Found out people have less influence on how things turn out for them than the typical right wing nut would have you believe.

Funny how you can work your ass off for 50 years and still not have a place to stay or a buck for a cup of coffee. Don't start me on the gamble of having a kid turn out normal.

They voted for Nixon twice and were scared that the dirty hippies would come to our sleepy town. Two things--the possibility of my brother going to Vietnam and Reagan's screwing of unions--pushed them leftward and they became faithful Dems in their later years. Growing up female in the 70s made me see the light more than anything.

We had to write a letter to a public official in our typing class. I wrote ronald reagan and made an incredibly naive, but earnest and forthright, request not to open anwar for oil drilling.

They'd moderated somewhat from that but still liberals. My dad is now 95 and watches Rachel Maddow and Lawrence ODonnell every night and refuses to even refer to the republicans as a political party; calls them a criminal front group.
Meanwhile, I was reading Karl Marx (I've moderated from that ,lol) by time I was 12. Right now I feel more radical than any time since my 20's (I'm 62) .Happy to report that the vast majority of my liberal friends from college etc and younger, whose views I still know, have remained progressive. Not all, but large majority; probably 90 %.

albeit not an official one, Trotskyist in 2013, but I'm now OFFICIALLY a card carrying Red. And people say you get more conservative as you age?

Then Iran Contra happened, and I lost all respect for them.

so while I was political, my experience of politics as a kid as very different. For god sakes, my sociology instructor in my senior HS year was a member of the Central committee of the Communist Party, so yes I know what is a communist, a marxist. a socialist and a social democrat, none are the same.

I am a progressive now. Part of that comes from listening to my father; he was a professed liberal who was a bigoted, conservative man in practice. I found that tolerance and socialism lead to a better quality of life.

parents always voted Democrat. They lived through the Great Depression and loved FDR and would never vote for a Republican.

... Ebony, U.S.S.R Today (later Soviet Life), Ramparts, Garbage, Science, and, of course, more mainstream publications like National Geographic, Natural History, Time, etc. This material was necessary to counteract the prevailing views in the smallish Idaho town in which we lived until I was 17, where the population was over 50% Mormon (and is now 71% Mormon). It worked, I was appropriately indoctrinated as a child and remain so.

giving to him in a box. My parents liked Reagan and I was a disgusting little suck-up.

Now I'm a socialist and my brother thinks all politics are hopelessly corrupt.

a flower child ... we were raised to be liberals.

I did go through a period for about 5 years when I left for college, graduated, and started working - I felt like maybe there was something to Reagan's trickle down and if I just worked hard enough I could be a millionaire too. I got over that notion pretty quickly when I entered the workforce and found out my salary for the year was $15,500 starting out. You need a lot of raises to get to a million from there ...

I ended up doing well in my career and married someone who similarly did well - but we both remain democrats and I am far more socialist. Once you've sat in the board room there is no way you can honestly talk about anyone caring about workers. The goal of capitalism is profit and that's it (if anyone gets helped along the way it's incidental - the goal is always growth and more profit). I have two siblings and they are both also socialists who vote dem.

But I was always a liberal. I was never in step with my family's interests or what they consider "values."

Adding: I'm not really sure what happened to my parents. All of my grandparents were Democrats.

"Moral Majority".

I would have liked to have thought of myself as being a republican, but truthfully I don't think I was much of a right leaning kid on any issues other than our military/foreign poilcy and fiscal policy. Socially I was always a centrist/moderate and probably would have leaned left.

Fighting in a war was an eye-opener for me and forced me to reevaluate a lot of things. Combat had the unexpected consequence of softening me up and was a very humanizing experience for me. I would say that I lean HARD left/progressive on almost every issue.

They didn't like Reagan, and my grandpa vocally hated him with a white hot passion. Possibly that example helped push me to go more and more left as I grow older.