In 2009, in the midst of chaos and fear, the world changed in a profound and unexpected way. We didn’t know then what the future held, but we were full of hope as a major event changed the world forever: the birth of our son, Miles.

Nothing could have adequately prepared us for the paradigm shift that came with bringing new life into this world—or the responsibility that accompanied it. Our every waking moment was suddenly dedicated to this new little person who seemed to need so much from us.

More so than my wife, I was completely unprepared to have a son. I realized that I was going to have to be the example for this new little person; that he would be looking to me as his example of what a man should be. It was a scary thought.

I began to ask myself what kind of person I wanted Miles to be, and looked for other people that I could point out to him as models. Examples of integrity and character in modern society were surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) scarce.

That is when I became interested in then-candidate Barack Obama, who I believed could provide a strong example for my children from the highest office. His adamant assertion that encouragement of individual ability should go hand-in-hand with community support, that the tax code shouldn’t favor the super wealthy over the poor, that health care should be a right for all Americans—these were policy positions that were not necessarily popular, but I felt they reflected a deep moral character.

A few months before Miles was born, I stood with my wife to witness then President-elect Obama give his acceptance speech in Grant Park. We celebrated together afterwards, spilling into the streets of Chicago with the joy of knowing we had just elected someone who held the same values as us, who would occupy the White House during the birth of our son.

I watched over the next few years as Obama fought for policies he believed to be right, despite fierce opposition. He signed the Recovery Act because it was the right thing to do, knowing he would get no credit for preventing a bigger economic meltdown. He fought for the Affordable Care Act, making sure my son could never be turned down for a pre-existing condition—costing him a lot of political capital. And he pushed through Wall Street reform to stop unscrupulous banks from gaming the system for profit.

Now I am hopeful again. Having just witnessed my second son’s birth under an Obama presidency, I am anxious to keep a man I have come to respect in the White House. Despite the expectations some had in 2008, I’ve never expected the President to be perfect. Becoming a father freed me from the expectation of perfection, for myself or anyone else. But I do believe that the President has proven himself to be a strong leader, who does what is right despite what is popular. And I strongly believe he has earned my voice and my vote.

GET READY TO VOTE

Caleb Gardner is an amateur father and husband who writes about modern manhood and all its trappings at The Exceptional Man. In his spare time (of which he has very little) he dabbles in photography, design, and music. He calls Chicago home, and in winter, less-nice things.

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My seven-year old daughter scored her first basket in her Pee Wee basketball league the other day.

That's right, my 2nd grader can take it to the hoop.

Yes, like President Obama's daughters, my daughter too is using Title IX to the fullest extent and playing basketball. And like the President and First Lady, you can hear me encouraging her from the sidelines (ok, screaming my ever-loving head off...which I'm very sure the President and First Lady DO NOT do) when her first shot goes through the net.

That voice you hear along with mine is her nine-year old big brother confirming what he just saw right by my side, just as excited as Mom.

It was, as my daughter will tell you, "swish."

For her, I need a "swish" come November 6th for Barack Obama.

Why?

That proud parent moment, that YouTube moment, that smile you see stretched across her face as she BEAMS with pride running back to get on defense while cheering, would not have been possible were it not for the advancement of women's equality.

For her, for all those little girls, from my Hala to the President and First Lady's Malia to Sasha, to yours at home...we can not go back.

It has become increasingly clear in this election that the basic rights of women are at stake. It keeps me awake at night. Every day in the news there seems to be a new attack from the Republicans against women, be it inflammatory remarks or invasive legislation.

I don't worry for myself. Or my Mom. Or my Aunts. Or my friends. We can handle these men across the aisle who seem to think our paychecks should be smaller than our male counterparts and that our bodies should not be ours to control. We're grown women. We can and are fighting back.

But then I watch my daughter do something as simple as score her very first basket, and I realize a generation of little girls can not fight back on their own just yet. They will grow up in a world, if the other side wins, that could appoint Supreme Court justices positioned to take away so many of the things we have gained.

She may not be on a co-ed team, scoring another basket, allowed to play with the boys. There may not be a girl's team funded by her charter school due to budget cutbacks—we know the girls’ sports get cut before the boys’.

