His actual childhood...
Charles James Kirk was born on October 14, 1993, in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Illinois, and raised in nearby Prospect Heights. His father Robert W. Kirk is an architect who was involved in the construction of Trump Tower. His mother Kathryn (née Smith) is a former trader at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange who subsequently worked as a mental health counselor. He had one sibling, a younger sister Mary, who went on to become an art curator in Chicago.

Kirk described his parents as moderate Republicans. They were active in conservative circles and his father was a major donor to the Mitt Romney 2012 presidential campaign. Raised in the Presbyterian Church, Kirk was a member of the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout. He experienced a period of political awakening in middle school, during which he read books by economist Milton Friedman and became more attracted to Republican Party principles.

In 2010, during his junior year at Wheeling High School, Kirk volunteered for the successful U.S. Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk (no relation). Also during his junior year, he began listening to The Rush Limbaugh Show, a prominent conservative talk radio broadcast. In his senior year, he initiated a boycott of cookies at the school's cafeteria to reverse a price increase. He also wrote an essay for Breitbart News alleging liberal bias in high-school textbooks; it led to his first media appearance on Fox Business at age 17.

Kirk applied to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York, but was rejected in 2012. He was accepted to Baylor University in Waco, Texas, but chose to enroll at Harper College, a community college in Palatine, Illinois...