The Matt Walsh Show - January 13, 2024


This Is The Most DINK Couple I've Ever Seen...


Episode Stats


Length

14 minutes

Words per minute

177.93866

Word count

2,638

Sentence count

187

Harmful content

Misogyny

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

26

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A new type of household is on the rise: those with a dual income and no kids. They call themselves Dinkers, and they re not having kids because they see children as a financial burden on their family.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You know, I try not to repeat myself on this show, but I don't try very hard, which is why I end up repeating myself all the time.
00:00:05.460 So the subject of so-called dinks, childless by choice couples who have a dual income and no kids, hence the acronym, 0.62
00:00:11.240 is one that I have revisited on multiple occasions.
00:00:13.640 And in fact, you might think that I have said every last thing one could possibly say on the subject, which is undoubtedly the case. 0.74
00:00:20.040 I've made my point about the dinks and that there is, you know, there's not much else that needs to be added.
00:00:24.360 But then over the weekend, CNBC decided to release a mini documentary about the dinks. 0.99
00:00:30.280 It's titled Why More Americans Are Going Child-Free.
00:00:33.420 It already has over half a million views on YouTube.
00:00:36.120 And I watched the video and the video focuses mainly on one young married couple from Massachusetts who self-identify as dinks. 0.98
00:00:45.440 Dink, dink, dink, dink, dink.
00:00:47.280 Now, just as a fun exercise, I want you to imagine what a millennial dink couple from Massachusetts might look like. 1.00
00:00:55.360 What does the dink wife look like? 1.00
00:00:57.560 Most importantly, what does the dink husband look like? 1.00
00:01:00.700 Draw a picture in your mind.
00:01:03.040 And now we'll watch the video and you will see that the image in your mind is exactly correct.
00:01:08.000 You have used your psychic powers to see this couple before you actually saw them.
00:01:12.500 We got married fairly young and we both just decided for many reasons we didn't want kids.
00:01:19.640 And then at some point we heard the acronym dink and I think just really fell in love with it. 0.95
00:01:25.760 Okay, first of all, I mean, that's exactly what you pictured, isn't it?
00:01:27.980 You might have been slightly off on the wife.
00:01:29.600 That was a little ambiguous.
00:01:30.300 But the husband, I mean, you had figured out.
00:01:33.340 The long hair, the nose piercing, all of it just screams dink. 0.99
00:01:38.260 Dinkleberg.
00:01:38.900 I mean, it screams the kind of man who would confess to falling in love with the name dink.
00:01:44.980 Dink.
00:01:46.080 I like it.
00:01:47.080 How is that possible?
00:01:48.020 How is it that you heard dink and you're like, wow, I love that. 1.00
00:01:50.540 That is great.
00:01:51.900 That's what I am.
00:01:53.240 It resonates.
00:01:53.780 It's a name.
00:01:55.780 It sounds like a name that was invented by someone like me to make fun of you.
00:02:00.980 Mr. Dink is really upset.
00:02:02.880 But instead they came up with it themselves, apparently, because they're a bunch of damned dinks. 0.98
00:02:08.060 There are more Americans that are deciding not to have children and it's purposeful. 0.99
00:02:14.820 This new trend has led to the rise of a new type of household, more commonly referred to as dink.
00:02:20.760 Dual income, no kids.
00:02:22.280 Oh yeah, dual income, no kids.
00:02:24.260 That's perfect for us.
00:02:26.000 That's absolutely right.
00:02:27.800 Children are the death of net worth.
00:02:29.600 Pretty crude, but honestly very true.
00:02:33.020 This household configuration of dual income partners living alone without children is on the rise.
00:02:41.400 In 2022, it was around 43% of households and that's about a 7% increase from a decade previously.
00:02:48.280 In 2022, 43% of Americans surveyed said they'd want to get married, but just a little more than a quarter said they were sure about wanting children.
00:02:58.180 The term dink is becoming more prominent now because of financial challenges and they see children as just another financial challenge.
00:03:06.680 What's so f*** damn funny?
00:03:08.340 Of course, they have a dog too, you know.
00:03:10.060 It even looks, it looks like a, it looks like a dog, but it looks like a dink dog. 0.99
00:03:13.320 It looks like a dog a dink would have. 1.00
00:03:15.040 Just everything about it.
00:03:17.080 Their house, everything.
00:03:18.700 They say children are just another financial challenge.
00:03:22.300 That's all they are.
00:03:22.920 The word just is quite telling because there's apparently nothing else to say about new human life other than the fact that it's an economic burden.
00:03:30.840 A child is a bill and nothing more.
00:03:33.640 Yes, I'm only a bill.
00:03:35.520 The idea that there may be more to life, that some things transcend material concerns, that not everything has a price tag, that there is more to life than the bottom line.
00:03:45.140 None of that is taken into consideration at all.
00:03:47.180 According to a 2023 survey of Dink's, finance played a major role in their decision to not have children.
