I feel churlish and ashamed this week every year. At the end of it, I am asking myself: Why are my children so short-tempered? Why are they so cranky? What am I doing wrong as a parent? Why do I feel my own fuse is shorter?

And then I remember. Nothing. I did nothing wrong, and this is literally the fault of Congress daring to reach into the cosmos in a futile attempt to synchronize our circadian rhythms to the demands of . . . what?

And it’s not just some sleep-deprived illusion in me. Human behavior genuinely degrades because of Daylight Saving Time. A study of over 700,000 car accidents from the mid-1990s to 2017 found a 6 percent increase in the week after we push our clocks forward an hour.

And now we’re stuck with this nonsense because a committed group of screen-addled misanthropes will never consent to year-round Standard Time.