For the most part where did you grow up and develop your ideals?

Jewish, east coast of the United States, liberal and idealistic by birth and current inclination.

Born in Boston, MA in 1971. Italian-American kid in 50/50 Italian/Irish neighborhood. Dad was a partially reformed hippie who loved cars and planes and sang in a band. Mom could be lots of fun, but was always stressed. She soon turned hateful and paranoid. Probably mentally ill. I was a latchkey kid by age ten and spent a lot of time alone (in my room, on my bike, roaming around the city). I explored a lot of places a 10–15 year-old probably shouldn’t. Met some “interesting” people.

My folks were envious lower middle class. Always someone was doing better than them, or they deserved more, or someone was out to get them. They had a hard time being happy as the years went on.

Lots of addictions in my family (alcohol, drugs, gambling). I steered clear of most of it.

I developed most of who I am as a reaction to them, in high school, and in college. A lot of my moral compass came from my girlfriend (now wife), who had a close-knit, crazy, loud Italian-Argentine family. They’re good people.

@cprevite You are a baby ! Have a cookie.

@janbb Be nice, it was an honest response. Please no flame bait.

@auhsojsa That is no flame bait, just an old joke among good friends. @cprevite knows I’m crazy about him; I was just funning on his age.

Born in Washington DC. Moved to a NYC suburb when I was still an infant, then back to the suburbs of DC when I was 9 until I graduated high school. College in Michigan, then moved to FL. Now I am in TN.

Worked in retail for many many years, then real estate, and have done some administrative work in various industries.

I met my husband at a dance club, he was dancing on a speaker with another girl when I first spied him. I have been married almost 19 years, no kids. Travel a bit, especially for my husband’s car racing hobby.

I regularly zumba and do water aerobics.

I am Jewish, raised by atheists, and am an atheist myself. I am second and third generation American, depending on what side of my family you are looking at.

My dad is a sociologist, which I think affected how I look at different cultures, and how I see the world. I grew up in a very diverse community, and so did my parents. I tend to be very liberal, especially regarding social issues. More moderate on fiscal issues.

@janbb Sorry I read in black and white.

I grew up on the east coast of Scotland in the area from which our family name originates. The people there are almost uniformly white and nominally Protestant. I didn’t realise that at the time, and I learned to take people as I find them. Our family would be considered poor by present day standards but we didn’t know that.

My ideals came from my parents and grandparents and from books and I think they developed during the many walks and adventures we had in the local countryside. It was an interesting time; people were beginning to get televisions, transistor radios and cars. At school we were issued with slates and chalks and in winter a coal fire burned in the classrooms.

@auhsojsa You can pretty much figure if both jellies have over 20,000 points they know each other and have some jokes they share. You will get to know the little bits of lingo and funny things shared soon too, because they will come up again and again.

After an early childhood spent on a farm, we moved to Denver, Colorado. In the 1950’s we lived in a new suburb. My Dad’s brothers all bought homes within walking distance of ours, and my Mom’s family lived within driving distance. We all went to the same church, and spent weekends together. I was one of the four oldest cousins, and enjoyed every new addition to the family.

My family was very religious, and I attended church twice every Sunday plus prayer meeting on Wednesday. Most of my leisure time was spent on church activities for children and teens.

Our neighborhood had brand new everything, schools, library, and shopping mall. There was a bus to all the city attractions, the wonderful zoo and museums that Denver is famous for. It was truly a Golden Age for me.

The cloud over all this is that I was rejected by my peers at school, and it was very painful for me. Combined with the fact that my brother suffered from a mental illness most of his life, it was a very mixed environment.

@YARNLADY Rejected by your peers for a specific reason? Or, just cattiness among girls dividing up into their cliques?

@JLeslie Two things, school subjects were extremely easy for me, thus teacher’s pet and my family was Mormon

@YARNLADY I don’t think I knew that was part of your childhood experience, and also somehow didn’t remember you were raised Mormon. Thanks.

I am Dutch, male, Greek girlfriend, volunteer furniture maker, sports fan, 8 feet, bon viveur.
So, nothing extraordinary to report.