00:03:54.460 More than a quarter of respondents said they simply aren't able to financially support a child at the moment.
00:04:00.860 When we advise clients about having children, we honestly don't even give them the full real details and the real numbers.
00:04:08.520 It's one of those things, if you actually see the math of it all, it might make you decide to not have children.
00:04:14.520 It costs the family an estimated $310,605 to raise a child born in 2015 to age 18, adjusted for higher future inflation.
00:04:25.060 And that doesn't even include the cost of college.
00:04:27.700 Okay, now this really isn't the point I want to focus on, but it should be noted that everything you've just heard is nonsense.
00:04:33.640 33% of the Dinks say they can't afford a child. 1.00
00:04:36.580 Now, I believe that 33% said that in a survey, but what they're saying is ridiculous.
00:04:41.380 I mean, there are families with significantly less financial means who are managing to raise multiple children and can still live perfectly comfortably and care for their children and themselves without the risk of starvation.
00:04:54.000 Now, as a general rule, if you have decided that something is financially impossible for you, but then you look around and you see that literally billions of people throughout the history of the world have done this impossible thing with less financial means than you have at your disposal,
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00:06:23.420 Also, okay, I mean, you hear these figures all the time.
00:06:27.240 Listen, it costs $87 million to raise a child for one day.
00:06:32.680 Like, no, it doesn't.
00:06:34.840 It does not cost $310,000 to raise a child to the age of 18.
00:06:39.260 It doesn't.
00:06:40.120 That's almost $20,000 a year, okay?
00:06:42.300 By that logic, I should be spending $120,000 a year just on my kids.
00:06:48.460 I assure you I am not.
00:06:50.200 In fact, when we had our twins, I was making $44,000 a year.
00:06:53.820 This was 10 years ago.
00:06:55.060 Now, granted, this was 10 years ago, okay, so there's been inflation, but that would still mean that nearly all of my income was going to my kids.
00:07:02.880 I mean, we would have been homeless and starving, but we weren't.
00:07:07.220 I mean, it is more than possible to raise a child on significantly less than $20,000 a year.
00:07:12.840 It just might mean that you're driving a less fancy car, and you're buying a less fancy TV, and you're going on less fancy vacations.
00:07:19.780 And you're learning how to actually make meals from scratch at home instead of ordering DoorDash five nights a week.
00:07:25.940 You spent $967 on rogue service!
00:07:29.500 There are ways to raise children without spending over a quarter of a million dollars to do it.
00:07:33.800 I know there are ways because, again, literally billions of humans since the dawn of the species have figured out how to do it.
00:07:41.980 We're the only ones.
00:07:43.540 It's like five minutes ago, we all looked around as a species and said, this is too expensive.
00:07:48.000 We can't do this anymore.
00:07:49.240 What do you mean we've been doing it the whole time?
00:07:50.560 What do you mean it's too expensive?
00:07:51.880 Seeing our friends really struggle with that balancing act.
00:07:56.380 Because we appreciate the flexibility that we have financially because we don't have children.
00:08:04.860 Yes, that dude is reading a book titled Hot and Unbothered, okay?
00:08:10.820 Now, I looked it up, and apparently the full title is Hot and Unbothered, How to Think About, Talk About, and Have the Sex You Really Want.
00:08:18.460 So, yes, behind the scenes here, okay?
00:08:21.420 The CNBC crew came to this Dink's house. 0.95
00:08:25.180 They wanted to get some B-roll of this couple sitting on the couch and pretending to read together,
00:08:29.120 which is something they've probably never done even once in real life, okay?
00:08:32.560 They've never sat on the couch and read together.
00:08:35.040 They're just on their phones all the time, not even looking at each other.
00:08:37.860 But they wanted to get this.
00:08:39.560 And so this guy decided to pull Hot and Unbothered from the shelf for the scene.
00:08:45.360 That's the kind of book that if you have it, you take it down from your shelf and you hide it under the couch when the film crew comes.
00:08:52.680 It's not a book that you deliberately showcase.
00:08:56.080 But again, these are obviously not people who have much of a capacity for shame because they're dinks. 1.00
00:09:00.940 We'll watch one more clip and I think that will be enough.
00:09:03.480 Here it is.
00:09:03.960 Besides saving on childcare, dinks can also fully reap the benefits of combining their finances. 0.98
00:09:09.540 To look at both of our incomes coming in and see how we're able to handle all of that because we don't have extra finances with a child, it's much more comfortable.
00:09:19.900 We get to focus more on the things that we want to do and saving a lot of that money for the future and worry less about the day-to-day finances of the house and our bills.
00:09:31.960 Money isn't the only expense that dinks can save on. 1.00
00:09:35.380 The free time is actually one of the biggest things for me.
00:09:38.880 So we built me a little office slash bedroom out here.
00:09:43.400 We definitely have some more expensive hobbies.
