The Reason I Support Barack Obama

Yeah, I can talk to you about inspiration. I can talk to you about policy. I can talk to you about change. But as influential as all that is, the reason I am endorsing Barack Obama for President is simple: I am a mother and I have a child.

This is the first presidential election in which I am thinking in concrete terms. I used to talk about the future, but the future was always so abstract and unreal. I didn't have any idea of what sort of face the future would be wearing. Even in the last presidential election, when I was playing host within my body to a creature who would soon enter the world, I didn't know what the next generation would look like, couldn't see with my own eyes how much we owed them. Now I can.

So I support Barack Obama because Julian doesn't yet have the opportunity to vote himself.



A friend of mine from high school recently sent me an email wherein she discussed the generational gap within her family--the older women in her family were supporting Hillary Clinton and felt betrayed by her and her cousins support of Barack Obama; they felt that they knew what it was like to have their opinions discounted and had known the pain of having to put their hopes and dreams on hold and they could see this knowledge and pain in Hillary Clinton. And while I could write volumes on whether or not Hillary Clinton should serve as a vessal for our own hopes, fears, desires, disappointments, and anger as women, it doesn't ultimately make a difference as to whether or not I think she should be elected president. Because as worthy as she may be, Hillary Clinton is part of the past. Her claim to the office is rooted in yesterday. But this election is about tomorrow.

This election is not about our mothers. This election is not about us. This election is about our children.



I want to give my son a future of which he will be proud. And that is, ultimately, why I am supporting Barack Obama for President.