Seaton Gets Red-Assed About Dinks

I should probably start this week with an apology. I’m in a mood. This happens to me every once in a while, and the only thing I can really do to get rid of it is motherfuck somebody into next week. My sainted grandmother, God rest her soul, used to call this mood of mine “getting a case of the red ass.“

This week’s target of my ire are dinks. “DINK” is an acronym for “dual income, no kids.” if you ask me, it’s also a shorthand for selfish brats with zero desire to accomplish anything with their lives. Like I said, it’s just my opinion.

Dinks love to post videos on TikTok, or so I’m told, about how great their lives are without children. Let’s take a look at two of the specific videos, and see if we can’t burst a couple of DINK bubbles today.

Our first Dink opts to list all of the ways her lifestyle is superior to the life of those with children. Among the several factors that make a dink‘s life better than someone without children…surprisingly include a lot of things parents do regularly. Like completing educational goals, travel, better economic mobility and the ability to relocate when one so desires.

COMPLETING EDUCATIONAL GOALS
Nothing, and I mean nothing about parenting precludes you from completing your educational goals. Some of the smartest people that I knew in law school were people with kids. And I’d also argue they made better lawyers than people without kids, because they actually have some understanding of the human condition. People without kids are going to have a lot harder of a time understanding others because they don’t have the ability to see how peoples minds are formed right in front of them. It’s powerful stuff, and some thing that I think just makes every parent’s life a little bit more fulfilling.

TRAVEL
I don’t want to be too hard our muffin cakes, but parents do travel quite a bit. In fact, some of the best trips I’ve been on in the last few years have been with my children. They’ve certainly been more fulfilling because I get to experience the joy of my children in these places. Listening to my son talk eagerly of returning to some destination to which we’ve traveled is a delight that never gets old

In fact, I would argue parents do more traveling than people without children. It’s not to say that you’re going to do a lot of vacationing. Instead, you will be traveling nonstop as you take your children from one activity to another. I spend most of my days in my car now, and half my Saturdays are devoted to stuff my son wants to do. Every other week, we have Girl Scout stuff with my daughter, so we have travel to that as well. And part of me is still bracing for later years in life, when there may be things like dance recitals, or band practices to attend. You will travel a lot as a parent. It’s just not vacations, which can probably put some people off, I suppose.

ECONOMIC MOBILITY
Parents actually have more of an incentive to earn money than people without children. You begin to understand very quickly when you’re a parent that the piddling amount of money you used to live on is not enough to sustain another life. Therefore you have to go out and find ways to earn more or save more money. Either way, you will enjoy more economic mobility as a parent than if you are childless out of necessity.

AT WILL RELOCATION
Have Dinks never heard of families moving for better job opportunities or because a different community shares the values one wants to instill in their children? It’s not that farfetched; several of my friends moved to Tennessee from out of state for those very reasons.

I think we’ve dusted away the selfish pontificating of Miss Muffincake.

Are their any other arguments the DINK crowd wants to make? Oh there are? Well, let’s see

SLEEPING UNTIL ELEVEN
While I appreciate a good nap on the weekends, sleeping in until eleven is a child’s behavior I’d rather not attempt at my age. For one, it means you literally had nothing better to do than piss away half the day. Second, it means you think so little of yourself that you’d rather be unconscious than experiencing the joys of life. Just wake up at six like normal people. You’ll thank me later.

HAVING COFFEE
…You’re kidding me with this one, right? Listen, parents drink more coffee than anyone else. It’s kind of a food group staple for us. And let’s not forget the joys of hanging out in a coffee shop complaining about, well, everything. It’s a joy only parents get to experience.

In fact, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t really start drinking coffee until I had kids.

I’m going to go get a coffee now.

OK I’m back. Man, this is good coffee. Any other arguments?

WASHING ONE’S HAIR
Okay, this one has to be bullshit, right? Wait. People really think parents never wash their hair? Don’t tell my wife, who committed the sin of washing her hair while a parent this morning. And I washed my hair today* well before I had to do anything for my children.

EATING LUNCH/DINNER OUT
Oh we parents do this stuff all the time. Look on your menu for that spot marked “Children’s Menu.” That’s a sign we’ve been at your favorite spot, muffin. A bunch.

Why am I concerned with the activities of DINKs? Simple. There are plenty of great people out there who choose not to have children. I’m friends with many of them. Most of the time we never say a thing about it because they don’t try to put their lives out in front for everyone to judge.

