What the heck is DINK life?
When Ryan and I started dating almost ten years ago, we didn’t immediately say we didn’t want children. In fact, I vividly remember asking Ryan if he wanted children and he said, “I think I’d be a great dad.” But over the years our many travels, our sleeping until noon Saturdays, our all-day brunch-a-thons, festivals and spontaneous weekends we kind of decided children didn’t really fit into our lifestyle. We love deciding on a random Thursday to cruise up to the cabin for the weekend. We love laying in bed on Sundays until 11AM and then heading to a bottomless mimosa brunch. Kids make that lifestyle nearly impossible, and we weren’t willing to compromise. However, it hasn’t stopped most people from doing a doubletake when we tell them we’re childfree by choice.
“Why would you deprive your parents of grandchildren?”
This is probably the most offensive one of all. Ryan and I weren’t put on this earth to reproduce for our parents. Thankfully, we’ve never received pushback or pressure from our parents on this point. All four parents respect our decision to live childfree lives and have never made comments like this to us.
“Do you guys not like kids?”
For some reason, a lot of people think if you don’t want to have children it must mean you don’t like them. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. We love our niece and nephews and all of our friend’s children. We just want to give them back to you when we’re done hanging out with them. Someone told me recently that promoting a childfree lifestyle was, “extremely upsetting because every child is a gift.” I DO NOT DISAGREE WITH THIS. Let me shout that from the rooftop. Being a mother just isn’t for me. Let’s all stop telling one another how to live our lives, eh?
“How did you come to the decision of being childfree?”
There was no big moment. There wasn’t really even a discussion. We both just slowly realized if we wanted to continue living the exciting, spontaneous life we were living that children just wouldn’t fit into it. Personally, I’ve never felt like I wanted to be a mother. My parents were extremely honest with us from a young age that raising children is incredibly difficult, expensive and not for everyone. I was never fully convinced I wanted to have children, but always thought if Ryan really, really wanted them that I would. It just so happened that we ended up deciding against it.
What other questions do you have for me? I know this is a somewhat new area of conversation and a lot of people (parents and non-parents) have asked me incredibly insightful questions. Let me know what you’d like to know about DINK life!
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