Politics are never an easy topic of conversation.
Add in the fact that it’s an election year, a summer of protests and activism has reinvigorated the national conversation around police brutality and race, there’s a pandemic raging on and many college students are living at home, and political conversation with family is elevated from uncomfortable to nearly impossible for many Pepperdine students.
Pepperdine students who are living at home right now during this unprecedented time are having more difficult political conversations with family than ever before, and learning how to handle those disagreements when they arise. Some students said they worry that political disagreements will have long-term effects on familial relationships, while others choose to prioritize those connections over their views.
“Sometimes I’m willing to put up a fight and really try and articulate my ideas, even if it’s frustrating and difficult,” sophomore philosophy major Lauren Chivers said. “But sometimes I’m like ‘I think I just need to have a nice, quiet dinner with my parents and not fight with them.’”
Many Pepperdine students experience political conflict with their families. A Pepp Post poll of 63 students, almost 89% of whom were female, found that roughly 60% are living at home with family this semester. More than half, 54%, of students said they are a different political party than their parents, and nearly three quarters said they have different political leanings than their parents. About 81% of students said they tend to lean left politically, while just over 27% said their parents lean left.
A perfect storm for political fights
The unique conditions of this year increased the likelihood of college students engaging in political arguments with family at home and for heightened tensions around politics within the family, Sociology Professor Anna Penner said.
“What’s tricky right now is we have more emerging adults living at home than we have in over 100 years,” Penner said. “Over 50% of emerging adults are living at home since COVID-19 started.”
The poll found that more than 63% of students have had more political arguments with family than usual since being at home due to the pandemic.
Many college students are also spending the first presidential election year they’re able to vote in at home with family instead of with their peers on campus, a factor that adds more tension to the political dynamic with family, Penner said.
“That uniquely situates this cohort, I think, to have to weigh if they’re going to vote differently than their parents, what that would mean and if they should admit that they might be voting differently or that they did vote differently,” Penner said. “I think it is a very unique and heightened situation where everything feels a little bit more tenuous, and also a lot more important.”
With college students more than doubling their rate of voting in the past two years, they are likely to play a large role in determining the winner of the upcoming presidential election, Amy Gardner wrote in a Sept. 19, 2019 Washington Post article.
Millennials and Gen Z are the largest age groups of eligible voters in this election. Historically, however, they have the lowest voting rates. They will have to exercise their right to vote to affect the outcome of the election in any major way, according to the Campus Vote Project.
Common sources of political disagreements
For many Pepperdine students, an issue that causes tension between themselves and their families is the Black Lives Matter movement and conversations around police brutality and reform. Chivers said the protests and riots around those issues specifically were a huge area of contention in her home this summer.
“Every night at dinner we were having conversations about [protests and riots] and it was really, really difficult just because I can’t go anywhere,” Chivers said. “With the nature of the pandemic, I’m stuck in my house with the people I’m having debates and arguments with, so that’s definitely been tough but I think I’ve just sort of learned where to draw the line.”
Chivers said her original understanding of why her parents hold different beliefs than her own has been altered through the discussions they’ve had, particularly with her father and his condemnation of the riots and destruction of property in the wake of anti-racism protests.
“My dad has his own business and he has a little shop, so I think for certain issues, I don’t have a business so I don’t know what it’s like to watch your business go up in flames, but for him that would be the end of the world,” Chivers said. “I think there are certain problems where I have to recognize that I don’t understand what that’s like and he does in a certain way.”
Miller, a junior English writing and rhetoric major, said the Black Lives Matter movement was also a major source of disagreement and tension between them and their father before they moved out of their family home in August.
“This summer we got into disagreements around police and the Black Lives Matter movement, and it always got heated really fast,” Miller said. “My mom would step in to try and mediate, and then we would end up just going back to our corners and not talking for a while.”
Junior Mahala Bayless, an integrated marketing communication major, has had many of her family members take issue with her outspoken support for the Black Lives Matter movement, and she said she has tried again and again to explain the intentions behind the movement to them with little success. They see it as the lifting of Black lives and voices above all other races, while she has tried to educate them on its actual purpose: to shine a light on the discrimination Black Americans face daily and highlight their struggles while also striving for equality.
“For some parts of my family, you can have different political opinions and yet still be able to be cordial and love each other,” Bayless said. “For others, it’s been a matter of [me] being a disgrace and honestly, a disappointment. It’s sad to see family relationships get boiled down to that.”
Sometimes it’s not even the specific issues themselves that are really the root of disagreements, but rather the nature of the current political climate that leads to heated family debate, junior biology major Katie Thompson said.
“It’s not just political at this point, it’s become so moral,” Thompson said. “You always hear, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t end friendships over political disagreements,’ but the way the country has evolved in the last 10 years, it’s not just political anymore, it’s moral.”
Some students, like sophomore IMC major Jacob Zanca, are more comfortable with the political environment at home rather than on campus. Zanca said that even though he’s more comfortable politically at home in New Orleans than in Malibu, there is a political environment on campus that allows for debate without the same high-stakes consequences that exist within a family setting.