00:09:46.280 I build mechanical keyboards, like computer keyboards, in my spare time.
00:09:51.700 And just parts and stuff for that can be very expensive.
00:09:54.700 Not having children has given us the freedom to pursue other things.
00:09:59.420 Remodeling our home.
00:10:01.300 I'm a beekeeper.
00:10:04.300 I'm really handy and I like doing stuff around the house.
00:10:07.420 I wouldn't have the time to just do that after work, if I feel like it, if I had, you know, a child to care for.
00:10:15.500 They've got all this extra time and money, they can't even update their kitchen.
00:10:19.580 Let's review a few things here.
00:10:21.760 First of all, I have more than six months saved and I have six kids.
00:10:25.280 We've also remodeled multiple homes.
00:10:27.080 I've even kept bees.
00:10:28.060 How hard can it be?
00:10:30.660 All with kids.
00:10:32.280 So they have not listed one single thing that people with kids can't do.
00:10:35.180 They haven't listed one single thing that I myself haven't already done or am not currently doing.
00:10:40.800 Besides building keyboards in my spare time.
00:10:43.580 I haven't done that.
00:10:44.460 I also don't have a separate bedroom from my wife, as this guy apparently does.
00:10:49.260 I mean, because he's absolutely determined to fulfill every single last demeaning stereotype of a male millennial dink that he can think of. 0.93
00:10:56.360 So, when you hear this anti-natalist propaganda telling you about all the things you can't do when you have kids, it's always important to remember that it's a lie.
00:11:07.660 I mean, again, there is nothing that these people can do that I can't or that you can't if you have kids.
00:11:14.420 Now, in some cases, it may take more effort.
00:11:15.980 It may take more planning.
00:11:16.900 It may take more sacrifice.
00:11:18.080 But it can be done.
00:11:21.020 You can save money.
00:11:21.840 You can plan for the future.
00:11:22.800 You can have free time.
00:11:24.040 You can be financially secure.
00:11:26.540 You can even build keyboards if you want for some reason.
00:11:28.840 You can do that, too.
00:11:30.180 Now, you may suffer misfortunes or setbacks that may make those things more difficult.
00:11:35.180 But that can happen and will happen in one form or another, whether you have kids or not.
00:11:38.860 But all that is beside the point.
00:11:41.660 You know, arguing the case on financial terms is playing right into the dink hands, which is never good because you never know where their hands have been. 1.00
00:11:48.780 Oh, Dinkleberg, aren't you going to come over and give my wife a congratulatory hand touch? 0.97
00:11:54.460 Even if financial security and prosperity is perfectly possible and attainable for families with children, and it is, it is still true that your life will be easier financially if you don't have kids.
00:12:05.660 I mean, that is true.
00:12:06.400 I don't deny that.
00:12:07.100 Kids don't cost or don't need to cost $310,000 to raise, but they do cost something.
00:12:12.640 I mean, it ain't cheap.
00:12:14.060 So, yes, in the end, it's true that the dinks will avoid certain financial difficulties.
00:12:20.700 For now, anyway.
00:12:21.720 And why is the carpet all wet, Todd?
00:12:24.400 I don't know, Margo.
00:12:26.340 Until they're old and the money runs out and they end up alone in a nursing home because they don't have any kids to care for them or support them.
00:12:33.040 But for now, it will be easier, sure.
00:12:34.800 And that is the only selling point.
00:12:38.700 You'll notice that every time we get this kind of advertisement for the dink lifestyle, the only thing they ever want to talk about is the finances. 1.00
00:12:47.120 The supposed benefits of being a dink all fall into one bucket. 1.00
00:12:52.260 That's it.
00:12:52.900 And even in that bucket, the benefits are greatly exaggerated.
00:12:57.960 But the point is that they don't have anything to say outside of the money.
00:13:04.560 They never even bother claiming that being a dink will give you a more purposeful life or a more exciting and interesting life. 1.00
00:13:10.560 They never say that it will bring more meaning into your life or more love into your life.
00:13:15.840 They don't even try to claim that the dinks have greater opportunities for joy or fulfillment. 1.00
00:13:20.980 They certainly don't mention anything about legacy.
00:13:23.540 You know, joy, meaning, love, legacy, purpose.
00:13:26.420 These aren't even part of the sales pitch.
00:13:28.440 Which really tells you what you need to know.
00:13:32.920 Yes, some aspects of life will be easier for a while if you don't have kids.
00:13:36.780 But why are you living a life in the first place?
00:13:39.860 What is the point of it?
00:13:41.540 What should you be doing with your life?
00:13:43.400 What gives life meaning?
00:13:44.960 You passed butter.
00:13:45.880 Oh my God.
00:13:46.620 These are questions that the dinks in that video don't seem to have asked themselves. 1.00
00:13:49.540 They're too busy reading self-help sex books in their separate bedrooms.
00:13:56.020 Gloating over how easy their lives are while never stopping to consider what life is or what they are meant to do with it or what will make it meaningful.
00:14:07.180 And that is why they are today, once again, canceled.
00:14:11.960 And I'm so alone, alone.
00:14:19.540 I'm so alone.