A fellow mom friend recently posted an idyllic picture of her kids online, writing about what a magical summer they’ve had so far. She ended the post by saying “even in dark times like these, my kids are such a bright spot.”

What dark times were these, I wondered? In the last week I’ve had a friend bury a brother, another returned foster children he’s had in his home for over a year and a third put their beloved family pet to sleep. So I messaged the friend concerned about the dark times facing her family, offering my prayers for whatever challenges they might be.

It turned out she just meant the presidency of Donald Trump. I say “just” not to dismiss the genuine distress many feel but to place it in its proper context. We’ve lost total perspective.

Indeed, it says something about how blessed we are that an unpleasant president counts as a dark cloud in one’s life, a trauma to be lived through. It seems Trump’s opponents feel that to properly signal their disapproval they must replace a healthy sense of perspective about American history with hyperbole.

A person born in 1911 experienced between their 18th and 40th years: The Great Depression, Pearl Harbor, World War II, the Cold War and the risk of nuclear war, the Korean War and the rise of Communist China. Perhaps we should keep that in mind the next time we refer to 2018 as “dark times.”

One of the favorite adages of woke millennials is: Check your privilege. It’s a standby of activists who like to constantly remind others that the body and life they are born into comes with specific privileges. Before commenting on any situation, they demand that an individual must acknowledge their own inherent advantages vis-à-vis race, gender, socioeconomic status, etc., and consider those privileges every waking moment, but especially before daring to express an opinion or render judgment.

So consider what a privilege it is for millions of Americans to walk around decrying the toll the president is taking on their happiness, especially when, for many of them, no part of his presidency has impacted their lives in any meaningful way. While millions of Americans are tuned out of the day-to-day news of politics because they are focused on the sometimes gargantuan task of providing for their families, they are mocked and derided by those who let their happiness be determined by Donald Trump.

It’s become a prerequisite for leftists to post any nonpolitical content: They can’t just be happy, because showing any kind of unqualified joy is somehow complicity in the president’s reign of misery.

How far has this unwillingness to exude happiness permeated? I’ve even seen two birth announcements reference the Trump administration in some way. One, a friend; and the other, actor James Van Der Beek, upon welcoming his fifth child, a daughter last month.

When Van Der Beek announced his new daughter’s birth on Instagram, he wrote: “As I write this, kids are being ripped from the arms of their parents. By our government. For the kid’s benefit? No — the opposite — as a purposeful display of cruelty to deter would-be illegal border crossers AND legal asylum seekers (it’s happening to both). And it wouldn’t be honest to wax poetic about my new-baby bliss without speaking up against this atrocity.”

He went on for several more paragraphs before adding at the end, almost as an afterthought, “And our new baby’s name is Gwendolyn.”

It’s one thing to be empathetic, but it’s quite another to be so consumed by the news that you lose sight of what should be one of the happiest days of your life.

It’s sad to say, but there will always be tragedy in this world; there will always be a news story that shakes the senses and breaks your heart. But at a certain point, we can’t let it put parameters on how much we allow ourselves to feel happiness in our own lives. From picture-perfect summer days with your kids to the birth of a child, nobody should be granted the power to put a damper on that.

Not even the president of the United States.

Bethany Mandel is a part-time editor at Ricochet and columnist at the Jewish Daily Forward.