Summertime isn’t easy for some students, parents

Differences on touchy issues spark tension

College in the summer: Dorms and quads are quiet, and it seems that the whole community is catching its breath. No marches, sit-ins, shout-downs, protesters giving professors whiplash. No arguments over free speech, Black Lives Matter, Israeli boycotts, abortion, Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton, President Donald Trump.

But the fighting has not stopped. It has just come home for the summer.

College students driven to the left (and occasionally to the right) by campus culture wars are now engaging in the same debates with their longtime housemates — also known as Mom and Dad. Students come home thinking that their parents are hopelessly stuck in some distant era like the 1990s; parents wonder what thousands of tuition dollars actually paid for.

The New York Times interviewed students and their parents who have struggled to live under the same roof, even for a few weeks, sometimes arriving at détente over dinner and other times ending in slammed bedroom doors. Their responses have been condensed and edited.

‘I just want them to change their minds’

Nick: I’m getting more on the left side of the spectrum with every passing day. All of my family — mother, father, stepfather and grandmother — voted for Trump, despite me begging them not to.

My mother is not super-crazy nutso, right-wing. But since the election, talking about politics has gotten harder. I tweet things at the president out of frustration. I called him a nasty word and my mother said, “That is not an appropriate thing to say.” We got into a whole fight.

We do get heated and a bit argumentative and raise our voices. But it’s never destroying anything. I just want them to change their minds.

Susan: I think his perception is that I am very staunchly a Republican and conservative. But that’s not the case. I was a registered Democrat until last year. My father was a blue-collar Pittsburgh Democrat. The first time I voted was with my father for Ronald Reagan. I’m very fiscally conservative, and I’m all about individual responsibility.

What I notice is that when Nick is at school and not with us, his opinions will become far more liberal. This summer, he’ll get very fired up and we’ll have a conversation. I think both of us learn from listening to each

JIM WILSON / THE NEW YORK TIMES Two members of the Berkeley College Republicans hold signs while an anti-facist group speaks about Ann Coulter’s canceled speech April 26 at the University of California, Berkeley. The outspoken nature of collegiate political environments doesn’t just...