When a photo of the luxe, elaborately decorated dorm of the daughter of an NFL team owner went viral, the Dorm Room Moms Facebook group was not that impressed.

To be fair, they appreciated the pink toile tufted ottomans upholstered in the same fabric as the elegant bedding. They noted the attention to detail. The oversize rug pattern matched the pattern on the dresser drawers with crystal cut drawer pulls. A bubble gum pink mini coffee maker perched on a stand next to a light pink Stanley mug, while a printed lampshade pulled the room together.

But several of the moms commented that they had seen many dorm rooms just as lovely in their own group. You don’t have to be the daughter of the Kansas City Chiefs CEO and part-owner to have a professionally designed, Barbie Dreamhouse version of a dorm.

Pottery Barn Dorm began marketing furniture and accessories to an affluent collegiate demographic in 2010. About five years later, photos of over-the-top dorm rooms, mostly at Southern schools, began circulating on social media.

It’s spawned an entire industry with dorm room registries at Target, dorm interior designers, retailers making custom-sized appliances and furniture, and hundreds of thousands of mothers scouring social media to help their children create an Instagram-worthy aesthetic.

In 2017, Refinery29 featured a young woman who brought custom-built shutters for her closet doors at Ole Miss. Her classmate laid laminated flooring in her room. The current trends include neon signs with the student’s name above a tufted custom headboard, vanity tables with surround lighting, and peel-and-stick wallpaper covering the walls and the university-issued furniture.

A week ago, House Beautiful published an article headlined, “The Stakes of Dorm Decor Have Never Been Higher.”

We need to lower the stakes.

For a generation that grew up on Pinterest and lifestyle influencers, it’s understandable that some would succumb to the notion that a dorm room is an expression of personal style that requires this level of planning and effort -- especially when peer pressure and competitive social media culture are involved.

But that’s when parents can offer a reality check rather than indulging in a dorm room amenities arms race. You only live in this shared space for nine months. Everything that is hauled there has to be stored, hauled back or discarded when you leave. Posters, photo collages, knock-off prints and throw pillows don’t cost much, and can create an inviting, cozy space.

I can understand the maternal impulse to create a beautiful landing spot for a child leaving the nest. At the first college drop-off for each of my kids, I didn’t want to leave until the bed was made and I had helped create some semblance of order in their rooms.

Part of the college experience ought to be learning what it’s like to struggle and persevere through challenges. Creating an illusion of perfection and extravagance sets up unrealistic expectations of what adult life is really like.

How will a new graduate’s first apartment measure up to these luxurious dorm rooms?

Some of the moms in various dorm decor groups share how they’ve managed to put together beautiful rooms on a budget by shopping at discount stores, finding deals and using DIY creativity. Perhaps this is an activity that helps deal with the emotions that come along with a big life transition, like sending a child off to college.

But wouldn’t it be better if the initiative and effort came from the child -- rather than the parent?

It’s hard to fight the temptation to buy fancy things they really don’t need because we are anxious about letting go. And it’s even harder when you immerse yourself in a subculture of competitive dorm decor.

Think back to what your own dorm room may have looked like. We were not deprived because we didn’t have a mountain of pillows or custom-made curtains. We found ways to decorate those cinder block walls and create memories that had nothing to do with how many likes our furniture got on social media.

Let’s call old-school dorm decor "vintage" and bring simplicity back in style.

My husband sat down with our college-aged children, who were home for the summer, for a serious talk.

“I want to quash some rumors that might be going around about me,” he said. This got their attention.

“Contrary to what you may have heard, I do not enjoy doing nearly all the cleaning and dishes at home,” he deadpanned. They rolled their eyes, smiled and went back to their phones. When he relayed this conversation to me, I laughed and admired his Midwest Dad energy.

This phrase would not have come to mind three weeks prior. But ever since presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris selected Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her running mate, the Midwest Dad has become a part of the political discourse and a social media meme.

Many of the articles published about Walz’s Midwest Dad vibes are in publications based on the coasts. These stories include personal details about Walz to establish his Midwest Dad bona fides: He grew up in a rural town in Nebraska, is the father of a 23-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son, loves animals, offers tips on car maintenance, tells dad jokes, makes corny videos with his kids, appreciates classic rock on vinyl, goes to Bruce Springsteen concerts, coached football, served in the military and enjoys ice fishing, camping and hunting.

This kind of dad may be familiar to many of us. I am married to someone who shares some of these characteristics.

But the vibes aren't about what Walz does, so much as how he does it. He comes across as a reliable, helpful and straight-talking man. He’s the sort of person who seems like he’d be a thoughtful neighbor, great teacher and fun dad.

Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse describes the trope of the Midwestern father figure as oversized in both competence and kindness. I don’t think these traits are unique to fathers from any specific geographic location. I grew up in the South, and the vibes in our house were the Immigrant Dad variety -- far more authoritarian and strict, likely due to generational and cultural differences.

