We're experiencing this very same thing now in Alabama. Or one could simply look at Florida. Things aren't getting better here. The current GOP leadership is trying their best to be as regressive as possible.
I feel like I am doing my son an incredible disservice by raising him in Alabama, but my wife refuses to leave while her mother is still living here.
The single most valuable thing I learned is what is really possible to do. I got to see that because I ended up helping people of means who took me aside and showed me a look outside the place I was living.
For many, and this is true of my peer group, just knowing what is possible really mattered.
Of course I left town, found work and married someone I thought highly of and got to work building a better life.
Your son can do that too. Make sure he knows it.
I moved out of my mother's home when I was 16 and I managed to graduate high school. But I left town two days after graduation and I've only been back three times in 24 years.
Had I not left Alabama, and the US, I would have likely ended up just as bigoted and close minded as most of my family. The ten years I spent outside of the US allowed me to learn a completely different perspective and finally made me realize that my mother and my other family were wrong about so many things.
My boy just turned five a few weeks ago and he's already travelled more than I did by the time I turned 21.
I ran a bar before I became a carpenter. My neighbors around my bar included people from India, Senegal, all over Europe, and Japan. I become close friends with a much older couple from Senegal and also an Indian family. They welcomed me into their homes and fed me and taught me about their music and food and such.
I likely would not have had those experiences if I remained on the mainland.