We get a lot from our parents. They give us our name, pick out our clothes when we're too little, and tell us what we should eat. We spend the entire first section of our lives abiding by their rules, and letting them show us how things are done.
But what about once we leave home?
We come to college, and we are introduced to a world of different ideas. A place where if we can't do something, we have to choose how to proceed. We get to decide how to think, and how to feel, and how we want the our world to work.
Over time, these decisions become clearer. We start to see how we want to be, and how we like things to be. Over the four years of college those ideas become our ideals, and the only way we want to live. We become fully functioning adults, apart from our parents, and apart from the decisions that they themselves have made for their lives.
But family is forever. You come home from college on break, and you have to sit in the same room with parents, and tell them that you've decided things on your own. That you've weighed your options and you've decided that your way is better. Sorry, Mom and Dad.
This moment happened for me when I decided that I am a Democrat.
I know what you're thinking. Just because my father is a Republican doesn't actually make things harder. You can avoid the topic, or you can change the subject. But I am here to tell you what I have learned: It is often hard to hide the things that you are most passionate about from the people you love most.
Exhibit A:
Below is an email conversation between me and my very loving, but very Republican, father. I emailed him to show him an article on presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.
His response:
Yes, Daddy Dearest is a funny one. But this, my friends, is what I am talking about.
We want to share our new-found knowledge with our parents. We want to prove to them that our wheels are turning, and we have found our internal compass, and finally see what direction we're heading in.
So what do I do with a father who is stuck in his ways? Who refuses to open his eyes to all of this amazing new information I have stumbled upon at college?
I'll tell you. You look him in the eyes, tell him he's wrong, but that you love him anyway.
Politics can get nasty, and people can get nasty, especially when they blindly decide that they're right. But why should we let a government system that is divided, divide us from the ones we love?
Your vote matters and everyone should vote, but that is between you and the voting booth.
So this is me. A Democrat waving the white flag to my hopelessly right-wing father. I love you and your crazy Republican ways. And while I may still argue with you occasionally, and try to force you to #FeeltheBern, I'll promise not to let this election year and politics come between us.
