So, when am I supposed to "grow up and become a Republican"?

[Cassius]

God I love suburbs (though I'm more of a countryside man myself, but whatever).

Anyway, I think it is true to say that people become more 'conservative', in terms of their outlook on life, as they grow older. Such is only natural. After all, supporting the extension of marriage to same-sex couples would have been considered a radical position in the 1990's, but in 20 or 30 years time, supporting that but opposing further redefinitions of marriage may well be considered a conservative position. People don't tend to change an awful lot, but the way the world interacts with them inevitably does.

Also, I think that conservatism should be separated from being right-wing, at least in this context. Whilst it is true that conservatism is usually associated with the right, I would argue that whilst 'the right' refers to a collection of political viewpoints, conservatism is more of a mindset. For instance, a right-wing position to take might be 'I think that taxes should be cut in order to stimulate economic growth and enable taxpayers to retain more of their money'. A conservative position might be 'I don't like these changes to the tax-code, I don't see any reason for change at the moment'. Whilst, obviously, the latter statement might well lead to the former, it doesn't have to. Of course, we shouldn't generalise; after all, there are conservative young people, and radical elderly people, just as their are radical right-wingers and conservative left-wingers.