We Failed Our Children By Electing This Man

I woke up heartbroken today. I was dizzy and felt sick to my stomach. My eyes were puffy and I had a headache. It felt like I had spent the night drinking instead of sitting on the couch with my husband watching democracy in action.

I'm struggling to figure how to make my legs work, walk down stairs and look at my daughter's sweet face. Luckily, I didn't really explain the election to her. I've tried to keep this circus from her - right or wrong - and shield her from something, someone, I wasn't comfortable exposing her to. How do I shield her from it the next four years? How do I look her in the face and know that American elected a man who said, "grab them by the p***y,"?

I'm devastated and I have no words to explain what happened yesterday here in the land of the free. I have no explanations for our daughters, our sons and the other nations of the world that were counting on us to make a better choice.

I thought yesterday would be a historic day, a day where the country took a tiny step forward in our thinking and the glass ceiling would crack and weaken indefinitely. Instead, the exact opposite happened. Not only is the glass ceiling in tact but America has proven it's still the old boy's club running the world. It's not the "old" politician boys, it's the bullies from high school locker rooms that decided who a woman was and what she was worth by what she could be coerced into doing.

Instead of making history and electing our first female president our new president elect has a standing trial date in December for rape. Rape.

Instead of electing a strong woman who has put up with bullshit from men all her life in an attempt to do something great, we elected the biggest bullshitter of all.

Please let that sink in as we brace for what the next four years will bring.

We did do something historic yesterday. We've condemned ourselves to four years of puffery, lies and a man who idolizes some of the worst leaders on the planet. We've elected a real life monster who doesn't see us as equals and who promotes violence and hatred. He mocks disabled people, he insults war heros, he believes he can fix the tax code because he's taking advantage of it, he wants to build walls instead of building bridges, he is the textbook definition of a racist, he views women as property and views our allies as weak.

Today we failed my daughter. We failed all our daughters by electing a sexual predator to the highest office in our land. We failed our sons by showing them that bad behavior is rewarded with power. May God help them as we enter this new world where the most pompous, white man will make decisions that will deeply effect our liberties, our justices and our vaginas.

A version of this post was originally published on The Everyday Mom Life.