'Mom, go upstairs. We're all liberals.'

By Annie Lake

Ouch. Monday night was the first time I heard my daughter apply that label to herself, and the word didn't please me. She and six friends/coworkers were about to watch the final Obama-Romney debate on the large-screen TV in our suburban basement. These twenty-something kiddies were enjoying our hospitality because it was free. They're a company (founder, partners, contractors, trainee), part of the start-up trend whereby young persons hang out at coffee shops, staring into laptops, trying to start the next Foursquare or Fab and make a billion dollars. Until that happens, they can't afford things like airfare or hotels. So in order to attend a conference in the city near us, they had driven cross-country in a minivan and were staying at our house for four and a half days. Up to this point, neither my husband nor I had said a word to them about politics or cultural norms in general. When they brought in large quantities of beer and liquor and stayed up late consuming it, we.... (Read Full Article)