We huddled around my wife and her phone.
The campfire roared in front of us, taking what little chill there was out of the unseasonably warm November night. My daughter and her best friend had taken a break from their Percy Jackson fanfest to watch the news.
As Vice President-elect Kamala Harris took the stage, they cheered so loud we thought they’d wake the neighbors.
As Harris, dressed in suffragette white, gave her historic speech, the girls clung to my wife, awe and joy and wonder on their faces.
“While I may be the first woman in this office,” Harris said, “I will not be the last, because every little girl watching tonight sees that this is a country of possibilities.”
Later, I hugged my daughter goodnight, and she whispered in my ear: “Kamala is my new hero.”
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Four years ago tonight, we took her to visit Susan B. Anthony’s grave in Rochester to celebrate what we thought would be the election of the first female president. Later that night, as we watched in horror as the returns went the other way, I wrote about how I worried how I’d explain the results to her.
Back then, she was a first-grader who had the vaguest of vague ideas about politics. Her disappointment the next morning was that a girl didn’t win, and it didn’t go much deeper. She was, you know, 6.
Now, my daughter’s 10. She’s heard the news over the past four years. She’s the child of two liberal former journalists who have opinions and aren’t shy. She’s a huge Broadway fan, and she’s seen that community’s activism in person and on social media.
It was easy, four years ago, to overthink the election results’ effect on her. She was so young. She has almost every privilege our society offers. Her life was not materially affected by politics.
But she sees what goes on. She lost half of fourth grade and nearly a full year of theater to the pandemic. She learned about the Haudenosaunee and how that population suffered. She’s an empath who struggles with the idea that someone, anyone, might be hurting.
She’s been to protests at the White House and Black Lives Matter gatherings.
She’s started asking questions and taking stands that matter to her, without our help. She’s started to see the world beyond herself. She’s developed a moral compass and a belief in the essential fairness that the world requires to run correctly.
And on Saturday night, she saw a BIPOC woman speak as the Vice President-elect. A woman who carries herself with such bad-ass self-confidence and conviction in what is right. And if my daughter saw it, imagine what BIPOC girls across the country saw and felt.
Four years ago, I worried about what I was going to tell my daughter.
Tonight, I’m inspired by what she told me.