Once again, for me - this election is deeply personal.

It was about my kids in 2016, and it’s about my kids now.

I started to write an essay about my daughter being bullied, and then I started one about my son graduating middle school, but the nonstop insanity of the world kept interrupting, so I started a new essay about that — and that’s when it hit me— they weren’t three different essays, they were three parts of the same one.

Yes, abortion is on the ballot. IVF is on the ballot. Contraception is on the ballot. Religious indoctrination in schools is on the ballot. Whitewashed history is on the ballot. Book bans are on the ballot. The deportation/internment of tens of millions of people is on the ballot. School shootings are on the ballot. The end of public education, the VA, the EPA, social security, Medicare and Medicaid is on the ballot. The imprisonment/eradication of LGBTQ+ Americans is on the ballot. Keeping our troops from being used as an autocrat’s personal “police force” is on the ballot. Handing our allies to a despot is on the ballot.

Freedom is on the ballot.

A dictatorship is on the ballot.

Democracy is on the ballot.

This election is about us.

About We the People.

About who we want to be.

About the rights we want to have.

About the kind of future we want to leave our kids.

But once again for me, it’s also about who I want my kids to be. Who I want them to look up to. Who I want them to see society rewarding and why. The kindness and empathy, fairness, equity, inclusion, humanity I want them to value.

I want them to grow up to be good people. Compassionate people. Well-intentioned people. I want them to want to help others. I want them to stand up for what is right. I want them to speak out against injustice and stand up to bullies. I want them to beleive that doing the right thing, is worth doing because it is right, not because it’s easy. I want them to be everything Donald Trump is not.

So yet again, for the third time now, this is about all of those massively important things we all know we are facing in the election, but for me, it is once again so very much about my kids.

As always, I’ve had a lot to say about what has been happening in politics as of late, but my son… well, he was taking center stage. The fact that my baby boy was moving on to high school was extremely emotional for me. I had to walk through it and I had to try to digest it. I had to take my time with it and with myself.

“And she loved a little boy very, very much – even more than she loved herself.”

The quote isn’t mine of course. It belongs to Shel Silverstein, who wrote those words in The Giving Tree, a beautiful and timelessly simple masterpiece of a book I’m sure many of us hold near and dear to our hearts, no matter how many years have passed since last we read it.

I’ve been giving those words a great deal of thought as of late. Not just those words, but so many others. So many quotes so many other moms had shared with me over the years. The little moments like when my Leonardo was kicking, twisting and turning in my belly, and big ones when he was taking his first steps, counting or reciting the order of the planets thanks to a Blues Clues song, and during every day occurrences like when he’d scraped his knee and cried out for me to the trying ones like when I’d been awake all night beside him with a cool towel on his feverish forehead, whispering to God or whomever it was that would listen, to let him be ok. To let him feel better.

What I wouldn’t give to go back in time, just to peer in on my life when he was a little guy and witness those moments once more. What I wouldn’t trade to go back for just a few minutes to hear his little baby boy voice laugh when I tickled him one more time, or just a moment or two to once more hear the raspy, tired “mommy” he shouted from atop the T-Rex’ head at the “purple dinosaur park” with his little face grinning from ear to ear with pride, or even a handful of hilarious seconds so I could smile one more time at the way he so innocently sang the words “ShopRite oasis” instead of “ShopRite always saves.” (It was so adorable, I confess to not correcting him for far longer than any reasonable mother probably should).

You see, my baby boy just graduated Middle School, and that is obviously nonsense, because everyone who knows anything about everything knows that he’s still just a little kid who very much needs me to cut the crust of his sandwiches.

I mean, in my heart that’s still true. But only there. In reality he’s heading off to high school jn the fall. And in reality, that means that in 4 short years, he’ll be heading off to college, which means goodbye, which means, I cannot fathom how I will continue being able to breathe.

But even with that said, I still have a job to do. I still have a lot of work to do in helping to guide him towards becoming the fundamentally good man I know he will be. He won his graduating class’ “counselor” award for being empathetic and kind and if you know me, you know I ugly cried like I’ve never ugly cried before when they described in front of the entire class what a thoughtful young man he always showed himself to be. What more could I ever want for him? That others noticed his incredible heart was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. If I’ve tried to show my kids one thing above all else, it is that they should always lead with kindness. Not that they shouldn’t punch back and punch hard sometimes, but that they didn’t punch first unless it was to defend themselves or someone else.

My boy has always had goodness in him. I didn’t put it there. He was born that way. But I have done everything in my power to help him embrace and harness it. And to steer him away from those who with a capacity for cruelty.

Life hasn’t always been easy for him.

His parents split up in November of 2019, his uncle died suddenly in January of 2020, the lockdowns began in March, and his 12 year old Chocolate Lab died in April of the same year.

I have long-since worried about what all of that would do to my inherently good child.

But here’s the truth, I beleive it’s made him stronger. I wish I could have prevented all of that pain, but life isn’t without pain. And staying good hearted through adversity isn’t always easy. But he’s doing it.

