Different political views to parents

[gem90xo]

I wondered whether people have really different political views to their family (mainly older family) etc and how they deal with it? I feel like everytime I see mine lately they are so riled up about what is on the mainstream media at the moment ie immigration, protests etc and get most of their info from Facebook, Twitter and mail online .

They spend a lot of time scrolling on their phones and definitely fall for a lot of the rage bait online when it comes to those kind of topics and literally believe everything they read. Whilst I do challenge it sometimes, I’m finding it more difficult as I have completely different views which they don’t want to even hear and the amount they go on and on is starting to grate on me. I feel like it’s affecting their moods and changing their personalities

Any advice or does anyone else have similar experiences?

A lot of people are becoming indoctrinated online, it seems to get the younger and older people the most. I was surprised to read that younger people are most susceptible to conspiracy theories.

SM seems to have been taken over by aggressive repetition of right wing disinformation. The same stories are repeated over and over again and people eventually see them as facts, especially when the disinformation is not challenged.

The problem becomes exacberated when you add conspiracy theories into the mix because there's a distrust of everything experts, professionals and MSM write. We saw this during the run up to the Brexit referendum.

Couldn’t agree more. Some of the stories and “facts” they come out with sometimes honestly makes me laugh as it’s so ridiculous and far fetched.

I wish I could take the internet away from them or put some kind of child control on there 🤣

This is nothing new. Children have disagreed with their parents' politics for decades. They used to make sitcoms about it (Family Ties). Read Jessica Mitford's memoir about how she (a Communist who fought for the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War) loved her sister who was a Nazi friend of Hitler. Socialist Diane Abbot chose Tory Jonathan Aitken to be her son's godfather.

Judging your family and friends on whether they agree with you politically is why this moment is so polarised. Assuming your parents aren't bad people, there might be good faith reasons they believe certain points of view. The social media algorithm is no different from Guardian readers getting fed a certain narrative versus Sun readers.

FWIW my mother was an ex-Communist Party, CND supporting Irish Catholic and my father an ex Army, Thatcherite, pro-Unionist so I grew up with furious political arguing as something normal. I have many friends who profoundly disagree with my GC views but we would never fall out because at heart we have many values in common and we happen to have come to different conclusions based on different experiences in our lives. It doesn't make us right and wrong or good and bad.

I'm on the right, my dh is on the left. We've been married for 25 years without an issue. Infact, I learn a lot from listening to his views, and he mine. We discuss politics regularly without insulting each other, or questioning each other's intelligence.
Our dc have different political opinions to both of ours, and I'm fine with that. We should be able to respect others with different opinions to our own.

People these days take politics far too seriously. Both your parents who are obviously too absorbed with politics and yourself who is feeling your differing opinions is affecting your relationship. Same goes for people who end friendships over politics.

I just ignore it mostly tbh. My mum spends her retirement sitting and doomscrolling, believing everything she reads, including AI posts and scammers pretending to be celebs. I’ve told her to get off SM, but i’ve got my own kids and health to deal with, without trying to parent my parents.

There's a big problem with a lack of critical thinking - people believing anything they read/hear. Often connected to a belief that if it wasn't true, it couldn't be published/posted, as if the media were magically policed. Not understanding how to evaluate a source.

They don't have to listen to your alternative viewpoint - but then you don't have to listen to theirs either. Don't waste your time trying to debate with them. Change the subject, walk away, refuse to engage with it.

@NatalieWynch I don't want to derail the thread but there aren't shades of große Lüge, it's being used explicitly. If we look at the days after the Southport murders, disinformation spread very quickly, shared millions of times and resulted in people trying to murder asylum seekers.

Trump started spreading lies that the election was stolen and it ended up in an insurrection and people were killed. I see the same misinformation used repeatedly and it's become part of people's everyday lexicon. I'm seeing more and more far right rhetoric creeping into people's political views and the problem is that the government seem to be inflaming it.

We’re the same but the other way round. We agree on a lot of issues but differ on how to approach them.