I was raised in the 1970’s in Southern California. I come from a Roman Catholic family and have five brothers and sisters. My dad was a school teacher and my mom stayed home with us, therefore we grew up lower middle class in an upper middle class suburb of Los Angeles. The Church was a big part of my life growing up and became even bigger when my mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer when I was 11. She died a year later and I became the daughter of a single father. He was pretty pissed off that his wife wasn’t around to help with all the kids she birthed so it was a rough go from there on out.

My parents were very liberal politically and taught me to care about people before money. Even though the town where I grew up was not diverse in the least, my parents made a point of teaching us that no one is superior to anyone else because of their race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation. While my father is now a member of the Bill O’Reilly fan club, but I am glad he instilled a different attitude in me.

Another Southern California child here. I grew up in a predominantly Hispanic-Catholic suburb in the San Gabriel Valley portion of Los Angeles County in the 1990s. My family is multi-ethnic. I grew up completely immersed in a world of media: television, film, books-a-plenty, videogames, and the Internet (back when it was more difficult to navigate, but still usable for my elementary-aged self.) The music we grew up listening to, K-Earth 101, was generations behind my peers at school. Their pop music made me cringe.

My parents didn’t believe in imposing religion on their children, though my siblings and I grew up saying our prayers before bed and asking to be excused from the table. We never attended church. Both parents are Republic. Neither my siblings nor I have a religious affiliation and are definitely socially liberal. Neither parent drinks and my mother quit smoking before I was born. I have not, and will not, touch either.

My dad studied Biology and my mother Accounting. My older brother ended up studying Communications and both my younger brother and I are English students. I blame the ritual visits to various libraries.

So how did I become who I am? Reading, mostly.

Rigel 7

A small place in Oregon outside of Portland. I grew up with my single mother who worked a lot as a bartender and waitress, and is now a nurse. My grandparents are from rural MS, but moved to WA to start a family, so most of my relatives aren’t as southern as the older ones.

We lived in WA for awhile but my mother moved to OR when I was 11 or 12. I think we both had more freedom down there, because I always remember my aunts and uncles talking about how overbearing their parents were.

I had a lot of freedom as a teen since my mom worked a lot. I’m an only child so I spent a lot of time playing video games or reading in my room, or toking it up with my buddies lol. Oregon has a great nature scene, so we hiked and had bonfire parties in the forests of Mt. Hood.

@auhsojsa: I appreciate the thought, but me and the penguin are tight. She’s all that and a bag of walrus wafers.

@Blackberry: Cheers to a fellow only child.

Born and raised in Oakland California.
3rd of 4 children, I am the oldest son.

I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada, and lived there until I was 10. I was raised in a relatively liberal area by relatively liberal parents. Then we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where I currently reside. Also very liberal area. I was raised Catholic, but have largely dropped that from my life; I don’t feel negative toward it, however, especially considering my mom (the main religious person in my family) is a relatively liberal Catholic (they exist). I was raised in an area where homophobia is seen as backward and thus coming out was nothing short of smooth-sailing.

My parents are both highly educated and I grew up in a wealthy area. But I also grew up in an area of great diversity, both economic and ethnic. I didn’t go to an elite private school even though I could’ve, I wasn’t interested. I went to public schools that were diverse and my friends were decently diverse as well. My family and I have also traveled a lot around the world. It’s all shaped who I am today…

Born & raised in Dallas, TX on the destitute end of the socio-economic scale. My Father abandoned me & my Mother when I was born. She married my step-father when I was 6 years old. He was a handsome man who earned a Bronze Star & a Purple Heart during WWII. He played guitar & my Mother did too. He was also a functioning alcoholic (so we moved a lot due the amount of money he spent on liquor) & we never ever got along. I was the oldest of six children & I spent a lot of time taking care of my siblings. My politics tend to be very liberal. I was raised in various Pentecostal churches, but I no longer believe in any supreme being. I care a great deal about people, especially people who are suffering from the current wealth inequality.

