What sort of family,,,?

[Cid_B]

I was thinking about the demographic of DU and thought it would be interesting to see what sort of family history, if any, DUers have.

As an example I come from a primarily military / police family and followed in those footsteps.

If your family has any particular theme to it have you followed it or stepped out of the norm?

[JackintheGreen]

1. Education and ministry

Three generations of teachers and pastors. Now I'm doing the teaching and my brother the pastoring.

[marions ghost]

2. Journalism, academic research, arts & sciences

so our branch of the family is (flaming) liberal and not wealthy.

Another branch is notable for a lot of business people who are rich and staunch Republican. However some of them have brains and are coming around in these Latter Days of The Bushites.

[tavalon]

3. Interesting questions

My mom was a nurse, my father was involved in electronics and was involved in the first computers. I didn't have a clue what I wanted to do so I became a nurse (one of the best decisions of my life) and have consistently been with computer programmers. The place where I stepped out of the norm is that I'm polyamorous and that wasn't even a word when my folks were around. But, as a person who lost her mother at a young age and ended up having to ditch my father, I'm very glued to the idea of strong family and I think that comes from what I didn't have.

[Cid_B]

4. All interesting replies...

Does anyone expect a particular pattern to emerge here or is DU just as random as the rest of the US / World?

[marions ghost]

5. You'd have to say

"is DU just as random as the rest of the Liberal Leaning rest of the US/World? "Liberal" is already a bias with its own correlations.

DU is obviously skewed towards those who like using computers and written language, who are comfortable posting on message boards. Also it attracts those with more flexibility and objectivity in this context than average (thin-skinned defensive people tend not to last). It takes more patience to get your info from a computer rather than through TV and radio. This is a certain personality type.

Also a factor is that there would be people in some occupations who would not have the inclination or the time to post on any message board, no matter how liberal they are.

But beyond that, I bet it's close to a cross-section, as far as backgrounds and occupations. I once saw a pie-chart of member occupations on DU that I think looked much like a normal sample of society, with a large number in occupations using computers on a daily basis.

[SmokingJacket]

6. Quasi-academic/ social work

Still in that world!

[slackmaster]

7. Mish-mash

Both of my parents were born in the same small town in southwestern Iowa. They were high school sweethearts, in addition to being the brightest kids in their class of 1952. My father's parents were Democrats (his father was essentially a Socialist). Mom's parents were both Republicans. My ancestry is almost 100% German on both sides. My mom quit college and started working to support my father as he completed medical school and did an internship.

My father's father was a conscientious objector during World War I. That's a long and intense story. Mom's father served in the Navy during World War II. He was injured on duty and got out early with benefits.

My father died young. My mother re-married well - An older divorced man of fine character who was a World War II veteran. He was as good a stepfather as I have ever seen. He had grown up dirt poor, and entered the Navy to get out of poverty in the 1930s. My younger brother had a bit of a tumultuous youth and ended up joining the Navy via Officer Candidate School. He is now a Commander. I thought about going to the Naval Academy at one point, but I have physical conditions that make me ineligible to serve.