She may not grow into her teen years allowed to make decisions about her own body. She may craft her college applications and her career choices on things she may not really want, but may pay her well, simply because she knows that following her dreams might mean not getting paid as much as a man in the same position or hitting that glass ceiling. She may be even more afraid than my own generation to report a sexual assault due to archaic and victimizing laws put into place by men who have never been violated as intimately or horrifically.

It is imperative we re-elect President Barack Obama so we can continue to move forward the basic rights of women, of all Americans, from our daughters to our LGBTQ friends and family. Everyone.

I want many, many more cheers because of her "swishes." I want this photo to happen for your daughters.

For all the girls in the United States, and their big brothers proud to sit on the bleachers and applaud in awe, we must re-elect President Obama.

The alternative is unacceptable, and quite frankly, terrifying.

GET READY TO VOTE

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A week before the election, we were driving home from dinner, and my daughter was relaying stories from the playground, couching each character in the story as either a Democrat or a Republican. Politics had nothing to do with the stories.

"Anita, she's a Republican, was poking this spider on the playground with a stick and then Justin, he's a Democrat, came up to her and said that spiders bite."

And that's life in the Washington suburbs, where children are politically-minded even when it isn't an election season. It's sort of the business of our town: government. Our kids know where each candidate stands on various issues, from economics to women's health. And while they may not know it, I think all four of us are voting for Barack Obama for the same reason: because when we elect a president, we are looking at that person through the lens of an uncertain future. We want someone who is not only going to lead our family today, but lead the family we may be a year from now, two years from now, and so on.

I am voting for Barack Obama because I don't know who my children will become or what their futures hold. My children may come out to me in the future and if so, I want them to have every opportunity afforded to heterosexual couples. My children may become ill in the future, and if so, I want them to have access to medical care without having treatment denied due to insurance caps or claims of pre-existing conditions. My children will probably want to attend college in the future, and when they do, I want it to be financially feasible.

I vote this way not only for my children and their choose-your-own adventure future, but for all the very real Americans living out these imaginary realities in the here and now. Because those people are somebody else's child, and their parents simply want their children to be able to thrive in this country as well. Giving more people access to rights, health care, or social programs does not take away from others. It just expands the group of people who are able to actually live that American dream of peace, freedom, and prosperity.

I'm glad my kids are educated on the issues and that they're voting (okay, so coming with me to the polls and checking off a box on their Weekly Reader) with their hearts. That is important to me as a parent. And I urge everyone before Election Day to not depend on what they've learned from attack ads or lawn signs, but to go online, get educated, and vote with your heart and an eye to the future.

Melissa Ford is the author of the award-winning website, Stirrup Queens, as well as two books: Life from Scratch (BellBridge, 2010), a novel about a blogger finding her voice after a divorce, and Navigating the Land of If (Seal Press, 2009), a guide to infertility and pregnancy loss. Stirrup Queens was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten motherhood blogs. Melissa is also an editor at BlogHer, and completed her MFA at the University of Massachusetts. Ford lives in Washington, D.C. with her writer husband, Joshua, and their twins. You can find her on Facebook.

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I, like most people, have priorities and personal rankings with regard to the numerous concerns of my daily life, and I worry about each accordingly. At the top of the list is my family, my wife and two young boys, and then it all kind of dwindles from there until it works its way down to that moment in which I must decide which pair of socks I should wear for the day, if any.

Also placing high on the list is the heated discussion of politics, which admittedly ebbs and flows in importance based upon the issues in focus and the impact of each upon my family; however, these days the coming election affects us all, and I have considered the platforms carefully.

There are a number of topics currently bouncing around the media and across the water coolers of America, from fixing the economy to the importance of health care, and all are valid and each meanS the most to somebody. There are matters regarding women, seniors, the military and its veterans, the LGBT community, all sides of education, the creation of jobs and the subsequent retention they require, the findings of science, international relations, and the case of the environment—the list is long, and unlike the one I outlined above it does not give much ground in terms of importance. Everything deserves our attention.

And yet I have based my decision to support President Obama, not on any single hot-button issue, but rather the way in which he approaches them all. President Obama makes his decisions with a combination of intelligence, experience, and compassion. He addresses situations with determination and fairness. He treats Americans, and all citizens of the world, with honesty and respect. These are qualities lacking elsewhere, and they provide the perfect source of inspiration when discussing such things as character and leadership with my boys.

