Conservative vs. Liberal

Good point.

“Maybe the difference between under-30s and their elders isn’t the era in which they grew up. Maybe it’s a lack of life experience. As young people pass from their 20s to their 30s, they get married and have kids. They lose their naïvete about self-realization, having it all, the equality of family structures, and the interchangeability of moms and dads. According to this theory, the reason why older people are more likely to believe that unwed motherhood is a big problem, or that kids do better with stay-at-home moms, is that beyond the age of 30, you discover that these things are true.”

There are some other factors as well.  When you are young, you don't have anything except a lot of time.  You don't have money, experience, a family, or things you have earned and want to hold onto.  Thus, your opinions - particularly political opinions end up getting shaped around vagaries like "fairness" "equality" and stuff like that.

As you get older, you begin to acquire wealth, job experience, perhaps real estate, and stocks and use these things to build a family.  You grow more protective of you stuff and more conservative with your choices, because you have stuff, but your time is more limited and you know you don't have the same ability to recover from mistakes as you did when you were young.