Whether you are happy or not.

Your opinions and reactions affect more than just you and more than just your "friends" or "followers." Everyone instantly shares the hundreds of new articles produced about the election on Facebook or Twitter and it is easy to get caught up in all of the chaos. While the comments on the countless articles that have been shared by Americans range from emotions of fear, anger, disappointment, curiosity, and excitement, there is something we are forgetting to acknowledge when we press the "share now" button or argue about politics in public.

We forget about the kids.

Your opinion, arguably most importantly, affects the younger generations who did not vote and are not fully educated on what really happened in this election. Your opinions have the ability to impact the future leaders and voters of America. In this election we have shown them hate and violence, that same hate and violence is then further instilled and written into the future of America. Teaching the upcoming generations of our nation's aggression, let alone aggression to its own people, is only disadvantageous and unfair to them.

We owe it to the next leaders and even the kids who won't be the next leaders of our country. We owe it to them to actually practice what we preach. Whether you are saying the hate that is occurring is hypocritical or or the hate that has occurred is unacceptable; either way HATE IS HATE. No matter what side of the aisle you identify with, belittling the other side, is not the answer. It never has been the answer, but somehow we've gotten lost in the mentality of hate. We can’t have kids in kindergarten telling each other what they all need to be worried about now, when they are too young to know. We owe it to them to give them the best childhood and life growing up as possible for each individual child, and convoluting their childhood with politics is not the way to do so. We should be teaching the ideals of how to be a good citizen and person.