DINK – a glimmer of hope!

23Jun10

I was having dinner the other evening at Silk City, an upscale diner in Philadelphia. It was a gorgeous day, so there was no better time to enjoy a nice dinner outside in Silk’s backyard beergarden. I was about to take the first bite of my caesar salad when a noise stopped in me in my tracks. It was loud, burping and incoherent – it was someone’s child! While his parents were trying to participate in “adult” conversation, this little one was bumping his curly little head into the back of my chair, pulling at his mom’s hand as she tried to fork her dinner and picking his nose, with no remorse.

 

I looked up to the sky at one point and thanked the heavens that HE was not My child.

The funny thing is that around Mother’s day this year – not sure if it’s because I turned 25 and therefore look and seem older, or if people were just assuming that as a young black female, I had a brood of little thugs that I called my own, but EVERYWHERE I went, people were shouting out, Happy Mother’s Day! I was at the point where if one more person wished me well on my illegitimate holiday, I was going to snap!

This got me thinking. As a 25 year old female, should I be thinking of procreating? Or am I totally crazy because that’s the farthest thing from what I want at this point?

I read an article in the Advocate about gay men, and their disdain for parenting. The article said that a lot of gay men choose not to have children, even if they are partnered, because they feel that if they have to sacrifice their beach houses, luxury cars and prada shoes, for an infant, they’d rather go without! After reading this article, I had to take a long hard look in the mirror – was I a gay man trapped in a woman’s body? I almost believed it for a second as I do have a penchant for house music, GLEE and pampering myself, but then I discovered the acronym, DINK.

DINK, by Wikipedia standards, means Dual Income No Kids. DINKs are categorized as high wage earning couples who choose not to have children so they can lead a “more expensive consumer lifestyle” – I found my niche!

With growing studies on Millenials (people born between 1980 and 2000), and our culturally liberal/consumer driven/taking longer to establish a career/marrying above and beyond previously assumed age limits, lifestyles – it’s seems only natural that kids of this generation might put having kids off longer, if they have them at all.

My mother would slap me, and probably will, once she reads this, as she cannot wait to have grandchildren. She never mentions it, but I can feel her looking at my stomach in longing, every time we’re together! She would say, “Sheri! You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me :0), how could you not want that?” To which, I would answer, “Mom, it’s not that I don’t want that, I’m just weighing my options!”

Here’s what I’ve boiled it down to – and will be choosing for now (give me a few years and I can almost guarantee I’ll have baby fever):

Breast lifts over Breast Pumps

Prada bags over diaper bags

Sleeping in over exhaustion

Real dates over play dates

and

Happy hours over Baby Showers

Do YOU have baby fever? If so, tell me about it!

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