Dinks try to convince the world of the moral good of their existence by pointing out the ways in which they feel their lives are superior to those of us who have children. When you start opining on the moral good of your lot in life you’ve automatically opened yourself up to others telling you why their lifestyle is better. There’s no option to refuse that level of judgment.

And when I can tell you’re living a decidedly less happy life than me you don’t get to try and convince me otherwise. Every time you toss up a reason your life’s better without kids I’ll be happy to tell you why mine’s better with two and why I regret not having more earlier.

Or we can leave each other the hell alone. Sound good?

Anyway, I’m done with my case of the red-ass. Happy Friday, everyone and I’ll try not to be so grumpy next week. Gotta do it for the children!

We’ll see you next time, everybody!

*Ed. Note: For some men (ahem, Seaton), hair-washing is not as burdensome an activity as it is for those of us with resplendent manes.

6 thoughts on “Seaton Gets Red-Assed About Dinks

  1. F. Lee Billy

    You left out the offensive practice of talking over someone you are in conversation with. If you’re a dink, that is commonplace. If you’re a parent, you know all about that phenomenon.

    Finally, there’s cocktail hour, which parents look forward to more than anyone else. You left that out too. Think I’ll open the bar early today. It’s Friday after all!

  2. Mike V.

    A case of the red ass is a well-recognized term in Eastern Tennessee. Getting red assed at DINKs is like getting red asses at yuppies once was. It’s too easy, kinda like shooting fish in a barrel. They’re stupid but not world wise enough to know it. And it’s that smug sense of superiority that give you the red ass.

    My Daddy would have said they’re book smart but as dumb as rocks. Some of them wake up and wise up, and those that don’t shouldn’t reproduce anyway.

  3. B. McLeod

    Worst of all are the Dinks who feel compelled to actually have their “hair” tattooed on. I guess because they think people can’t then tell the difference when they’re going bald.

    I have heard that some tattoo artists are now making a substantial portion of their annual haul on the ink a Dink a do business alone.

  4. Kirk Taylor, EA

    As a DINK who shuts up about my life and doesn’t try to compare I at least have to complain about one things…
    Why aren’t you having kids
    Kids are great
    You’ll change your mind
    You can’t have a purpose in life without kids
    Why aren’t you having kids
    Why
    Why
    Why
    Why
    Why
    Parent can be just as exhausting

  5. rxc

    As half of a DINK, I want to apologize for all the rude comments by other DINKs. I assume that these comments were made out of the blue, without any provocation. If they WERE made in response to he sort of comments noted by Kirk T, then I can understand a bit of a snarky reply. We do pay LOTS of property taxes for the “education/indoctrination/re-education” of your children, who don’t seem to appreciate this fact, and we pay a LOT of other taxes to pay for the support of children and their parents when they don’t have the skills to earn a living.

    Authoritarian governments like to have people produce a lot of children so they can be used in military endeavors, while democracies like them because they generate support for more and greater handouts, which means continued re-elections of the politicians.

    Some of us just decided that we had no real consuming urge to procreate and deal with sports camps, teenager clothing, music lessons, special tutors, or any of the angst that parents and children suffer throughout their entire lives. I do admit to a bit of envy when I need a strong son to hold up a beam or something else while I attach it (“Here, hold this, and don’t let go!”) in a voice that cannot be used with a spouse. And as I approach the end of my life I do have a LOT of stuff that I would dearly like to pass along to someone who want it, but I think that all of us geezers have that problem, whether we have children or not.

    But I do have a good niece who will benefit when I go (she is an IP lawyer, married to another IP lawyer) , and her parents are both gone, so I get to be a sort of surrogate grandfather for a while. I enjoyed being an uncle who could try to corrupt my sisters children with toys and French chocolate and teaching them to say “Bullshit!”. They turned out OK, in spite of me.

    And my mother, who said, at one point, that I was selfish about not having children, changed her tune over the years, and before she passed she told me that I had done the right thing. That change may have been partly influenced by the efforts of her evil children (including me) to take her out of her house and put her into a “home”.

    So, I will leave you all with the thought that I hope you all raise lots of children who become successful, get very rich, and continue to pay lots of taxes, to support this retired Federal bureaucrat (actually there are two of us) in the manner to which we have become accustomed, by paying our pensions, healthcare, and SS. That will cover all of our needs for hired help to take care of the house and wipe our butts till we go.

Comments are closed.