DINKS are the new YUPPIES

"I think having kids would limit us in the activities we enjoy and the quiet living space we love," Casellas adds. "We hope to be homeowners soon. With the way things are right now, I'm not sure we could afford a home and kids. Adulting is expensive."

As today's society continues to see a growing number of issues on the rise — overall uncertainty, crippling debt, a poor housing and job market and even climate change — financial, cultural and biological issues come into play when considering parenthood.

Still, arriving at the decision to not have children wasn't easy given the social pressures she faced. "I'm basically the only childfree-by-choice person I know outside of social media," Casellas shares. "Friends and family around me were starting families and honestly I almost started to doubt my choice. I needed support so I started listening to books about being childfree by choice." She credits books like A Childfree Happily Ever After: Why More Women are Choosing Not to Have Children by Tanya Williams with making peace with her decisions, as well as the discovery of social media communities.

"When I discovered people sharing their childfree lives on Instagram, I felt like I was going to therapy," she says. "Childfree people absolutely live healthy, fulfilling and purposeful lives. It's an amazing and supportive community to be a part of."

Childfree Millennial is another Instagram-based DINK support system, run by partners Marcela and Michael, ages 26 and 31 respectively, who live in Kansas City, Missouri and prefer to keep their last names anonymous.

"It was about three years ago that I came to the realization and had a light bulb moment that kids weren't a mandatory thing in life," Marcela says. "Crazy, I know — I just didn't grow up being told this or having any examples of people who didn't have kids in their 20s and 30s."

"When I had this epiphany," she continues, "I couldn't contain my excitement because of how relieved I was. I wasn't going to have to do something that I had been dreading my entire teenage and adult years."

Today, Marcella says she wakes up every day with a smile on her face knowing she can confidently accomplish all that she sets out to do. "I find myself investing more in creativity, exploring the world and becoming a better person," she says.

She uses her platform as a way to let others know it's OK. "Three years ago, I wish I had someone to look up to like me in the childfree space," she explains. "Someone who was open in talking about their childfree journey and how amazing and inspiring your life can be, regardless of what others are saying about it."

As many work toward removing the stigma of going childfree, proud DINKS are not shy when it comes to displaying their status. One way of letting the world know where you stand in the child department is the popular trend of displaying a bumper sticker outlining your "family." On a DINK's car, those stick figure children are are depicted as little money bags.

Rachel Wiedmayer is one of the top-rated sellers of DINK bumper stickers on her Etsy store, WiedMakers. "I am half of a DINK couple," Wiedmayer says. "My husband and I do not (and will not ever) have children of the human variety. We have two dogs and a cat. I decided to start selling these decals because I look for designs that align with my views and interests."

And there are obvious financial benefits along the way to not having children. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, it is projected that it will cost parents, on average, $233,610 to raise a child born in 2015.

People are finally wising up.

The phrase DINK is annoying and sounds like it's some sort of taboo slur. Other than that, good for them. Not being sarcastic. The planet has enough people and we don't need any more couples choosing to spawn 4 kids in rapid succession then spend the next 18 years whining about their self imposed martyrdom. Too many people get pressured into the parenthood racket.

It's no guarantee that if you have children, they will take care of you when you get old.

However, if you don't have kids, you had better have a solid plan in place just in case you live to be 80 or older.

Otherwise, you're really going to be screwed.

If one is single would that make one a “sink?”

DINKs aren't the new Yuppies, they're the new DINKs. DINKs was heavily used in the 1990s (and 2000s?) Plus while some of the money and material wealth may overlap, "Yuppies" at least before it became such a general term was narrower - young, urban, professional. Of course it quickly became an broad adjective/descriptor and applied to a broader range of people who fit the bill in terms of appearance, money, lifestyle. It didn't necessitate no kids, even if many yuppies hadn't had kids yet. Once they did, it was still applied to them - "yuppie parents."

BOBOS IN PARADISE

Yuppies were more palatable. Everyone knew where they stood with a yuppie- they were materialistic, driven and generally out for themselves. These DINKS are phonies- all contrived 'fun' and 'cool' but with added faux spirituality or wellbeing.

The previous DINK era didn't have much cultural meaning attached. It only meant double income, no kids and was more identifying that people were getting married or living together and waiting longer to have kids or not have them at all.

OP- I would do that man in the photo.

Never wanted kids. I don't have the patience, demeanor or desire. Quite frankly, I don't like kids and try to avoid them. I've seen too many ill-mannered entitled kids but that is mostly the parents fault.

Partnered gays used to be the ultimate DINKs and were coveted by advertisers as such, but a shift seems to be occurring where we're acquiring kids while straight DINKs are practically becoming their own children.

