Young Americans Increasingly Afraid to Come Out to Parents as Pro-Iran-War
TEL AVIV, Israel — An increasing number of young Americans say they are afraid to tell their parents they support continued military action against Iran, describing the conversation as more dangerous than any other identity anyone has ever tried to disclose.
“This is a different kind of closet than what gay people claim to live in. My parents will actually disown me,” said Tyler Brennan, 22, a junior at a large public university who loves war. “I told my brother first. He made me swear I would not say it at Thanksgiving.”
Most Americans say the fighting has hurt U.S. interests, and support for the operation rises with age. That gap has produced a small but growing group of students and recent graduates who back strikes on Iranian military sites, the naval campaign around the Strait of Hormuz, and pressure on Tehran’s nuclear program, and who treat that position as a secret.
“I practiced in the car for forty minutes,” said Maya Ortiz, 24, who works in logistics outside Phoenix. “I said, ‘Mom, I think we should finish this.’ She put down the salad tongs and asked if I had been radicalized by a podcast.”
Ortiz said her mother then listed every relative who died in earlier wars on behalf of Israel and asked why her daughter wanted another one.
Campus ministries and political clubs have begun holding quiet meetings for students who share the same fear. “They come in looking like they robbed a bank,” said a graduate counselor.
Parents interviewed for this story described the revelation as a betrayal of everything they thought they had taught. “I told my son he can pay his own rent if he is so eager to fund the murder of innocent schoolchildren.”
A mother in Florida said she had already drafted a text cutting off her daughter’s car insurance. “She said the Strait has to stay open and claimed that Donald Trump is winning this war.”
Young supporters of the campaign point to Iranian attacks on shipping, threats against U.S. forces, and repeated breakdowns in talks as reasons the fighting should continue until Tehran’s capacity is reduced. They say they are not asking for ground troops. They say they are asking their parents not to treat a policy preference as a personality defect.
“I came out as everything else first,” said Brennan. “This is the one that made my dad stand up and leave the room. He said he did not raise a neo-con warmonger.”
Family therapists report more appointments booked under vague subject lines such as “current events disagreement” and “values conversation.”
One clinician said the sessions follow a pattern. The child arrives with talking points about oil traffic and nuclear sites. The parent arrives with talking points about forever wars and gas prices. Neither side yields.
At publishing time, several students said they planned to wait until after midterms, or after the next round of talks, or after they found an apartment their parents did not co-sign.
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