I also notice this -— YOUNG KIDS, those who are most susceptible to influence, tend to be liberal from high school to a few years after graduating from college ( I’d say a majority ).
I would attribute this to the overwhelmingly left-wing mindset of their high school teachers ( most of them union members ) and their college professors ( most of whom vote Democrat ).
The moment they start holding down a job, have a family and then take on the responsibility of having to raise their kids and pay taxes... they begin to realize the burdensome encroachment of the government....they also begin to realize that without the church, the traditional morality that they themselves repudiated when they were in college, they cannot discipline their kids.
Slowly, but surely, the sensible ones become more conservative.
With God’s grace, my children will never fall into that trap, even at a young age.
We’re teaching them from a biblical worldview and how to defend that worldview,
as well as starting at a young age to be a master of their emotions, not the other way around.
There was a book/seminar out some time ago called “Self-discipline and emotional control”. I have found the techniques and rational explanations in this material to be quite useful, especially when (re)taught through a biblical lens.
I try to be patient with many younger people. The old saw “If you a young person and aren’t a liberal, you have no heart...if you are an older person and you aren’t conservative, you have no brain” does have some validity.
My whole life I was as conservative as a kid could be. I remember the 1968 election and being completely on board for Richard Nixon (okay, I know he is no conservative, but...you get the idea)
But even still...I DO remember as a college student (and this was after I served four years in the navy) taking a sociology course, and thinking it was the most amazing thing, gushing over a book like “Walden II” (those of you who may have read it will know EXACTLY what I mean)
It was only a few years later, I came to realize it was all liberal, socialist, statist claptrap. But I was caught up in it, me who had traveled around the world by age 21, a conservative, etc.
What you said in your paragraph about holding a job is so true.
Conservatives and republicans are the party and beliefs of “I can do it myself”. Democrats and liberalism are the party and beliefts of “I have to wait for Government to do for me”
In a nutshell, that is why people become more conservative as they become self sufficient. We don’t need to wait around and/or ask permission to do things. We can do it ourselves.