My parents are raging champagne socialists. They rage against capitalism yet DMum was HoD in a school and Dad was Oxford educated up to PhD and ran his own business dealing in antiquated books on Ancient Greece + Rome which he sold to his friends in elite universities 🙄. For all their principles, they sent me to a grammar school and lived in a huge Georgian townhouse in a bouji part of Yorkshire.
So I grew up Labour but have gradually grown more centre right.
Although I was taught debating by them we now don't talk politics at all. In fact since VAT on school fees, we hardly speak at all. They only have 1 grandchild (my DD) and we dared to send her to an independent school. They know how much VAT has impacted us and even more so now DH has been made redundant. We scrimp/save/stress etc yet they used to parrot crazy tropes of privilege at us. They, who have much more privileged lives than we do. So we don't really talk much and they are missing out on their only grandchildren but that's their choice to put their politics ahead of their grandchild. I could never do that so I don't understand them in the slightest and they feel I have abandoned the principles they brought me up on.
I called them out on their hypocrisy earlier this year and they did not take it well.

Yes my mother is getting worse, sits with GB news on and gets fed loads of crap and lies on Facebook. She's obsessed with how many boats come over each day.

I've explained the algorithms will keep showing similar negatives videos the more you watch stuff so it looks all doom and gloom but realistically as a PP said, I can't parent them too so I just ignore or say 'I don't want to talk about this' when it's brought up.

@twistyizzy That's really sad. I hope your parents change their ways 💐

They are in their 80s so they won't. It's just ridiculous that they have had such privileged lives yet visibly look down on my own decision about DD. It's their loss though if they want to put ideology about her.

My mum and sister are fully indoctrinated, and spend way too much time online. Mum has GB News on in the background all the time, and follows Rupert Lowe on Twitter like a lost puppy. They're both bonkers, and believe every conspiracy theory going.

I deal with it by not discussing any of their hot button issues. We stick to topics like home renovations, cooking and gardening.

I can't change their minds, and even if I could, it wouldn't make a bit of difference to the world. The only winning move is not to play.

There's nothing you can do about it OP. You aren't very likely to change their views, even if you spent all day/every day arguing the toss with them (and who wants to live like that!) Just avoid politics. If they start going on about immigrants or whatever, just say you aren't interested and ask to talk about gardening, or holidays or anything. There are plenty of other subjects in the world. It's not as if you're married to them. That would be a different matter.

I'm older and I don't believe most of what I read. So much is obviously made up. Even on MN (or especially on MN) I read threads and think, nope not real, that didn't happen, made up bullshit, etc.

It's not an age thing, it's more about how susceptible you are, how anxious you are and how much of a pessimist you are.

Live and let live I say.

You just have to refuse to engage in those conversations. It’s hard I know because we have this with Fil, he doesn’t even live in UK but likes to tell us all sorts of utter nonsense about what is happening here!!

It isn't only older people who get indoctrinated.

My ds17 needs no encouragement to go into a full on rant about how the boomer generation is totally selfish and has ruined his life. That he'll never afford a house or have a decent job, we've wrecked the environment etc.

Until I point out that I am a (late) boomer and, regardless of being a single parent, I have worked since I was 13, have raised him in a lovely house while working full time, have worked hard to allow him to go to independent school, and will downsize so he can go to university, qualify as an engineer and have a good future.

Then he says "well, apart from you" 😁

Then I point to my closest friend, a year older than me and also a single mum, who has raised her ds, who has SEN, and he is now in full employment while taking an apprenticeship. She fought through the courts to keep him in school.

And DS says "well, apart from her too" 😁😁😁

Just raise an eyebrow, point out the obvious holes in their arguments, and then let it go. It's not worth fighting over. They know they are being unreasonable. They just want a rant.

If it's grating on you and affecting your mood, it's affecting you, too.

There was a time when politics were left to the older people because they had nothing else in the world to do and talked about politicians, weather and the price of cheese.

Leave them to their thoughts and you leave your thoughts to yourself.

Just some advice from someone with a very different political stance to inlaws, colleagues, friends etc.

Leave the politics to politicians who get paid to talk nonsense.

There was a time when politics were left to the older people because they had nothing else in the world to do

Not in my lifetime. Back in the dark ages when I was young we were heavily invested in politics. That’s part of the problem now that so many young people don’t engage and it’s their future politicians are messing with.

Depends on how much people actually buy into the idea that they influence politicians, decisions etc in any way at all.

Politics are a distraction like the news, IMO.

Whatever the case, it's definitely not worth relationships.

There are other hobbies worth pursuing - politics just isn't it.

You are starting from a viewpoint that you are right and they are wrong, whilst clearly they think the opposite.
Surely ‘the truth’ whatever that is, is somewhere in the middle?

I have different views to my parents and my OH on politics. Doesn’t cause an issue as I either won’t take part in any political conversation or shutdown any questions I am asked.