The Patriot Post® · DINKs and Their Gospel of Hedonism
“DINK” (Dual Income, No Kids) is an acronym that describes young couples, generally married, who have made the choice to not have children. They do so for many reasons, such as they want to diminish their environmental footprint or they don’t want to be like their parents and therefore won’t be parents at all. The most common reason, however, is the notion that being a DINK gives them freedom and autonomy that families with children don’t have. They can do what they want whenever they want because they aren’t bound by the needs of their children. Some of them contemptuously refer to those who choose the family route as “breeders.” This term is gross and dehumanizing.
Before we dive further into DINK-hood, let’s define it more specifically to exclude some very important groups. Young married couples who are enjoying being married but kids are still in the plans do not really qualify as DINKs. They are not anti-human, they are just enjoying that time before kids. For couples who cannot have children because of circumstances outside of their control, this term doesn’t apply to you either.
DINKs — or their slightly worse variation, DINKWADs (Dual Income, No Kids With a Dog) — are a completely different story. DINKs, under the facade of virtue, have opted for the lives of hedonists and materialists and are spreading their gospel on social media platforms like TikTok. Guess what? The algorithms are elevating that message — though, at this point, are we really surprised that a Chinese-owned app is influencing its greatest geopolitical enemy to adopt an anti-human agenda? Not to mention, this message aligns all too well with leftist ideology.
DINKs brag that a life without children means that they have much more money to spend on themselves to do what they want. This might be true in the short term, but as these couples age out of the workforce, their own choices consign them to a dismal economic future without the next generation to help carry the economy or subsidize their own retirement through Social Security and Medicare. In 2020, the U.S. hit a sad milestone. According to Fox News, U.S. birthrates are at a 40-year low. Also according to Fox, “As of 2022, 43% of households were childless, a 7% increase from 2012, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”
Elon Musk, owner of X (Twitter) and Space X, posted this in response to one of the more viral DINK videos: “There is an awful morality to those who deliberately have no kids: they are effectively demanding that other people’s kids take care of them in their old age. That’s messed up.”
There are several morally wrong aspects to DINK-hood. It is hedonistic materialism with the gloss of climate activism and progressive feminism. In other words, it’s a highly selfish ideology that adds nothing to the world but only takes from it. Christian podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey recently explained why this idea is wrong: “Our lives are not meant to be centered on consumption, centered on what we want, centered on satiating our hunger and our thirst literally and metaphorically and doing all the things that we want to do with as little sacrifice as possible. Yes, it feels good, but that’s not actually what fulfills you.”
Later in her monologue, she hit the nail on the head regarding the “climate benefits” of choosing to be childless, saying: “The funny thing is that these people are actually living out what they think is the detriment to having children. Just consuming consuming consuming, stripping resources, doing everything that they want to do, not actually adding anything to society.”
What is the ideal building block for society (and has been since the beginning of time)? A family with two parents, a mother and a father. In this day and age, it is also an ever-rarer privilege. More and more children are being born to single mothers, and many more are being deprived of that two-parent model by divorce or by the hijacking of the word “marriage” to include a plethora of LGBTQ family models, none of which are what research is showing to be the best for children.
That last bit, “best for children,” is at the heart of many of our societal/cultural issues today. Leftism in particular tells us that sexual liberation, progressive feminism, climate alarmism, abortion, and Queer Marxism all lead to a fulfilled life for the individual autonomous adult. This narcissistic individualism is actually the opposite of what leads to fulfillment. Women who have been fed the narrative about girl-bossing their way to the top hit their late 30s and realize that what they’ve been chasing brings no meaning.
Moreover, abortion sells the lie that killing your unborn baby is for your greater good. DINKs are just another iteration of “all about me” syndrome.
Our Judeo-Christian values have been supplanted by a self-centered ideology, and it’s destroying us on almost every front. Being a parent is a privilege. It gives us an opportunity to daily serve someone other than ourselves. Our children give moments so much more meaning and richness.
The only consolation is that DINKs cannot last. Perhaps a few of them will change their minds and decide that maybe a family is really a good thing. Those who don’t will die out, leaving nothing but their empty houses and fancy cars behind.
It’s a hollow allegory for their empty lives.