“I always tell him, ‘I might get worried about you and I might feel sad because I don’t think you understand some things that maybe you will down the road,’” Ms. Morlan said. “‘But I’m going to love you more when you’re struggling, because it’s just politics.’”
Mr. Morlan, 57, an architect, was not immediately accepting of his son’s support for Mr. Trump. “Initially, it was like, ‘Are you crazy?’” he said. But Mr. Morlan has backed off over time, conscious that trying to discredit his son could keep them from having political discussions at all.
“As soon as they’re young adults, you don’t get to tell them how to think anymore,” he said.
Some parents still worry about the kind of men they will grow up to become. Kevin Bromberg, 58, a Democrat who lives in a suburb of Charlotte, N.C., said he disapproved of Mr. Trump’s lack of empathy toward immigrants like his wife. The insults and shock-talk that turned Mr. Bromberg off did not seem to alienate his 22- and 20-year-old sons from a previous marriage, who both voted for Mr. Trump.
Mr. Bromberg says he is happy that they are paying attention to politics at all, and has told his sons he respects their opinions. But a part of him remains concerned that the callousness he sees in Mr. Trump and the Republican Party will find its way into his children.
“Look, I’m not worried about my kids becoming educated on the issues,” he said. “What I don’t want is for my kids to become these cruel people.”
‘Nobody Feels Heard’
Parents who have been warned against hovering like helicopters seem to understand that micromanaging their children’s party affiliation is probably not setting them up for independent lives. Still, they didn’t necessarily consider that the children they taught to think for themselves might someday vote differently than they did.
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