Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Hoo Boy

It's 8:02 pm here, Pacific Time, and NBC.com and some other sites have just called the presidential race for Barack Obama. Some chatter from talking heads about what this means for future generations, and I got to thinking about my own kids.

My children have almost all spent their entire lives under the presidency of George W. Bush. No more can they have the perception that the presidency means "white guys." I don't think they did, but they didn't have a different example. Just like they don't quite get why people object to folks loving people of different colors or the same sex, they didn't think twice about why someone who looked differently from them shouldn't be president.

Some day, they'll see a woman, possibly a woman of color, as president, and they won't bat an eyelash either.

And they'll wonder why their mother is in tears again.

10 comments:

cpurl17 said...

I teared up too.

Katherine said...

I'm still tearing up this morning. Isn't it amazing that our kids don't/won't ever get any of that. How fantastic!

Robert van de Walle said...

We cried tears of joy last night, too. Then we went to the local Obama headquarters and celebrated!

Marce (BrownBerry) said...

Clearly you're raising them right mama!

Lara said...

I'm glad I'm not the only one who got teary. It's a beautiful thing.

Ruby Louise said...

It was good, wasn't it? I was particularly pleased with the degree of grace exhibited by both candidates in their speeches at the end of the day. Here's hoping for some positive changes!!

Someone on the radio today said that Mr. Obama may be the first black president, but he'll be the last because nobody will notice the race issue after this. Wouldn't that be a nice thing?

amanda j said...

You might be interested to know we are feeling it on the other side of the world too!

Pancake Goddess said...

yes, they really will have a different reality. my #2 sat with us and watched, and said "and another cool thing is he's the first AA man to be president," as though that was a total afterthought for him.

I did feel silly that he thought I was weeping just because the guy I liked got in.

Robin said...

This win for Obama was so encouraging for me personally. I have to admit I have not been proud of being American for a number of years (the GWB "reign") and now I can say that we are moving in the right direction as a country. I was apprehensive that we would not do the right thing as a country for all the wrong reasons, and my faith in the goodness and intelligence of the people in this country has been bolstered quite a bit by this.

Absolutely we will have a woman president, just not THAT WOMAN.

suzee said...

Crying? Oh, honey. Period due to start at any moment, I was a mess from voting on Sunday all the way through 'til Wednesday evening.

My kids thought it was weird, too.