Born near Boston, MA in 1971 (hi @cprevite). Raised by single mom once my father decided to leave. Was in or near poverty for most of my childhood, but lived in a small house in pale-skinned suburbia.
Parents had high school educations. My father was extremely conservative politically (and a raging racist), and my mother was mostly apolitical.

Somehow (or some may argue that this makes sense), I am the first college-educated person in my family, first left-wing pinko, first political activist, first atheist, first person to eat something that is not chicken and over boiled carrots, first person to intentionally place my television on the curb, and first _____ (fill in the blank).

To be honest, I’m not sure how much my upbringing has influenced who I am and my ideals.

@tom_g: Hey my brother from another mother. :^)

Born in(I think!) Lima, Ohio. Adopted at birth by a childless couple. Mother teacher until me, she gave me my love of books, reading, learning. Comfortable life, entire family (grandparents, aunts & uncles& cousins) nearby. Holidays spent as part of big mob of people. Raised Roman Catholic, ran away screaming. Found God again after brain injury, not Catholic, though. No job, on SSD. Volunteers 4days/week. No kids, married 16 years. Happy life (when I take my medications! :o) )

Born in Birmingham, Ala.from a dad whose family had been Alabama/Georgia cotton pickin’ po’ whites for 200 years, and a mom who came straight out of blue blood Battle Creek, MI folks—i.e. her granddaddy was friends with the Kelloggs and Posts. That led to a mix of Southern raisin’ and Yankee moxie. My mom was a liberal, civil-rights loving Episcopalian, which is definitely lunatic by Alabama standards and my dad’s family were charismatic Holy Rollers through and through (the real lunatics). Both of them put my dad through med school; my mom is a brilliant woman who has never taken any college classes and my dad’s has a MD. They divorced (any surprise!?) when I was 3 and I was raised an only child of an on-and-off single mom. I love the contrast between my parents!

Born (in 1967, to a single mother) and raised just outside of Washington, DC. I feel very lucky to have been reared in such a diverse area… people from all over the world were my neighbors and classmates. My mother and her family were originally from the bible belt, and were Southern Democrats (which, by today’s standards, makes them Republicans). The family was very dysfunctional, but also very loving. Lots of intelligence in the family, but lots of bigotry, too. I was raised as a Christan (not very strictly, though), married (and later divorced) a Jewish man, and am an atheist now.

Born in Brooklyn (1995), moved to Stroudsburg, PA, then Upper Darby, PA, then South Philadelphia, PA, then High Point, NC, then Randleman, NC, and now in New York State.
Moving was definitely a factor in my development. Lots of family problems, adultery, wild children (running away from home, not me), lots of F’ing up by siblings. Dad had temper issues, mom shares all her problems (still). The children kind of parent more than the parents in our family.
Obviously I am still developing, but I have a lot of issues already. Been told I have low self-esteem. I am a pessimist. Indecisive. Restless. I’ve grown to hate suburban and rural areas (may seem insignificant, but to me it’s not).
Wow, that feels good to say. I never talk about this.

I don’t feel that I was molded by my upbringing so much as spit out of it, kind of the way a body rejects foreign matter. The place—Texas—was not my place. My family’s values—Christianity on my mother’s side, Work-ianity on my father’s side—left me cold.

Wait… I take that back. It did mold me. It made me a questioner. If I had identified with that place, those values, then I would likely not have become consumed with the questions that drove me for so long: “If this isn’t me, then what is? If not here, then were? If not God, then what?...”

I guess I was lucky. It wasn’t a traumatic upbringing, just ill-fitting enough to chaff me into a life of questioning. And that has really been my greatest asset.

Just for the heck of it I searched for my hometown, Pittsfield NY. 1295 residents, 98.84 percent white. I grew up on a farm, the oldest son out of three siblings. We worked hard and played hard too. I had an awesome childhood, great parents, a lot of family support. I was the first in the family to get a BS degree. I should have been a redneck but I learned to embrace diversity in college. And I have no frigging idea what all that means.