Generally, the President's approach produces the type of results that have proven best for my family. We are middle-class, concerned about education and social issues like same-sex marriage and a woman's right to choose. We want our parents to enjoy the benefits of a Medicare program that they have paid into, and for other Americans to breathe a sigh of relief knowing that they are able to maintain healthcare regardless of the curveballs life throws at them. We want that for ourselves, and for the generations to follow.

Parenting is its own reward, but it is also full of worry and challenges. President Obama and the policies that he endorses make it easier to put some of those worries to bed so that we too, can sleep better. There is comfort in knowing that the future of our children is growing stronger because, as an active father himself, Mr. Obama gets it.

The challenges are also proving less difficult, though there is still much work to be done. When I speak to my boys about every person being equal, I can now point to the advancements in civil rights for women, people of color, and same-sex marriage as a beacon of doing the right thing—a hope for a better tomorrow.

This is the result of character, education, and understanding, both from President Obama and those of us that agree a world more just is a world better for everyone, but especially my kids—after all, they are on the top of my list.

Whit Honea is an award-winning writer and blogger living in Los Angeles with his wife and their two boys. He writes about parenting, travel, and current events all over the Internet. His personal website is Honea Express, which seems much more clever when you know that Honea sounds like pony—see? Now with tweets: @whithonea

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There are a lot of great reasons to vote early, but Denver, Colorado resident Angela may have one of the best:

“I’m very grateful to be casting my vote by mail because my baby is due on November 7th and I can’t imagine standing in line at that point in my pregnancy—I may even be going into labor on November 6th and having an Election Day baby!”

Find out if you can vote early in your state.

A version of this post was originally published on the Colorado state blog.

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Three years after an insurance company threatened to end Rebecca’s coverage during a high-risk pregnancy, she is determined to fight to get President Obama elected.

“I don’t want what happened to me to happen to other people,” said Rebecca, a Virginia resident standing in line yesterday at the Loudoun County Fairgrounds to hear First Lady Michelle Obama address supporters. “We’ve got to get out and vote.”

She looked at her young son Lucas in an Obama T-shirt and smiled: “He’s a miracle.” For Rebecca this election is about protecting all Americans’ health coverage.

“I had to fight when my insurance company said that I’d reached a lifetime limit on coverage when I was on an IV with a high-risk pregnancy,” said Rebecca. “In my case, I won but what about other people? I support President Obama standing up to insurance company abuse.”

Lucas looked up at his mother and smiled, pointing to his Obama shirt. “This is the second rally we’ve been to—he loves the Obamas! The First Lady is just so amazing.”

Rebecca is doing her part to ensure President Obama can continue the progress for four more years and she hopes more people will do theirs.

“Everyone can get involved at some level; you can make calls from home, talk to people at mom’s groups,” Rebecca said. “Simply talking to your neighbor and telling your story, telling them how President Obama has helped your family can be very powerful. What are you waiting for?”

Fighting back tears, Rebecca said, “This election is really important to my family.”

VOLUNTEER

A version of this post was published on the Virginia blog on October 10.

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I am the 53%. I pay federal income tax. I also pay state income tax, property and school tax, social security and medicare tax, and sales tax. I also pay hidden taxes, like that on gasoline, cell phone service, internet access, electricity and heating fuels.

And I am the 47%, because I depend on government. And I believe that government is instituted by a nation’s citizens for their benefit, convenience, and protection, and to guarantee their freedom and civil rights.

Today, I drove on a public road. I took two forms of public transportation to get to my job—a commuter rail line, and the NYC subway. I work for a tax exempt not-for-profit organization—we don’t pay any income taxes, but we work in the public good and when we have a good year and don’t incur a deficit, our surpluses do not accrue to the benefit of any individual. My child rides back and forth to her public school on a school bus.

Last month, when she broke her arm, we took her to the emergency room at the local non-profit hospital. We’re currently saving for her college education via a 529, also known as a qualified tuition program. The yogurt I ate for breakfast was made in a plant that’s inspected by the government. My bank account is guaranteed by the FDIC. The mammogram I had last night was covered by my insurance—with no co-pay—because of the Affordable Care Act. And when I go to sleep tonight, I’ll be under the roof of the house we own with the help of a mortgage and the home mortgage interest deduction.

