The last few weeks I’ve been ruminating about my feelings regarding the election, the toddler elect, and his voters. I’ve been trying to figure out how, or even what, I wanted to post about those feelings. I’ve got bits and pieces, and half-written thoughts, all of which are waiting for me decide: do I really want to say that? Which is why it’s been so long since I posted anything.

Instead, last night I was driven to write about our outgoing president—a man whose dignity and grace, particularly in the face of blatant racism and partisanship, are going to be sorely missed. I still cannot wrap my brain around the fact that President Obama is being followed by a man whose narcissism, venality, immaturity, contempt for others, and willful obtuseness, are a blemish on the storied history of our nation.

I need to preface this by saying that this post began, because last night my youngest asked me who I liked better: Bill Clinton or Barack Obama? At first I replied: I don’t know! Both? It’s hard to pick, you’re asking me to compare apples and oranges, but after a few moments I said: President Obama.

Why?

President Obama is not perfect in my book. In fact, it’s why I had trouble deciding between the two, at first. I’m a die hard Democrat, a pretty-left-of-center progressive on most issues, and those of you who know me, know how much I’ve come to loathe the current iteration of the GOP. During the last eight years, however, I didn’t agree with President Obama on everything. I didn’t agree with all of our foreign policy (for example, at times, Israel), or the continued use of drones, his soft stance on environmental matters, and a too conciliatory mien with the most obstructive, partisan, and blatantly hateful opposition led Congress. Frankly, I felt that pulled the country, and the Democratic party, to the right of center. I’m sure reasonable minds can agree or disagree on the nuances of these issues, but that’s not the point of this post.

Instead, I want to talk about why I cried last night as I watched President Obama give his farewell speech. I want to talk about why I’m proud that my kids have had Barack Obama, and his family, as role models. In fact, my younger two have never known (or remember) any other president. So, I need to talk about what Barack Obama represents to me, and in contrast, what I feel we have given up—what we have inflicted upon ourselves with the incoming administration—and, sadly, what we will lose.

Watching the confirmation hearings yesterday, I was surprised to hear that Barack Obama’s first U.S. Attorney General appointee, Eric Holder, the first African American to be appointed to that post, was the brother-in-law of Vivian Malone Jones. For those of you scratching your heads, Jones and her fellow activist, James Hood, fought to desegregate the University of Alabama, and in 1963 Jones was made famous when Governor Wallace tried to physically block her and Hood from entering the university.

1963. This made Jones my parents’ contemporary (more or less). It’s an important perspective, because too often I think those of us who were born after the Civil Rights Act came to be, take it for granted too much. It’s important, because people like to treat it like it’s old history, but it’s not. It’s recent history. The people who lived and fought for those rights are still alive, as Congressman John Lewis so eloquently reminded us today, when the hearings continued.

Just forty-six years later, Barak Obama became the first African American president, and appointed Holder to the position of Attorney General of the United States. If there is an afterlife, I hope Jones was looking down with pride.

Despite a recalcitrant opposition party, thanks to President Obama, my children have grown up in a country and time that, yes still has many issues with race and violence and bigotry (we are not a post-racial society, no matter how much conservative pundits claim we are, or my fellow white citizens pretend we are), but has also shown them that a black man can be president, and a woman of color  (Loretta Lynch) can be the Attorney General. Thanks to President Obama, my kids have grown up in a decade where their LGBTQ brothers and sisters have finally been accorded the same basic human rights that all Americans regard as their due. They’ve grown up in a country that overwhelmingly said it believes everyone deserves the dignity of healthcare, and one that is at least asking (if not responding accordingly): why people of color are disproportionately the victims of various forms of oppression? They live in a place where we ask why aren’t people of color proportionately represented in film and television, even though one of their favorite movies (Rogue One) is led by a tremendously diverse cast. They’re growing up in a nation where a woman finally ran for the office of the president as a candidate for a major party. They’ve grown up in a time and place where they don’t have to be pigeonholed by their gender, anymore than their female friends are.

That is not the America I grew up in.