“If you would have your son walk honorably through the world, you must not attempt to clear the stones from his path but teach him to walk firmly over them – not insist upon leading him by the hand, but let him learn to go alone.” - Anne Bronte

My daughter is also inherently good.

But she’s also fucking strong.

You see, she got bullied at school this year.

A bunch of mean girls forced her to sit totally alone at lunch.

One of the teachers saw and asked if she wanted to have lunch in her office, and do you know what my kid did— she said no thank you.

She said she didn’t want them to think they’d won.

Even though they had hurt her.

Even though they were still hurting her.

She didn’t want them to see.

She got knocked down and she got right back up.

She showed those bullies that she was tougher than them.

She had right on her side and she knew it.

And that is the kind of mindset we need in this country right now.

We don’t quit.

We don’t hide.

We get knocked down and we get back up.

We have right on our side.

And we can never let the bully think they’ve won.

Because they can’t win.

And just like my hurricane of a little girl said to me when she came home from school that day, we will never let the bullies win. Never.

It’s not about my favorite candidate or yours.

It’s about standing up for what is right.

Standing up for each other.

Standing up to the bullies.

Donald Trump is a bully.

He is a bad man.

I want my kids to understand why the things he does make him a bad man.

He shouldn’t have been on that debate stage the other night.

Any shot he had at the Oval Office should have been over long ago.

It should have been over when he called Mexicans rapists.

It wasn’t.

It should have been over when he mocked a disabled reporter, lied about removing rubble at Ground Zero, bragged about grabbing women by the pussy, and called Nazis “very fine people.”

It should have been over when he extorted Ukraine.

It wasn’t.

It wasn’t over when he demeaned a POW, attacked a Gold Star family, or when he called the fallen of war “suckers” and “losers”.

It wasn’t over when he took Putin’s “side” over our own intelligence agencies, when he bragged about being “in love” with Otto Warmbier’s murderer, or when told Xi to keep building the Uyghur camps.

It wasn’t over when he said Covid would “disappear”, when he asked about injecting disinfectants, or when he returned to golfing as our country hit 50,000 pandemic deaths.

It wasn’t over when held the RNC at the White House, when he fast tracked Chinese patents for Ivanka or when he let Jared sell pardons.

It wasn’t over when he asked for 11,780 votes, when he unleashed a racist mob on Ruby & Shaye, or when he sent slates of fake electors to overturn a free and fair election.

It should have been over when he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by”. It should have been over when he refused the peaceful transfer of power. It should have been over when he sent armed domestic terrorists to attack our Capitol.

It should have been over when he watched for more than three hours as they brutalized the men and women standing guard that day.

It should have been over when the VP he said should have been hanged wouldn’t endorse him, when most of his Cabinet wouldn’t endorse him or when more than one of his former Defense Secretaries said he was a threat to our national security and to our democracy itself.

It should have been over when he was indicted the first time, the second, the third and the fourth time, when he was found liable of business fraud and sexual abuse and when he was convicted on 34 felony counts.

It should have been over a million times. Think of all of the suffering we could have prevented if it had ended when it should have.

When his party should have ended it.

When the media should have ended it.

When even the most loyal cultists should have ended it.

But it wasn’t.

The party kept accommodating him.

The media kept promoting him.

The cultists kept worshipping him.

And now here we are, talking about how the lifelong public servant, the decent man who launched his candidacy to end Trump’s evil reign, the man who took Trump on and won, should drop out of the race because in the face of vitriolic, vigorous lies on a debate stage, the man who quietly spoke the truth in response, is being told he should step aside.

“For the country.”

All these years when we were the ones demanding the party stop accommodating Trump, demanding the media stop promoting Trump & demanding the cult stop worshipping Trump, and now instead, some on our are side demanding we stop supporting Biden?

What the hell are we doing here?

Because right now, a whole bunch of the people in my party who once understood that stopping Trump was what mattered most and who turned out in record numbers to elect the man who stood up to him, are no longer focusing on what is wrong with a traitorous, rapist felon, but on what is wrong with the 81-year old patriot with a stutter who as it so happens, has done a helluva fantastic job at the helm.

They’re placing more value on 90 minutes than on 3+ years.

They’re placing more value on 90 minutes than on the next 4.

This election should be about the binary choice between Trump & Biden, between the sexual predator who ended Roe & the compassionate leader who will restore it, not about who spoke the loudest in a debate.

It’s about handing this country, and everything that makes us special, however imperfect, to those who have no use for our Constitution or the rule of law.

Those who know their race and gender-gifted hold on wealth and power is being taken from them because our country is evolving like all countries do. Those who don’t care about what happens to any of us unless it makes them richer and more powerful.

They cannot win. Our democracy is at stake.

For real.

So, we all have to choose.

Right now.

We have to choose democracy.

We can fight about all that other stuff tomorrow.

If we lose, none of that other stuff will even matter, because we won’t get a say at all.

We still have a voice today.

Let’s ALL use it to make sure we continue to have one tomorrow.

For my kids, for yours, for everyone’s…

Let’s get to f’ng work.