In the 11 months since my daughter, The Feminist Octopus, decided to arrive on Earth, she's served as my ultimate trump card. Any difficult decision I've wrestled with — career-based or socially; economically or spiritually — comes back to her and her future. How will it impact her life today, tomorrow, and (most importantly) 10 years from now? And this has made many hard choices quite easy.
Of course, my decision on who to vote for today was not a difficult one. I had no consternation; no crisis of conscience. A competent and supremely over-qualified woman I'm not in love with or Darth Cheeto, The World's Rapiest Vat Of Cheese Whiz. But if this were a tough choice for me, I would have just asked myself which candidate I'd prefer to lead the same country my daughter happens to be a citizen of. Who would I rather her look up to and eventually write book reports on? And if she desires to be President one day, which person would make my daughter's dreams more realistic? Whose shoes would she have an easier time imagining herself filling?
Still, regardless of what happens today, my choice — who I'm supporting, who I'm endorsing, who I'm working for, who I'll advocate for, who I favor, who I'm willing to kill and die for, who I'm with — is clear.