(LifeSiteNews) — An ongoing social media trend of boasting about being “Dual-Income-No-Kids,” or “DINKs,” is a sign of the immaturity among Millennials and Gen Z.
The videos are particularly prominent on TikTok. One video went viral recently with six million views so far.
The couple boasts about going out to eat every night after work, “go[ing] to Costco” to buy “all the snacks [they] want,” and spending their “disposable income” on themselves, not kids. Not having kids, the husband says, also frees him up to go to football games and play golf whenever he wants.
Another DINK couple boasts about eating “desserts and appetizers at restaurants” and traveling to Florida and Europe.
(The husband, John Eringman, is a major promoter of the “DINK” lifestyle. He made one video in a car with rosaries hanging. He did not respond to a LifeSiteNews request for comment Friday on if he is Catholic, and if so, why he is encouraging people to not be open to life.)
https://t.co/TZ3dO34olY pic.twitter.com/t2sk9mrNiI
— Matt Lamb (@MattLamb22) December 7, 2023
Being a DINK, then, is really about being gluttonous, avaricious, and lacking the ability to live beyond tomorrow.
Maturity is the ability to delay gratification and to make sacrifices of others. “Adults devise a plan and follow it. Children do what feels good,” financial expert Dave Ramsey says.
Here is the thing: Disneyland will not come take care of you in your old age. Your favorite football team will never look at you the way your kids do. Hitting a golf ball every Saturday will never be more enjoyable than the joy of watching a flailing newborn turn into a crawling eight-month-old and into a running toddler.
It is true that having kids places a limit on disposable income and free time. But that is good. It is good for us to not always get what we want and to have limits placed on our enjoyment.
— Matt Lamb (@MattLamb22) December 11, 2023
But even being true, having kids does not make our life less fun. Furthermore, we can often pass on our favorite hobbies through our children and use that as a way to connect. My dad likes baseball. He played baseball as a kid. He watched the Red Sox growing up and still does to this day. Did having kids interfere with his enjoyment of baseball?
No, of course not. He taught us how to play baseball and coached us. He took us to baseball games. He still goes to baseball games with us and watches them on TV.
Life is also not all about wealth.
Eringman, the DINK promoter mentioned earlier, posts videos about how this lifestyle is good for building wealth, including investing in retirement accounts. He and his fiancé posted a different video recently where they talk about buying a house for rental income.
Here, the wisdom of a former political science professor of mine is helpful. The retired Naval officer would ask “and then what,” in discussions about foreign policy decisions. So, we invade a country and remove its leader, “and then what?”
The same logic applies here. It may sound fun to these relatively young couples now in their late 20s or early 30s to go out to eat every night or buy snacks at Costco (and buying snacks at Costco is hardly a DINK activity, as any family with more than two or three kids will tell you), but that can never produce lifelong fulfillment. So, you get the triple chocolate cake at a fancy restaurant on Thursday night. And then what? How does that help you become a better person on Friday? After years of eating out, are you a better person?
Nor does frequent indulgence in material goods help people grow in virtue the same way children do.
Children force us to practice self-denial – changing diapers or doing laundry, spending money on them instead of on our own hobbies, or waking up early to take care of a fussy baby are all ways we can grow in virtue by not getting what we want.
Eringman makes videos talking about investing for the future and looking long-term. He should apply the same logic to having kids.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 5, 2023
These couples cannot see that in 15 years, stuffing their faces full of Costco snacks or going out every night might get old and boring.
They cannot look 40 years into the future when they might want grandkids to spoil, nor 60 years into the future when they will want their progeny, not medical orderlies and other strangers with syringes, surrounding them on their deathbed.
Instead, they want to indulge in materialism now and for the foreseeable future and store for themselves “treasures on earth,” in the form of experiences and goods. We would all be better off to store up “treasures in heaven” instead.