Childless by Choice

The DINK Dilemma

Once again a TikTok disease escaped that dumpster of an app and made its way to the social media sites we old folks use, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

This time it was videos made by couples who have chosen not to have children—Dual Income No Kids, or DINKs, for short.

A note before we get started: this article is about married couples who voluntarily forego having children, meaning this discussion has nothing to do with those who cannot have children. Lest you be tempted to invoke those dealing with that painful, unfortunate situation, I’ll refer you to this site’s Granny Johnson rule.

And, I would encourage those who are involuntarily without children to consider skipping this one as it may be a difficult read.

In video after video the DINKs list all the “advantages” afforded them by their childless lifestyle. The worldview they espouse is wrong, but more than anything it’s just sad.

We have a burden to shield our people from these kinds of errors.

Yet this is exactly the kind of discussion into which many culturally-conforming Christians will insert themselves with cries of “You can’t bind that!” and “The Bible doesn’t say…!” and “No choice is better than another!”

To them I will say, yet again: please sit down and get out of the way.

We can speak about normative principles, even if exceptions exist. God has something to say about the matter, so we should teach it.

Humans were designed by God to have children. “Be fruitful and multiply” was the command to Adam and Eve (Genesis 1:28), and again to Noah’s family (9:7). Babel’s language mix-up happened because man failed to fill the earth (11:4, 8). All of that happened before Abraham and long before Moses and the Law. In the rest of the Bible, it’s just assumed people will have children, because that’s how biology works.

On the other side, Satan has shown us he will kill as many children as he thinks he needs to to try to thwart God’s purposes (see: Pharaoh, Herod, Molech, abortion). He hates life—it’s as simple as that. If he can convince us not to even have them in the first place, we’re just doing the work for him.

So, these are universal human principles. That makes this a matter of telos, the end for which we were created. With better record-keeping we could have drawn a line from you and me all the way back to Adam. Who on earth are we to say, “Yeah, that’s enough of that. We’ll end this project right here?”

Though there are exceptions, an overwhelming majority of those who do not fulfill their telos will be unhappy.

Also, withholding such teachings from people to preserve their culturally-constructed Stockholm Syndrome cage of radical individualism and self-determinism is neither loving nor helpful. We are already seeing people make devastated proclamations that the lies of feminism or the sexual revolution have led them to irrevocably mess up their lives.

I have no doubt we will be seeing the same from DINKs at some point, whether in the near future as their careers top out and there’s nothing left to work toward, or later when there is no one around to visit them in the nursing home.

And yet I also have no doubt there will be Christians who adamantly respond to this article insisting we have no right to try to warn people about the perils of going down this road.

Many Christians fail to understand this because of how infected our brains have become by individualism and gnosticism.

The ultimate end of Christianity is not to get you to heaven, despite what we’ve been proclaiming for decades. It is the spread of Christ’s rule until it is perfected in eternity.

We have the incredible privilege of participating in His purpose as bit players, yes. But that requires us to be conformed to a Christ-centered view of everything, both physical and spiritual. One of the chief ways He has ordained that work is through the home.

When we miss this and treat DINKism as a matter of personal preference instead of a choice which should be highly discouraged, you can see the selfishness which abounds.

All of the videos follow the same format—“We’re DINKs! Getting to go to concerts and restaurants is the pinnacle of human life. We’re DINKs! Unlike you sad, sorry people, we watched Netflix the last 37 nights in a row instead of reading stories to children. We’re DINKs! We live a life of mindless, self-centered consumption and never have to sacrifice for anybody! ”

They’re missing a fundamental truth which can only be learned from experience.

Kids teach us life does not revolve around me and you, nor what makes us happy. They are a visible reminder that the world will go on after we’re gone, and we bear responsibility to help it be a better place. Refusal to have kids is a refusal to grow up and accept that responsibility. A life without sacrifice and responsibility is ultimately a life of weakness and misery.

As Christians, we of all people should know this. There is a level of love these people will never feel or understand because of how badly they’ve been misled about what matters. They think they’re actually happier and more fulfilled by this choice. Again, it’s just a case of Stockholm Syndrome.

When the dust settles on this in a decade or two, let the record show that Christians spoke the truth on the matter.

We should be encouraging marriage and child-bearing from the pulpits. We should be encouraging hands-on, intentional parenting rather than the attempted middle ground of having kids yet trying to DINK it up by passing them off to childcare or setting them in front of screens 8 hours a day so we don’t have to handle them. We should be supporting young parents and making it clear that choosing marriage and children is a blessing from God and far preferable to not doing so.

We should be presenting the blessed counter-culture to self-centered DINKism.

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.”

• Psalm 127:3-5