I call this BS. My boss and her husband who were both "DINKS" more than 20 years ago sounded just like this couple. Then a couple years after I left the company, bam! Guess who has a surrogate child? The "dinks". I have seen this play out more than a few times. "I don't want kids, we don't want kids, not everyone needs kids", than low and behold a few years later or someone falls in love and bam! Rugrats galore. Usually more than one. So I dont trust heteros anymore when they say this. It's just cover for they have not found the right person or they dont want to be pressured into it right away.

Breeders cannot be trusted, that's what they do, breed.

But, it's not really dishonest. DINKs are DINKs until they're DIKs.

I'd be overly indulgent with a child and would spoil them. They'd suck and it would be my own fault.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

And the SINKs get ignored yet again.

I loathe kids. Part of my desire to own a house is so that I don’t have to see, hear or smell them unless I’m a store or something.

AT a store

Ya dink!

These terms are almost 40 years old.

You would have hated my neighbors R18. I live in a high-rise but some trashy family moved in while back and think the entire building is a playground for their taking. Instead of taking the kids outside to play in perfect 75 degree California weather, the duchy father plays with the kids in the hallway with giant beach balls and toys as if no one else lives on the floor. Constant banging on the walls, kids falling hurting themselves, screaming, crying and the Dad keep doing it. Every day at 6pm like clockwork. Mother is even worse. She slaps those kids around and calls them stupid. Locks her husband out of the unit along with the cat. Both of them just sitting there in the hallway in the middle of the nigh when I am taking out the trash.

Have kids. Don't have kids.

But, people who are aggressively "childfree" are exhausting as vegans. They HAVE to let you know at every chance they get that they're childfree.

Like vegans, it comes up multiple times in EVERY conversation at the mere mention of children. And, upon sight of anyone under 21, they make the same faces and noises vegans do if you take one to a BBQ.

R2 Turning 40 in July. Childless by choice. I truly don’t know how people do it these days.

I don't even understand gay couples who have kids, and I am gay. Bitches, you got a Get Out of Jail Free card and you still played it wrong. Oh Well, see you at Park Place.

There was a stupid board game when I was growing up called The Game of Life. The whole thing was about moving along the board, getting married and then filling the car with little pegs that represented children. At the end if you didnt make enough money you ended up in the Poor House.

Anyone who finds their life choices validated by INSTAGRAM is not worth knowing.

OP, DINKS have been around since the late 1990s. My husband and I used to refer to ourselves as DINKS.

[quote]Turning 40 in July. Childless by choice. I truly don’t know how people do it these days.

Why, what's wrong with [italic]these days[/italic] compared to the 80s or 90s???

A lot of these straight couples have probably tried several times to have kids and failed so they accepted this too cool for school act.

I had two sets of Aunts & Uncles who had both incredibly happy lives without kids. But I did discover they tried.

How dare people not have children! The nerve!

Oh PLEASE r23, as opposed to people with children who talk about their kids every fucking second?? Maybe you know some raging assholes, but everyone I know without children rarely talk about unless directly asked by breeders.

Most people who have children still get totally defensive around people who don’t want kids. You have the rare parents who say “good for you,” but mostly people take it as a direct indictment of their decision to have children. And THEY bring it up.

My best friend is an ER nurse and said the children of elderly patients often don’t give a single fuck when their parents are at the hospital. So you better have a plan for care once you turn 80 - regardless of whether you breed children or not.

I never mention not having kids, it doesn’t really come up. I DO hear parents discuss their kids ALL the time.

I know a few straight couples like this, one of them has always been comfortably saying kids weren’t for them (when asked), and the others don’t explain why (nor should they have to). I know even more straight people who feel this way but aren’t partnered up, maybe because if they didn’t care to have kids, they didn’t feel the need to marry either? The only tension I’ve seen about it within my friend group is from people who waited to have kids and are now struggling with it, who seem resentful of the childfree couple friends. Not sure where that comes from.

I agree with the poster above - I would spoil kids rotten if I had them, I can’t even discipline myself. And I can’t imagine having to raise a kid during social media and school slaughterings.

[quote] Partnered gays used to be the ultimate DINKs and were coveted by advertisers as such, but a shift seems to be occurring where we're acquiring kids while straight DINKs are practically becoming their own children.

I immediately thought of Pete and Chasten when I read this article, because I had the same thought as you.

Partnered gays are so desperate nowdays to become "heteronormative," while the hets are learning from gays and saying "fuck the kids." They want to travel and eat out at nice restaurants, and be free to do whatever they want, whenever they want.

