Post 2016 Election

The eleven year old crawled into bed with me this morning and I told him the news of the election. I held him as he sobbed. "How can someone so mean and unkind and who hates us so much (meaning= a gay family) be president? How can people who love us and call us their family....how can they vote for him?" (pause and sniffling) "Why can't we move to Canada?" I explained to him that not one person makes all the decisions in our country. That there is a process. And it's our mission to do the opposite of him, to be kind and good people. "And it also means we need to get involved in things we believe in. We need to volunteer and be of service so that these organizations exist to help more and more families like ours. Our mantra for the next four years is just like the saying on the t-shirts at my yoga studio, Kindness Is Contagious!
We held each other and cried and his questions continued to rattle in my mind. How can people who love us vote for a man who doesn't support our family? How am I going to teach our newest son, who has seen trauma first hand, that the people who say mean things and degrade others is not the "winner." For right now, I'm going to hold them. All three of my sons and tell them that they are safe. We will continue to look up to President Obama as an example of the type of man that we aspire them to become. My wife and I will continue to believe that LOVE and KINDNESS will always win. And we will hold on to hope.