Living the DINK-Life?

 

Introduction

In his introduction to a blog entitled The DINK Lifestyle: What Is It And Why Do People Choose It on weathertender.com, author and self-proclaimed “digital nomad” Danny Newman says this:

You’ve seen them on Instagram. You know, those carefree couples who are always jet-setting from one exotic destination to the next. Like the guy and gal you met at work – yeah, the perpetually well-dressed ones. Where did they go recently? The Caribbean again? Or was it Paris?

You can’t keep up. But all you know for sure is that they’re taking full advantage of their DINK lifestyle. That’s right, dual income, no kids. Cash-rich and lacking the responsibilities that come from having children, these couples have a life that many people crave. But is it really as good as it sounds? Or are there downsides too?

Fascinating. The article goes on to describe the rising trend in society towards such a lifestyle, offers pros and cons for it, and even makes a pitch to future DINK-Lifers to reach out for financial advice to someone who really understands their unique situations and goals. All bases are covered.

Counting the Cost

Newman identifies the 3 most compelling incentives that have led so many to such a lifestyle: time, money, and mobility. And any parent with multiple kids under the age of 5 could say, “Wow….that does sound nice!”

For all the blessings and benefits of having children (more on that later), it would be unrealistic to deny that children come with a cost. As long as they are awake, they monopolize all of our time. As they grow older, everything becomes more expensive: food, clothes, future cars, etc. And the very thought of traveling with 3 under the age of 6 makes my heart rate climb steadily.

Time, money, and mobility were all things my wife and I had when we first got married, and the more children arrived, the more and more our attention shifted away from ourselves and to our kids. That’s just true—and to the watching pagan world, it is a tragedy.

Of course having children is a cost. However, if we were to write up a financial statement of our home, would our children be listed as liabilities or assets? Where should they be? Who says?

The Mission of God

In Genesis 1:28, God declares to the newly created man and woman his vision and mandate for what they are to do on this newly formed planet:

And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

—Genesis 1:28

Later in Genesis 2, after creating Adam, God declares that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Why? Because Adam could not fully obey and fulfill the mission of God in Genesis 1:28 on his own. Without women, mankind would never be able to “fill the earth.” That mission was given to both the man and the woman, and they were created in such a way to be able to fulfill that mission—this is essential in understanding what it means to be a man or a woman. In short, our fertility is not a side-feature.

What About….

Of course, to frame the question of whether or not to have children in an obedience-category is to raise multiple other questions. One of which is simply “what if we are not able to have children? Are you saying that we are disobeying God?” Of course not. Infertility is a heart-breaking reality of living in a post-Fall world. The Scriptures make clear that it is the Lord who opens and closes the womb (1 Sam 1:6; Isa 66:9), and many a godly couple has had to walk the painful road of infertility by faith.

And of course, there are other follow up questions that we can open our Bibles and discuss. Questions like when to start having kids and how many a couple should have are questions of wisdom and prudence and must be weighed with a variety of factors.

And yet, I do not believe that the Fall destroyed and replaced the mission of God. Listen to how the Psalmist describes it in Psalm 78:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching; incline your ears to the words of my mouth! I will open my mouth in a parable; I will utter dark sayings from of old, things that we have heard and known, that our fathers have told us. We will not hide them from their children, but tell to the coming generation the glorious deeds of the LORD, and his might, and the wonders that he has done.

—Psalm 78:1–4

In order to tell the coming generations of the glorious, majestic, redeeming deeds of the LORD in Christ Jesus…there must be coming generations. How will praise come from the lips of infants if the ideal life is the DINK-life?

To A Thousand Generations

Our children are not liabilities—they are assets. They are the means by which cultures are made and sustained. Kingdoms rise and fall by how we raise our kids. Our children will be future lawmakers, doctors, teachers, and mothers and fathers. Whether or not we raise them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord matters (Eph 6:4). Do we have that type of vision? Are we in this for the long haul?

It saddens me to think of those who consciously castrate themselves for the purpose of chasing their own dreams, their own desires, that will end with them and their lives. As Solomon says so poignantly in Ecclesiastes:

Again, I saw vanity under the sun: one person who has no other, either son or brother, yet there is no end to all his toil, and his eyes are never satisfied with riches, so that he never asks, “For whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?” This also is vanity and an unhappy business.

—Ecclesiastes 4:7–8

Children are our only way of extending our influence into the future. If your ideal life is the DINK-life, your life is a vapor. If you are able to have children, tell them of the glorious deeds of the Lord, because it will reverberate through the ages. The Lord has promised to bless those who bless him to a thousand generations (Deut 7:9). We hand down to our kids either our sins or our faith.

Choose wisely.


Further reading:

 
Matt Groen