The ‘dual-income, no kids’ moniker is suddenly everywhere, and the lexicon has ballooned to include DINKWADs, SINKs and DINOs
4 min
Natalie and Keldon Fischer have no debt other than the mortgage from their Seattle condo, where they live with their Pomeranian, Noble. They each have six-figure salaries and hefty savings accounts. Last year, they traveled nearly every other month, including to Italy, Mexico, Thailand and Finland.
“I really enjoy being a DINK,” says Keldon, a 30-year-old software engineer.
DINK, of course, stands for “dual income, no kids.” It isn’t new slang, but suddenly, vocal DINKs are everywhere as more couples like the Fischers not only embrace the label but boldly let their DINK flags fly.
“Being DINKs means we just have a lot of freedom, time and money,” says Natalie Fischer, 25, a full-time content creator. She’s open to having children, but is first focused on building a net worth of $1 million by age 30. “I know that once I have a kid I will have to assume a lot of the caregiving responsibility and work less.”
Videos touting the DINK lifestyle now rack up millions of views on TikTok and Instagram. Most feature married couples sending the message that they don’t have kids yet (so stop asking), possibly never will, and life is fantastic, thank you very much.
The lexicon has ballooned to include DINKWADs (DINKs with a dog), SINKs (single-income, no kids). Some DINKs prefer “DINO,” for dual-income, no offspring.
There is even DINKY—for dual income, no kids, yet.
The public pronouncements represent a shift, says Zachary P. Neal, a psychology professor at Michigan State University who studies child-free adults. Though not all DINKs are strictly child-free, as some may have kids later, he says there is overlap in the groups.
“It has been for a very long time a sort of stigmatised category,” says Neal. “There are all sorts of stereotypes—things like…they’re self-absorbed, they have no stake in the future, they’re too focused on their career.”
But these days, DINKs are leaning into the label, thanks in part to the snowball effect of social media, Neal says, where DINKs are finding safety in numbers. “As some people start to openly identify as child-free, it creates an environment more open and welcoming.”
In a 2021 Pew Research Center survey, 44% of non-parents ages 18 to 49 said they were not likely to have kids ever, up 7% since 2018. Reasons included economic obstacles, concerns about the state of the world and simply not wanting to. And many young adults who do want children are having them later in life than previous generations.
The recent vocal DINK-dom is also generating backlash.
On social media, parents argue they do much of what DINKs do, just with kids in tow. Internet commentators and comedians are using DINKs as material.
“Childless couples are even more annoying than the imaginary children they complain about not even having,” said Lewis Spears, an Australian comedian. “They don’t seem to do anything with their free time except make videos about how much free time they have.”
Brenton and Mirlanda Beaufils, both in their 30s, have been together for over a decade, and say that they’re often questioned about whether they plan to have children.
But they are not ready to give up the flexibility of the DINK lifestyle.
On a trip to Las Vegas, for instance, they partied poolside, dined at the renowned Nobu restaurant, visited casinos and totally lost track of time and went to bed after 5 a.m.
And when Brenton, who is 32 and works in property management, was offered a new job that started in two weeks in another city, the couple made the move—from Boston to Dallas—happen in one week.
“We go where the wind blows,” says Mirlanda, a 30-year-old real-estate agent. “We love that about our relationship.”
In Dallas, they’re closer to Mirlanda’s sisters, including Preciana Prinstil, 29, who often jokingly wonders when Mirlanda will give her children some cousins.
“I want her to feel the love of kids and how they bring joy,” says Prinstil. “Even though they can be a headache.”
Others in the couples’ orbit are also curious. Mirlanda, who wants to be a mom one day, but isn’t in a rush, has a stock retort. “I’m like, ‘Oh, you guys ready to babysit for us? If you can’t answer that question, then stop.’ ”
When Norelle Marquez was younger, she imagined having children at around age 24 or 25. But lately, the 26-year-old hasn’t seen them in her future.
Norelle, a professional photographer, and her husband Robert Marquez, a 28-year-old Marine Corps service member, have no debt, and stick to a firm budget for their Dallas household. “It’s fairly easy being DINKs,” says Robert.
