Cool Conservative Duo of the Week

50 Years of Cool Conservative Influence Against the Odds

I was initially going to skip writing the blog this week and relax. But, then I had a chance to think more about Monday and my Cool Conservative post, and knew exactly who I had to feature — my parents!
This first week in October is a truly special week for me and my entire extended family. We will be celebrating my parent’s 50th wedding anniversary on Friday October 7 at a beautiful guest ranch in California.

Some might consider celebrating a milestone anniversary like this a rarity given today’s outrageous divorce rate, but not me. If you knew my parents and their loyalty to each other, you would know that getting to the 50-year mark was simply inevitable.

But, there are a few other aspects of reaching 50 years in their marriage that I believe deserve some reverence: their belief in a conservative way of life and underlying familial compatibility.

My Dad and Mom are Armenian; this makes me and my sister homogeneously Armenian. Our Armenian heritage doesn’t come lightly, given the suffering my grandparents endured during the Armenian genocide while watching parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles killed at the hands of the Turkish. Their excitement and pride over the opening of the Armenian Library and Museum of America and the recent donation of images by the famous Armenian-Canadian photographer Yousuf Karsh was uncontainable, an additional tribute to their cultural perseverance.

I am convinced catastrophic tragedy builds a character like no other. For survivors like my grandparents instilling the importance of education for success no matter how that success is defined by the individual and forgiveness against those to trespass against us would be defining influences on my parents, and in turn, on me and my family. Life-long learning and the positive mantra of forgiving to overcome professional and personal challenges were inherent, naturally fostering a more Conservative mentality of working hard to contribute to society, assimilating as a U.S. citizen and voluntarily giving back when possible or so desired.

So, regardless of my formative years being shaped while living in very liberal progressive, Blue States (New York City, NY and Massachusetts), my parent’s commonsensical knowledge of what it meant to give their children the tools they would need to achieve, innovate and prosper are why they are my most beloved Cool Conservatives of the Week.