Election Day 2016

We went to vote on Tuesday. I'm a huge believer in voting, and I haven't missed a Presidential election since I was eligible to vote in my first one in 2000. I'm  a little spottier on midterm elections, in that I'm pretty sure I missed 1998 and 2002, and I'm not sure about 2006, but I'm pretty sure I haven't missed any midterms since 2010.

Teaching the kids civic values

I proudly to voted for the more experienced, intellectually curious, and capable candidate. Additionally, I felt a little surge of emotion voting for the first US female presidential nominee. I held Miranda's hand while I voted, so hopefully a little bit of feminism transfered through her tiny fingers. James watched Kevin vote and announced loudly to anyone that could hear who he was voting for in all the categories. Then he helped Kevin put the form to be read by the voting machine.

Feeding the votes into the machine.

James also had "elections" at school on Monday. They watched some campaign speeches by Farmer and Duck, and James voted for Farmer. We weren't privy to the campaign speeches, so I'm not sure what they promised, but we own and love the Click Clack Moo book, and if that's the basis, we hope to teach him more Duck-based values in the future. (The cows are not paid for their milk and send duck with letters to Farmer to gain some labor accommodations.)

James wearing his voting hat.

James was perhaps the most avid Hillary Clinton supporter in our home because even though I tried not to discuss the particulars of the election with him (I didn't want him to accidentally say offensive things at school) he heard from another little boy at school that "Trump had said bad things about women." On that basis, he felt strongly that Trump should not be President. I asked him not to discuss this at school but it appears that they also voted for Clinton versus Trump, and he was one of the 12 kids who voted for Clinton. The other 10 voted for Trump.  His class is 12 boys and 10 girls, so I wonder if the voting divided along gender lines with him and another boy in his class (the one who told him about Trump) voting for Clinton.

We are obviously disheartened by the results of the election because the negative nature of President-elect Trump's campaign has frightened many Americans and there's been an immediate increase in the harassment of minorities. I'm also very concerned about foreign policy and women's rights in our country going forward. I'm trying to remain positive in any way that I can, but it's a serious struggle right now.