I came of age in a decade where successful people of color were (wrongly) regarded as an anomaly, and the president promulgated the fallacy of the “Welfare Queen.” My friends and I discovered our sexuality in a decade where the government sat silent, while a generation of men died of AIDS, because “gays” deserved it, and which resulted in a generation of young people terrified to come out of the closet, despite the strides made post-Stonewall. I grew up in a time where the acronym LGTBQ didn’t really exist because no one wanted to understand more than “us” and “them,” never mind that gender was (and would be for decades) entrenched in an unyielding binary as well.

My boys understand that neither they, nor their friends, are defined by their gender or their sexualities, and not just because my husband and I taught them these things. Their president reaffirmed for them that no matter what they, or their friends, identify as—gay, straight, bi, queer, male, female, non-binary, trans, or anything in between—they can be soldiers, they can be government employees, they deserve respect, they can love openly, they can marry and have children.

When I was young, I idolized Wonder Woman, Charlie’s Angels, and Princess Leia, but my only living non-fiction role model for a woman of power and authority, was Margaret Thatcher—a foreigner whose politics were diametrically opposed to mine. My middle child was two and half when President Obama took office. When I was two and a half, women could not even obtain a credit card in their own name, but my kids watched Barack Obama stand next to Hillary Clinton and support her for president.

During my young adulthood, Bill Clinton made inroads against some of these issues, but he was also a product of his time and generation. He appointed people who were openly gay and lesbian to various positions in his administration and the judiciary, but was a consummate politician, authorizing DADT (for example) as a sort of sick middle ground between homophobia and standing up for what was right. He supported equal rights and pay for women, but had a history of scandals involving other women, and accusations of improper sexual advances and assault.

My kids watched President Obama exhibit the most incredible grace under pressure. He was an example to them of how to respond to hate and disrespect, with nobility and dignity, and yes, a smattering of snark (whereas their mother too often responds with snark and anger, and only a smattering of nobility). He and Michelle inhabited the White House without a hint of scandal, or personal discord. No matter the hateful, racist memes and comments leveled at them, they continued to go high, while their enemies went low. No matter the power of his office, President Obama did not abuse women. No matter the platforms available to him, he did not stoop to make fun of his opponents, or the disabled. President Obama did not make racist comments, sexist comments, or encourage xenophobia.

The Obamas set an example of what we should be. 

For the next four years, instead of this epitome of grace (and I don’t care what side of the aisle you are on, if you don’t agree that the Obamas have been paragons of class, you are broken), the president of this country, the person who is regarded as the role model for legions of American children, will be a thin-skinned narcissist, who responds to every imagined and real slight with grotesque disrespect and rancor, to the point that his tweets are predicted before he makes them. An man who treats women like objects, people of color as lesser than, and appears to care about the LGBTQ community as he does most others: to the extent they can benefit him.

For the next four years, this country will be told—in word and deed—that women are incapable of making their own healthcare decisions, that they are undeserving of equal pay or equal treatment in the workforce, that people of color deserve violence and disrespect, and that they shouldn’t be allowed to exercise their right to vote. My kids are going to be shown that intolerance, bigotry, and violence are okay—in fact, that is already happening with the rise of hate crimes and the toddler elect’s failure to address it.

This isn’t a matter of progressive v. conservative policies. Okay, it’s partly that, but mostly, it’s a matter of persona, behavior, and example. It’s a matter of the Obamas exhibiting the type of behavior that we all encourage in our children, of setting an example for civility; if my kids did any of the things the toddler elect does, they wouldn’t sit for days.

I don’t want my kids to grow up in a retread of the 80’s. We’ve been there, done that, and more importantly, we can be and do better than that. (Plus, let’s be honest, the fashion sucked.) The reality is that I have three privileged, white boys. They’re not the target for the regressive policies envisioned by the new administration and congress, but that doesn’t make those policies any better. It means that as parents, we’ll have to work harder than ever to teach them right from wrong, kindness from cruelty, dignity from lowliness, and generosity from selfishness, and none of what we teach will be reinforced by our government, or it’s incoming head—the putative role models for the nation’s children.

We all strive to leave a better world, a better future for our children. I can only hope the we don’t sink too far, and that the next four years do not undo decades of forward progress. So, that’s why, when my littlest asked me who I liked best, I said President Obama. That’s why, as I watched President Obama encourage us to continue fighting for minority rights, to continue fighting for our democracy, I cried, because even after everything hateful that has been slung at him, President Obama stood before the nation and reminded us that we can be better.

For the sake of all of our children, we’d better be.