I believe that food should be safe, health care should be available to all, and roads, bridges, levees, and dams should be maintained to the highest standards. I love that my country supports the National Endowment for the Arts, and Acadia National Park, and National Public Radio. I appreciate the work that NOAA and the FAA and the NTSB do, and I get great pleasure out of mailing letters and packages and postcards through the Postal Service. Above all, I believe in the social compact, and that together we can make a better whole.

I guess this makes me 100% in support of President Obama.

Maggie Christ has worked in non-profit arts administration since the Reagan administration. She is a wife and mother, lives near NYC, and rattles cages as often as possible.

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When my son Charlie was born this past winter, everything changed—as I am sure my fellow moms can attest, nothing will ever be the same. Becoming a mother has been the greatest gift I have ever received—and as a mom, I want to be sure I do everything I can to protect the future of our country for my children.

I have been a supporter of the President for a long time, but now with a growing family, I feel it’s even more imperative that we re-elect President Obama and keep moving the country forward. We can’t afford to go back to the failed policies of the past, and I know that the President is looking out for the best interests of families like mine. Policies like the Affordable Care Act will ensure that my family has access to affordable health care coverage. The Race to the Top initiative and the expansion of access to Pell Grants will help ensure that my kids have access to better educational opportunities in the future. And those are only two of many, many reasons that we must turn our support into action.

There is urgency and an importance to this election that I have not felt before. As mothers, we have a very clear choice between candidates: keep moving forward with a President who’s got our back and shares our priorities, or turn back the clock completely. That is why I am not only giving President Obama my vote this November, but I am also committed to volunteering for the campaign as much as I can, and I hope you will too.

There is so much to be done, and November 6 is just around the corner. I know it isn’t always easy to find time when you have little ones. I have found a way to make it work though; Charlie seems to enjoy the atmosphere in the campaign office, so I bring him along with me! I like to think of it as a lesson in civic engagement from an early age. So, fellow Mamas: please join me in getting involved—think of it as a crucial investment in our children’s future. I know President Obama has our backs, let’s make sure we’ve got his.

I HAVE BARACK'S BACK

A version of this post was published on the Virginia blog on September 17.

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Spend any time in a United States elementary school and you will see population presented as a number, maybe with a human clip art character to stand in place for all citizens. The clip art character usually looks like a game piece: circle head, boxy body for boys, boxy skirt-shaped body for girls. It's the same figure that appears on bathroom doors, on pedestrian crossing signs—it's the figure that means human.

It makes sense to reduce humans to a single graphic when we're trying to convey where to cross the street. It makes sense to create an icon so non-English speakers know which bathroom to use.

But I think what happens when we cross from child to adult, with that ever-present icon in our line of vision to represent humans, is that we start to think of the citizens of this country as a faceless crowd, an enormous number, a set of statistics.

It is easier to consider people in gingerbread man-like form. It is much harder to stretch our minds to consider the very real lives that contain very real needs, and harder still to think about giving up things you want in order to ensure that people you don't know can meet their basic needs.

Teaching population in this way in elementary school textbooks set us up for what we see now: an election where people tend to be speaking about the "I" rather than the "us." With so many people struggling to fulfill basic needs, and others discouraged because while their needs are met, their wants go unfulfilled, we cling harder to the things we do have, hording for ourselves.

To ensure that my twins don't grow up reducing everyone unseen in the country to a human icon, I started talking about the issues in this election in terms of people they know and asking them to expand their imaginations to consider people they don't know and people they may or may not meet in the future, people who have very real lives with very real needs. Just like us.

When you start to look at the issues this way, it stops being about "us" and "them.". I always tell the twins that we don't vote based on how our life is right now, but we vote based on what could be since that "could" is someone else's "is." All of our hypotheticals are someone else's reality.

It is the same concept that governs insurance; you need to pay for it whether you use it or not, and we buy it based on the possibility of hypothetical situations in the future. Voting also requires us to think ahead. Voting shouldn't come from a place of comfort, but we should think about the difficulties of others and how we'd want aid, support, or rights if we (or people we love) ever found ourselves in different circumstances.

I was moved watching the First Lady's speech at the Democratic National Convention. It was clear from the emotion that caught in her throat that while we see Barack Obama as the president, she sees him as her husband, the father of her children, a human being with a face. In other words, he's not a remote entity but a very real person that she loves deeply. And that is true for all of us—we have the people we love, the ones that we keep in mind as we vote, wanting the best for those we know. But it also drove home the point that every person we don't know is someone else's loved one. That there are no nameless, faceless people in America.