Hesse argues that what captured people’s attention about Walz isn’t about fatherhood, it’s about celebrating a different version of masculinity: confident and decent, rather than controlling and belittling.

The truth about Midwest dads is much more complicated than likable social media posts. For example, Missouri has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the country. It also has the highest percentage of deadbeat fathers, according to one study. Perhaps Walz’s public persona highlights traits many of us wish our fathers also embraced -- being open-minded, accepting, positive and involved.

Hearing a politician tie his journey to fatherhood, which required fertility treatments for his wife, to his support for reproductive freedom makes it feel like the issue is personal to him.

Yes, he shops at Menards, tinkers under the hood of a car and makes dad jokes about vegetarians. But he’s also able to talk about his ideas in a simple and down-to-earth way. Take his support for free meals at school: Kids should have full bellies so they can learn.

Some men have a hard time admitting when they might have been wrong. But after a mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, killed 17 students and staff in 2018, Walz -- a longtime gun owner, hunter and supporter of the Second Amendment -- said he would support a ban on assault weapons. His rating from the NRA went from an A to an F.

In a speech that year, he said that he changed his mind after his daughter came to him and said, "Dad, you’re the only person I know who’s in elected office. You need to stop what’s happening with this."

He told the crowd, “My job today is to be dad to a 17-year-old daughter.”

That desire to protect one’s children speaks to something bigger than a geographic region or politics.

It’s an American Dad vibe.

The first time I heard an Indigo Girls folk-rock anthem, I was a 19-year-old college student volunteering at an early childhood center in Durango, Colorado.

A group of us spent our spring break working with children served by the Head Start program, many of whom were part of the Southern Ute Indian tribe. Among our group there was a student who played the guitar and two others with vocal ranges that harmonized beautifully. We were in that phase of life when young people are trying to figure out who they are and what they are meant to do.

It was just a matter of time before we were singing along to the melody and countermelody of what would become Amy Ray and Emily Saliers’ biggest commercial hit: "Closer to Fine." Back then, as a person of deep faith wrestling with the big questions in life, I felt those lyrics in a spiritual way, especially when sung by my peers. They spoke to my own search for meaning. At that age, music feels so vital and personal that it imprints upon your experiences, becoming the soundtrack to your memories.

I recently had the chance to talk to Saliers, now 61, who wrote the 1989 hit song. I asked her what, decades later, has brought her closer to fine.

“Sobriety and not feeling like I have to stick to a doctrine to be a person of faith,” she said. She reflected on how much her faith has formed her and the ways it intersects with her intellectual understanding and personal growth.

The groundbreaking Indigo Girls have spent their careers and lives as artist-activists, supporting causes including gay rights, reproductive rights, the environment and the rights of Indigenous peoples. I was curious about how the journey had changed Saliers, and even more so about how she has managed to stay so earnest, engaged and hopeful despite the painfully slow pace of change.

She said she gets away from the doom and despair rampant on social media and seeks the company of those in the trenches, doing the hardest work. She talked about working with people like Camille Bennett, founder and executive director of Project Say Something, a nonprofit working for reproductive justice and to dismantle white supremacist narratives in Alabama.

“She’s trying to help women in their real lives in rural Alabama,” Saliers said. “I want to hang out with people like her.”

I called Bennett to find out how their friendship began. She said the Indigo Girls reached out to her organization in 2020, when the nonprofit had been protesting for months to relocate Confederate monuments in Florence, Alabama.

As a Gen X, Southern Black woman, Bennett had had friends in high school who were Indigo Girls fans, but she wasn’t familiar with their music. Well aware of the disconnect between Black feminism and mainstream feminism, she said she wondered what these white women were really about.

“They just kept showing up,” she said. They wanted to learn and support the movement she was building. “They protested with us. They did a Zoom with us. They did a concert for us,” she said.

In the process, Bennett discovered songs that resonated deeply with her. In “Look Long,” the lyrics call out the forces she is fighting against -- fascism, racism, sexism, inequality and poverty.

“But then, they ask us to cling to faith and hope,” Bennett said. “I was bawling my eyes out.”

I had a few moments like that when I attended their recent concert in St. Louis, part of their current nationwide tour. At the show, thousands of fans, mostly women, traveled back in time to when they first heard many of these songs.

Amy and Emily rocked out in front of a backdrop screen of bookshelves filled with banned books. They never called out any politicians by name, although Emily mentioned that a woman would be on the ballot for president -- to a roar of approval from the audience. They let their lyrics offer whatever political commentary the listeners wanted to hear.

For those of us in midlife, they showed us that your bodies, your faces, even your voices will change as your power, wisdom and strength grow. I remembered the idealistic young woman I was when I was introduced to their music. They were as humble and fierce as I might have imagined decades ago.

I finally realized that we aren’t trying to get to a destination of ultimately being "fine." It’s OK to struggle to figure out how you can make the community around you better -- for everyone.

It’s that journey that brings you closer.