“Minor disagreements with family members, if handled poorly, can be exaggerated to the point that there are major issues,” Zanca said. “I don’t think that that situation can really happen on campus.”
Zanca also said that he and his family members are all a “weird mix” of political ideologies, and thus are typically able to avoid the kinds of discourse students who completely disagree with their families engage in. Despite this, there have still been points of conflict they’ve had to navigate, mainly around the choices the government made or didn’t make in regard to COVID-19 economic shutdowns.
“My household has gotten to a point where even with major disagreements we can handle those delicately and make sure that everybody at the very least feels respected,” Zanca said.
The effects of political disagreement on familial relationships
While there’s not enough research to definitively say that political disagreements can have long-term effects on family relationships, it is clear that any kind of familial division isn’t healthy for the structure of a family unit, Penner said.
“We don’t know how much politics will impact things,” Penner said. “I think there’s precedent for saying if we can’t figure out how to make these relationships work, solidify the rules and have respect on both sides this could be hugely problematic for those relationships down the line,” Penner said.
Psychology Professor Veronica Kuhn, a licensed marriage and family therapist, said there are signs that the political atmosphere and polarization of recent years has already affected some American family dynamics.
“We’re definitely seeing more families experiencing cut off, which is where a family member might decide to no longer have contact with an individual or a group of members from their family,” Kuhn said. “[Cutoff] can have embedded in it long-term impacts.”
Thompson said her family has had to cut off a few extended relatives because of their extremist, dangerous views toward certain marginalized groups.
“It’s so disheartening to see members of my family make decisions that, you know, don’t support the values that they say they uphold as Christians, and I think that has definitely altered a lot of my relationships with my family,” Thompson said.
Bayless said she has seen the effects of political tension on her familial relationships very recently, as her grandfather’s illness brought many relatives together who chose to use that family time to try and debate politics with her, something she thought was disrespectful.
“It’s been insane that people are still more concerned about politics than, you know, the sanctity of family itself,” Bayless said.
The stress of political tensions and arguments on her family has caused some of her relationships to almost entirely break down, with some relatives writing her off for her differing beliefs, Bayless said.
Healing from the fallout of political disagreements with family
The root of most political conflict within families is not the actual policies or politicians, but rather the values individuals hold that influence their political beliefs, Kuhn said. Disagreements arise when people feel as though others are bringing their values into question or putting them under scrutiny. Figuring out why certain political ideas are important to someone allows for conversation and understanding, beyond just arguing.
“That’s not to say we’re going to change any family members’ minds about their position, but if we can understand their position, we might relate to them differently rather than just standing in opposition to them,” Kuhn said.
One underused strategy to heal from any kind of rift in the family, but especially those that are rooted in politics, is to go to family therapy, Kuhn said.
“People wait too long and problems get big and they come in when they’re in sort of the throes of crisis, so my first recommendation is if you feel like you’ve gotten to a place where you can’t communicate effectively with family members, think about bringing in a third party,” Kuhn said.
A great tip for students who find themselves getting into an intense political argument with their families is for them to take a breather and let their body come down from that stress so they will be more calm and be able to effectively communicative, Kuhn said.
“If you’re in a heated debate, it takes 20 to 30 minutes for your brain and your neurochemical reaction to de-escalate enough for you to be fully present in the conversation again,” Kuhn said.
Students cope with disagreement
While it is easier to handle political arguments by flying off the handle and becoming combative, particularly given the seriousness of the issues at hand and the closeness one has with their family, it is more effective and educational for family members of opposing views to adopt a more civil and level-headed approach, Thompson said.
“I do think it’s really important to engage in those discussions and try to express empathy and understanding, even if I don’t agree with the position,” Thompson said. “If I’m not willing to make the bridge, they’re never going to listen to my side.”
Thompson said her sister tends to take the more aggressive, hostile approach with their family members in political arguments, but she is able to have more productive conversations with her peaceful and understanding tactics.
Political disagreements with family can be hurtful and may have lasting effects, but it’s better to speak about the issues our country is facing than to not talk about them at all, Zanca said.
“It’s good to talk about politics,” Zanca said. “It’s not something we should try to avoid. We’ve hit this boiling point, I think, as a country because we have tried to avoid these conversations.”
While the pandemic and all of the other varied conditions college students find themselves living at home under right now have and will continue to take a toll on families nationwide, Kuhn is hopeful that the power of family will be enough to keep students’ families intact and thriving, even as they continue to engage in political discussions.
“Families are so resilient, that we can grow and find connection and community in some of the most challenging positions,” Kuhn said. “My hope and intent is that families are leaning toward that and finding new ways to navigate difficult conversations because they’ve been having to do that so far in the pandemic, and that those experiences of having difficult conversations or being overwhelmed by family members because you’re with them all the time can carry into the political season that we’re heading into and can help in supporting them in those conversations.”
Addison Whiten completed the reporting for this story in Jour 241 in Fall 2021 under the supervision of Dr. Christina Littlefield and Dr. Theresa de los Santos. Dr. Littlefield supervised the web version of the story.
