Nope, no kids...my wife and I enjoy spur-of-the-moment travel too much.
I'm 'fun uncle Steve' to about a dozen of our friends/relatives kids from ages 2-12. We spoil them all...
Interestingly enough, with the exception of one of my best friends, all of the people I talk politics with are either your age (50's and older), or young 20's.
One (son of parents in one of my car clubs) was 17 and had been considering joining the armed forces just before the invasion (he didn't - but he has recently said he would have if we had stuck only with Afghanistan). We were all sitting around after a car show talking and he said that if we invade Iraq we would just be handing it over to Iran. Then he said that sometimes the enemy you know is better than the enemy you don't. His parents were pretty PO'ed, but they now agree with him. He is either classsical Liberal or classical Conservative - I have not yet figured that one out. He is the one who piqued my interest in Ron Paul.
Another one, who is now 27, just sold his auto detailing business. He was a young kid in one of my car clubs during Gulf 1. His parents lost interest, but he has gas in his veins. We get together for beers every so often and discuss things. He thinks it was a bad idea to go in without finishing Afghanistan first. He does not mind that we went in, but he thinks we should have had solid reasons for doing so. Crimes against humanity works fine for him (and to some extent for me as well). He tends to have an interventionist streak that I disagree with on a regular basis. He does agree with my theory that the Iraqis would have likely overthrown Uday and/or Qusay at some point. He tends to vote GOP, but has been leaning towards Libertarians because he is getting very sick of Neocons.
Both of these two think that we should not just pull out ASAP. One has favoured a phased withdrawal over the next year, with a return only if asked by the Iraqi government. The other originally wanted to say until the job is done, but now thinks that we are causing some of the problems, but also preventing some others. He is not quite sure what to do now. He is also very pissed that we disbanded the Iraqi army. He credits that with most of the failures there.
Another is the daughter of one of my wifes friends from work. She is 24ish and is a total peacenik. She thinks an invasion of both countries was a bad idea, and wants us to get out now. I showed her an online version of Art of War, and she is fascinated by the idea of winning without fighting. She is the only one of her generation I have come across who thinks fighting back with weapons is wrong. She puts a lot of faith in psychological warfare. She does not see the need for military force to be used in conjunction. I find her the most frustrating (even including everyone on this forum) to talk with about this topic.
The last one is a guy I work with. He is right out of college, and has a 4 month old. He says he did not favour going in to Iraq as it was not going to benefit us enough to be worth the cost, as long as the inspectors were allowed to stay. He (like myself) had no problem with military action against Iraq if the weapons inspectors were forced to leave. Same goes for Iran. he is very pissed off at our government for making some really bonehead mistakes, and not even realising who we are fighting and taking the fight to them. He takes his politics seriously, and can't stand people who don't know who we are fighting (one of his best friends here at work is Muslim) and why. He wants your generation and the one just before to get their heads out of their butts and actually examine who and what we are fighting. He says he tended to vote GOP, but he now finds them corrupt and stupid. He is not keen on the idea of the DNC in charge either, though.
I interact with a lot of younger folks on a regular basis, but these are the ones I have the most in-depth conversations with. Some of those conversations go until 4am!
None of these people are very religious, and all are irritated by the current GOP sucking up to organised religion. All have read the Constitution and seem to have a good understanding of it. They all see their freedoms being taken away little by little, and they are getting very sick of it. They all favour gay marriage, the right to own firearms, sex ed in schools, the right to abortion, and the death penalty (except the peacnik). None of them support welfare or affirmative action, but they all favour strong penalties for discrimination. They all are spiritual, but not religious. They all think it is both funny and sad that many of you older folks always need to pigeonhole them into either DNC/Liberal or GOP/Conservative roles, even though they strongly adhere to aspects of both. I have the same problem with the inability of many of you older folks to grasp this simple concept.
I agree with you that this generation might actually get our collective bacon back in shape. They have the knowledge and they care about this country. They are seeing the stupidity of many of the laws passed, and the degradation of our infrastructure. My generation does as well, but most of my generation seems to be followers. The ones that are not are too wrapped up in our technical fascination with the internet to realise that we can actually use it to enhance out personal connections instead of deepening our isolation.
The one thing going for your generation that mine and the younger one do not have is a sense of history. That might be a double edged sword - they will not be restricted to limiting concepts handed down to them, but they might also forget where and why they came from.
The next 20 years are going to be very interesting.
Sorry to be so long-winded, but I find this a fascinating topic.
Steve