I encourage you to do what we've asked the twins to do: remove that human icon graphic out of their heads for a moment. Humanize the vote by considering all the people you know and all the people you don't know, and remove the concepts of "us" and "them," instead embracing the idea that we are all Americans, all with individual wants and collective human needs.

Melissa Ford is the author of the award-winning website, Stirrup Queens, as well as two books: Life from Scratch (BellBridge, 2010), a novel about a blogger finding her voice after a divorce, and Navigating the Land of If (Seal Press, 2009), a guide to infertility and pregnancy loss. Stirrup Queens was recognized by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten motherhood blogs. Melissa is also an editor at BlogHer, and completed her MFA at the University of Massachusetts. Ford lives in Washington, D.C. with her writer husband, Joshua, and their twins. You can find her on Facebook.

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As the Mom-in-Chief of my house, you had better believe politics is personal...which is why I packed up the kids, all my medication, the wheelchair, and made the trip across the entire country so we could be part of the 2012 Democratic National Convention.

It might seem a bit crazy...a Mom with Lupus, a nine-year old, a seven-year old, and more doctor's restrictions than GOP obstruction moves, but I knew I had made the right choice when my son was asking me why anyone would think climate change was a hoax and my daughter, after watching DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, turned to me and declared "Mom, she was really great! I really like her!"

Think about that for a second. My son, all of nine years old and fidgeting like a typical boy, was listening intently enough to catch the President calling out climate change deniers. My daughter was INSPIRED by an accomplished female politician at the age of SEVEN. How many of you could say the same at that those ages? Or could come close to having those opportunities?

The convention gave our family moments we will never forget.

Not just the easy things like watching speech after speech, or seeing senators and Secret Service agents in the hallway, but the hard things. Like having to discuss freedom of speech after I made them close their eyes while we walked by anti-abortion protestors.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance along with former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, and having to explain to them both why I was crying so hard and why she was walking so slowly.

Taking to their feet to cheer our military men and women and our military families—a seemingly simple task. But then making the drive back to Fayetteville where we stayed with our own military family—prompting my son to hug his uncle just a bit tighter, my daughter to ask her cousin what it was like when her Dad was deployed.

And then, the moment they had waited for and told their friends about: getting to see the President accept the party's nomination. My son swore he was speaking "right to us, Mom" when he talked of change happening, like the "the girl who needed the heart surgery."

Mom, I know the President has helped you while you are sick. Now we have to get people to help him with votes.

Even my kid was fired up and ready to go.

But that's because my kids understand the Affordable Care Act is something President Obama did that helps their Mom with her Lupus. They don't understand HAMP 2.0 and ACA have also saved us from foreclosure, but that's not something we want to worry them with.

They also understand President Obama wants everyone to be equal, including friends of Mom and Dad's they love who have spent holidays in our home. They agree it's wrong to keep those friends from marrying. And they agree it's wrong to keep women from being paid the same as men. Everyone should be equal.

The look on my daughter's face when I told her there has never been a women president said it all.

But the look on her face as she cheered on the many women on stage, and our president speaking of that equality, gave her hope she could be the first.

As the confetti fell, watching them jump up and down cheering and waving their flags, I knew those 3,000 miles were worth it. But more importantly, I knew we had to be part of the convention to show other families going through similar hardships that it is time to take that extra step for the President. It is time to do things like skip that morning coffee and donate the money to the campaign, talk to your neighbors about what "Obamacare" really does, or show the world you will not be disenfranchised by making sure you are registered to vote.

It took everything in me to get the kids and I to Charlotte in the hopes of inspiring them and possibly you with our story. I've accomplished one of those goals...now help me with the other.

Because this is personal.

___

Erin Kotecki Vest, when not disabled by Lupus, is BlogHer, Inc.’s Social Media Strategist. Prior to joining BlogHer, she spent ten years as a broadcast journalist in Los Angeles, Orlando and Detroit winning six Golden Mic Awards with LA news institution KFWB. In addition, Erin speaks to audiences across the country and provides commentary for national media outlets on social media, women, parenting, politics and how they all intersect. When she's not in treatment for Lupus, you can find her at home in Los Angeles with her two children, VFX digital artist husband, and wonder dog and Bo Obama look-alike, @nickythepup. Find her on Twitter @queenofspain.

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