Norelle appreciates that DINK life allows her to provide for family, including her mother, who raised her and her brother as a single parent. She has given her mother a new washer and dryer, house floors, an almost new Toyota RAV4 and more.
The couple posted a video on TikTok about the benefits and quirks of being DINKs, such as, “When we tell people we’re going to Disneyland on vacation, they think we’re weirdos.” It drew nearly 4,000 commenters, including some critics, but many declaring themselves DINKs.
“That TikTok has solidified my feelings about being a DINK and knowing that it’s OK,” says Norelle. “Family doesn’t have to be bloodline,” Robert adds.
Ultimately, whether to have children is a decision that can evolve, says Holly Hummer, a Harvard University Ph.D. candidate who studies women without children.
“We’re all sort of a SINK or a DINK for a portion of our lives,” she says.
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Meta is betting on a human-first AI future, but growing legal battles and declining public trust are putting Mark Zuckerberg’s vision to the test.
3 min
“Call us optimists. Call us dreamers. Call us whatever the hell you want, but we’re betting on people, and we like those odds. The future is for everyone.”
That ad copy is from the voice-over of a July Meta Platforms META -3.38%.
spot that’s been part of a public-relations blitz to position Meta as the humanist AI company. The message was undercut by the ad’s inclusion of David Bowie’s “Five Years,” a brooding 1972 song about an impending apocalypse. But this week CEO Mark Zuckerberg left no ambiguity, publishing a 6,500-word manifesto—about 10 times the length of this newsletter—with a title that echoed the ad: “The Future is for Everyone.”
That seems to be Meta’s new tagline. In light of sinking public opinion and the company’s thousands of lawsuits from states, school districts, parents, and users, Meta’s public relations have been defensive. This push represents a return to offense, with a chance to distinguish Meta’s approach to AI from other labs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or SpaceX SPCX +9.65%.
“It is surprising that the discourse from many developing AI is so filled with doom,” Zuckerberg wrote. “I do not understand why anyone who believes that AI will eliminate most jobs and much of humanity’s relevance would rush to build that future.”
Zuckerberg frames what sort of future we build with AI as the central issue of our time. “We believe that delivering superintelligence to everyone is the way to answer this question,” he says. “This has the potential to begin a new era of personal empowerment where individuals can use this powerful new capability to reach their full potential, pursue their interests, and improve their lives and the world more than ever before.”
The flood of words belies the situation on the ground in mid-2026. Americans, at least, have a love-hate affair with social media. A November Pew Research Center poll reported that 71% of U.S. adults used Facebook, and 51% used Instagram. Worldwide, 3.6 billion people use at least one Meta app every day.
But in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in July and August, 61% of respondents said they wanted more government oversight of social media, and two-thirds supported laws to keep children under 16 years old off the platforms. When it comes to Meta in particular, in the 2026 Axios Harris 100, an annual poll about corporate reputation, Meta placed 96th out of 100. It’s only above two other social media companies, Chinese ultracheap retailer Temu, and Spirit Airlines, a defunct air carrier. Regarding ethics, Meta came in last, and it was only ahead of TikTok in trust.
The steady drip of headlines in the teen social media trials isn’t helping. Last week, Meta lost a judgment in New Mexico state court that raised their liability in that relatively small jurisdiction to nearly $1 billion dollars. On Wednesday, jury selection began for a federal case with four states suing Meta over addictive product design, and false marketing that said its platforms were safe for teenagers. In July, Meta claimed that the states are asking for a total of $1.4 trillion in damages, in addition to design changes in the apps. This is part of a multidistrict litigation, where thousands of federal trials with social media defendants are coordinated in Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers’ district courthouse in Oakland, Calif.
There is a separate such group of thousands of cases in California state court, mostly with individual plaintiffs. The steady drip of bad headlines from the courts will continue unless Meta decides to settle en masse.
Meanwhile, in the second quarter, Meta booked “$2.40 billion of charges related to legal proceedings,” according to its quarterly filing. That may be just the beginning.
Zuckerberg spent 6,500 words getting his utopian message out, but I can sum it up in two: Trust us. The evidence is that Meta has a long way to go to win back that trust.