It's weird how the tables have turned.

Are they saying that children would onky get in the way of their erotic lifestyle?

*only,* damn it!

I was just in a store with a screaming toddler. His burka-clad mother ignored both her child and the dismayed looks on the faces of the other customers and just kept browsing.

At the risk of sounding like an elder gay, when did women stop taking their screaming spawn out of the store when they acted up?! People are so selfish today.

In a straight DINK the husband is invariably gay.

[quote] If one is single would that make one a “sink?”

A better term would be “OINK”. One income, no kids.

Kids wont get in the way as long as you keep your slave locked up in the attic for 4 days.

[quote] Most people who have children still get totally defensive around people who don’t want kids. You have the rare parents who say “good for you,” but mostly people take it as a direct indictment of their decision to have children. And THEY bring it up.

My married parent Xennial cousins always bring it up to me. When on rare occasion I babysit--"oh, the kids love you, you're so good with them. They can be hard work, but it's SOOOOO worth it. Children just give you PURPOSE, y'know? And my (token) lesbian friends said the same! You'll change your tune *wink""

Erm, having known your kids, I certainly fucking won't, cheers.

R38 Middle Eastern parents let them scream uninterrupted.

R43 You beat me to the punch. Arabs NEVER discipline their children. Never, ever. I have Arab friends and their kids are the WORST. The best behaved are South Asian and Indonesian kids.

On a flight from Dubai, this Arab family let their kid wail and scream for 11 hours. The mother sat there and did abso-fucking-lutely nothing to calm him. The dad barely tried but was ineffective. At hour 11, an old man lost his temper, screaming, “Shut your God damn kid up!!! Enough already!” I heard him mutter, “I’d love to spank the shit out of him.” We were all giddy—he did what we were all thinking. Finally, the mother got the kid to shut up and we got a few hours of peace. But holy fuck, what inconsiderate, detached, and insolent parenting.

R44 Yes. It is …something.

Are we able to bump threads from 1987 now? That;s when the Online Etymology Dictionary says the term became popular.

Google Trends shows that the term's popularity (measured only from 2004) peaked in 2006, and has been fairly flat and low for the past 8 years.

"Yuppies" as a term isn't exactly on a popularity ascent either. It's been headed mostly down for the last 18 years, and steadily downhill for the past 9 years.

Is there anything we don't know about DINKs? Or is the term just being dusted off because some DINKs were not alive when the term was in the news before?

R35 This.

Marriage is in decline, it’s at its lowest rate in 150 years. Birth rates are in decline as well.

Straight millennials live like more like gay people today than gay people. They have live-in partners without marriage and have “fur babies”.

Men today don’t want to get married, it’s a legal and political risk with little reward and women don’t want to marry men because they’re too broke.

This dumb acronym has been around since the late 1980s. I first read it in the old New York Observer.

OINK!

[quote]I call this BS. My boss and her husband who were both "DINKS" more than 20 years ago sounded just like this couple. Then a couple years after I left the company, bam! Guess who has a surrogate child? The "dinks". I have seen this play out more than a few times. "I don't want kids, we don't want kids, not everyone needs kids", than low and behold a few years later or someone falls in love and bam! Rugrats galore. Usually more than one. So I dont trust heteros anymore when they say this. It's just cover for they have not found the right person or they dont want to be pressured into it right away.

[quote]Breeders cannot be trusted, that's what they do, breed.

I have known of a few similar situations. My cousin and his first wife both said they didn't want kids and were happy being dinks. My cousin was 35 when they divorced and a few years later he was remarried. A couple of years later, his second wife announces that they are trying IVF. His second wife was only a year younger than him and she talked about how they wanted to have baby at least before their mid 40s. He was 42 and 41 when they had their son. Now they are trying to adopt from South America. She seems happy as mom, but he doesn't seem to be happy as a dad.

DINKS isn’t a new thing…

R23 Are vegans as exhausting to you as Covid? Because, you know...

I had this classmate in night school who was obsessed with getting married and having kids. She asked me if I ever planned on getting married and starting a family. I was in the Navy during DADT and was semi-closeted. I told her that I didn’t plan on it and wasn’t sure that I wanted children.

She said, “How do you know if you never had them? That’s dumb!”.

I said, “Well, what if I did and realized that it was a mistake? What’s dumber?”.

She said, “Then…you just learn how to deal with it. My parents did and I turned out okay!”.

The other students just rolled their eyes and said nothing. I could have but just chose to say, “We’ll agree to disagree then…”.

Old country saying, “Pigs don’t know that pigs stink.”.