Back in December, a viral video series on TikTok celebrated the DINK (dual-income, no kids) lifestyle, glorying in their ability to take European vacations, go crazy with bulk purchases at Costco, and splurge on their pets. At first, I thought it was a joke, though as Federalist Executive Editor Joy Pullmann helped me understand, these unabashedly materialist young American couples were quite serious. They really believed the freedoms they enjoyed sans children were a superior form of life to the supposed drudgery that defines the lives of us hapless parents.

Author and American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Timothy P. Carney, a happy father of six, does not view children as an obstacle to human happiness, but rather the means of achieving it, both for individuals and society at large. Yet, as he argues quite persuasively in Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It Needs to Be, much of the reason for our nation’s declining birth rates has to do with various trends that discourage couples from having some (or more) children. And though Carney’s arguments are data-driven and quite convincing, I couldn’t help thinking about the popularity of the DINK lifestyle.

Our Baby Bust Is a Perplexing Puzzle

Carney does an excellent job of exposing the confounding contradictions of America’s relationship to our progeny. He notes that Americans are having fewer children (below 1.7 per couple) than we actually believe to be the ideal (2.7). There’s also this paradox: When compared to the fathers of

Your mom spent 365 days a year taking care of you — the least you can do is get her a little something to make her smile on Mother’s Day! (And yes, dads, this applies to the mother of your children, too.)

If there’s one thing about moms that we all need to realize, it’s that they go through phases just like the rest of us. Eras, if you will (although this phenomenon certainly predates Taylor Swift popularizing the term). For example, I am currently in my sourdough era and have nearly as many bread photos in my camera roll as pictures of my toddler. Please don’t ask me how many jars of sourdough starter discard I have in my fridge. How long will my sourdough era last? Nobody knows.

So here are a few gift ideas for mom to inspire you. She changed your diapers, after all!

If She’s in Her Homemaker Era…

Homemaker, homesteader, whatever you want to call it — if your mom is all about growing her own food and/or making it from scratch, then she’s gonna need an apron so she can dramatically wipe the flour off her hands when she’s done in the kitchen. I love this blue floral baker apron, but if neutrals are more her thing, then this linen apron from Etsy is a great choice.

And you can’t forget the apron’s outdoorsy cousin, overalls. I know several mamas who love their gardening bib overalls, and Duluth Trading Co. has a ton of colors and patterns available

Parents across the United States are being restricted from accessing their adolescent children’s online electronic health records. Not only are military parents barred from accessing all but basic information on their 13- to 17-year-olds in the military’s online health care portal, but the adolescent minor also is not allowed to have a user logon until 18. Though elected officials are tackling this issue on the state level, military parents will need to be their own advocates as they appeal to Congress to restore their parental rights.

Military insurance provider Tricare finally issued a press release in March explaining Department of Defense (DOD) policies that restrict parents from adolescent records in the portal, Military Health System (MHS) Genesis, as well as from “sensitive” physical records.

Last year, I wrote about my experience of spending months trying to obtain the official policy that barred parents from these records. Now that the policy is out in the open, it must not be allowed to stand, as it is ultimately harmful to children.

Many military parents object to providers’ having a confidential relationship with their children because they do not trust activist MHS doctors who believe a child can be born in the wrong body to counsel their children on anything in secret — as some are doing.

One sobering example of what can happen when parents are excluded occurred in Louisiana, where two civilian parents were treated as the enemy. After less than an hour behind closed doors with their 13-year-old, the provider