, the capitalist state, if it really wanted to, could have all of us rounded up right this minute). He's a smart bloke, but I think too many drugs/drinks have kinda thrown his belief system up the swanney. One funny moment I recall was when he was going on about this group devoted to save Britain from the EU and the bankers, he spun me some of their rhetoric and straight off I told him they were far right, he shouldn't go and if he was truly anti nazi (one thing annoyingly he compares me to for identifying with the "far left") he wouldn't even be there. He laughs it off and says they're legitimately concerned about Britain's well being, they aren't racist, just concerned with immigration, and how the EU has all our sovereignty and that's why the UK is a fucked police state! So I sort of wryly smile and say have a nice time, and off he goes. Comes back a few days later, telling me he was accused of being MI5, people there were doling out racial epithets like they were chocolates, that they were mostly old people or skinheads BUT some of what they say is spot on. I told him he was a fascist sympathizer and we didn't talk for a few days. Lollerific, I know. But bless him, because I think I get a few anti state tendencies from him and arguing constantly about politics since I was 12 has given me reasonably good critical thinking. Love him to bits too.

[Tuggback]

Social democrats, though they have voted for the swedish left party (ex-communists) at times. My father comes from a tradeunionist/social democratic family and feels that he has a lot to thank the labour movement in Sweden for. He is the first person with an academic degree among his relatives.

[Thelonious]

I was born in Havana, Cuba in 1973. I came to the United States in 1980 with my father. He was released from prison by the Cuban government and emigrated to Miami. My father loved Cuba and always said he wanted to go back but could not. The strange thing is that he never said anything bad about Castro or communism or the revolution. He is dead and the mystery died with him.

My mother stayed in Cuba with my 3 older siblings. I have been back over 20 times and whenever I ask my mother about my father and why he left she smiles and says, "Son cosas politicas que yo no intiendo." (I don't understand things about politics). My mother and older siblings love Cuba and have never expressed any desire to leave, nor are they ever interested in talking about politics.

My father raised me in the United States as a liberal Democrat which only deepens the mystery about why he left Cuba and could not go back.

[Pelarys]

Since my father had to raise me alone he didn't have a lot of time to devote to politics. He votes for the lesser of the evils every single time, preferably democratic socialists. He doesn't want to give up his vote but he knows very well it won't lead to any change. I don't know a lot about his past but I have reason he was pretty far on the left and softened when he got older, had childs and a high pay. It's the first person I heard singing l'Internationale. I voted borderline socialist even if he didn't raise me politically per se.

[Questionable]

I'd like to meet more left-wingers who were raised by fascists.

My parents were mostly apolitical, with my father teaching me that all politicians were the same, but whenever he did talk he was a center-right conservative who hated unions. He was, however, very tolerant of other people and a supporter of gay rights', also hated the bigotry and hypocrisy of organized religion. I think that's where my radical left views started to bloom.

My girlfriend is a more interesting story. Her dad is a hardcore Randian Objectivist who would literally spend hours lecturing her on the virtues of selfishness and individualism before she was even ten years old. When she was in high school he used to leave Ayn Rand books scattered around the house in the hope that she'd pick one up and read it.

Then I infected her with socialism, and she's been one of us ever since. Wasn't too hard since she was never strongly devoted to capitalism and was always sympathetic to the plight of the less unfortunate.

[Rooiakker]

My father was a hard core capitalist. (He once gave me a speech about how if poor people are hungry and they riot and burn down a shop that they should all be shot for ruining the poor capitalists life.)

My mother believed in a one world government where people don't vote, but also supported programs for the poor and elderly.

[Sentinel]

I was basically raised as a critical thinker by my parents. They were marxist-leninists at the time. My mom always let me draw my own conclusions, and thus I travelled from supporting their ideology (as a kid) to apolitical (as a teenager), to anarchist (in my twenties), to being a trotskyist now.

At least I know the ideas of the entire revolutionary left now. :lol:

[John Lennin]

My parents and grandparents were both left-wing social democrats, the parents switched to the greens in the 80s.
I was never forced to follow any ideology, they always encouraged me to think for myself.
My travels (so far):
Leftist monarchist (way too utopic) -> democratic socialist -> trotskyist -> pacifist communist

[DarkPast]

My parents are best described as social democrats. Father was a member of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, but pretty much joined due to peer pressure, when he was doing military service. He was almost completely uninterested in Marxist theory. This was actually very common in the so-called communist countries of Eastern Europe.

That said, they never pushed their political views on me.

[Bardo]

My parents were generally apolitical and didn't follow things much aside from watching the evening news. The first time I've ever seen them vote was during this past election, they voted Republican.

[one10]

Both of my parents came from Cuba at a young age (my mother was 3, my father was 7). They were raised conservative capitalists and are both members of the Republican party here in America. Although they never really forced their political ideals on me, I did grow up in a house hold in which my parents and grandparents were constantly comparing Fidel Castro to Satan and calling the Democrat party a bunch of Socialists. As a child, I just went with what they said.

I realized my views were Marxist while I was in high school and also became an atheist. At first, I thought I was a Democrat, and voiced my opinion to my family in 2004 when George W. Bush was running for re-election. They were disappointed and were constantly trying to convince me that the Democrat party is Socialist. I eventually researched Socialism, that led me to Marx.

The transition period wasn't fun. I hid my Marxist ideals from my family for nearly a year. They eventually caught on when they noticed the books I was reading. I felt disowned, like a homosexual revealing his sexual orientation to his homophobic parents...

We spent the remainder of my high school years constantly having heated arguments and debates on politics until I moved out after graduating. Perhaps that fueled my rebellious side back in my teenage days.

Since then, we choose not to discuss politics nor religion at family gatherings. There is the rare occasion in which such topics are discussed, but there is a sense of respect now as opposed to when I was a teenager.

[TomHPMc]

My parents aren't really political.

In a way though that has influenced my political views as much as it probably would have if they were. I've never believed in a god, but I was raised Catholic and because of that I've kinda built up a lot of sour feelings towards religion.

Strictly politically speaking: growing up in an apolitical household has kinda led me to apply theories such as alienation and detachment to the parliment system.

[Sidagma]

My parents were both proud members of the US Democratic party, but utterly uneducated about anything political. They're the kind of people who see campaign ads for politicians and take them at face value.