Being a father has most certainly changed my perspective, including giving me more “skin in the game.” But that’s me admitting that I wouldn’t care quite as much about the rest of you if the fruit of my loins weren’t going to (I hope) be here long after I’m gone.

But it strikes me as politically unwise for a movement to alienate potential or current allies who either cannot have children or have chosen not to have children. Take, for example, Townhall.com columnist Kurt Schlicther, who recently said we should “Penalize barren, non-familial lifestyles through taxes and disqualification from political participation.” If you want to win hearts and minds (and elections), it’s unhelpful to issue such threats or to throw around insulting terms like “barren” and “cat ladies.” This is especially true at a time when this cohort of childless adults is growing.

Speaking of alienating allies, Ann Coulter recently went after “post-Trump populists” including Vance, writing that “One is left with the strong impression that these marriage and child boosters are people who are sorry they got married and had kids, so they have to turn their life’s greatest regret into the equivalent of landing at Normandy.” Coulter went on to compare Vance’s pro-natalist position to Great Society programs that paid people to have kids (an analogy that I don’t think holds water). She also suggested that the push to grow our population is really about finding new young workers to fund the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security.