The thing I've discovered, while being a newlywed, is that we are in rather an odd spot. Probably a more accurate title for this post would be 1.4INKs in the middle since I work part-time (DINKs is Double Income No Kids in case anyone didn't know that).
We are not single. We cannot go out at the drop of a hat. We have responsibilities to each other and need to make time to spend together. We are somewhat flexible, but not as flexible as our single friends. Sometimes that has disappointed people when we've told them we will not take calls or call people because it is our date night. We have a lot of people to catch up with in Perth so we cannot see everyone every time. We will never be as 'available' to some people as they would like. But that's too bad.
However, we are not in the third stage, which is parenthood. Our lives don't revolve around kids....yet. We can go out and have fun without needing to plan too far ahead. I'm wondering if some parents find this annoying. Whenever we make a comment on Facebook, such as we're about to go away for Christmas or Easter, we're almost guaranteed to get what sounds like a jealousy-tainted remark such as "Wait til you have kids. It's so much harder.....blah blah blah." No, we aren't in that stage yet, but one day we might be, and we want to enjoy the stage of life we're currently in.
We feel like odd bods sometimes because it seems the majority of our friends fall into either the 'singles' or 'parents' categories. The number of DINKs we know seem to be falling by the day, as more and more start having kids. One DINK couple, who are our good friends, commented that we are the ONLY DINK friends they have....Christian and non-Christian. Because of this, it seems that people don't quite know what to do with us. We're sort of stuck in the middle, so I think parents see the answer as telling us we need to have kids. Since the moment we've been married, we've been inundated with people asking when we're going to start a family. Ummmm we got married FIVE MINUTES ago! It doesn't help either when some people do nothing but complain about their kids.....on Facebook, in person (note I said SOME people not ALL). Gee, that's really a lot of encouragement to move on to the next stage.
Yep, it seems we're the odd bods stuck in the middle...but we're loving it. This stage of life will never come again and we want to make the most of every moment.
3 comments:
I completely understand how you feel. We were DINK's for 9 years and it felt normal for us. Having kids has meant that those 9 years are a blur!
Firstly let me say that I know quite a few DINKs and quite a few singles. Secondly, I understand the pressure people put on to have kids. Like I said, we had 9 years of it!
You enjoy your lives right now. Enjoy your time of getting to know each other better and being able to do things on the spur of the moment together.
You are very wise to spend some time establishing a strong marriage before children enter the family. As husband and wife you are already a family and one day you may welcome some children into that family. It makes sense to ensure you've built a strong family for them to join.
As for those parents who constantly complain about their kids and parenthood ... well, I do wonder why they ever had children.
Kids do bring extra challenges and inconveniences but they are far outweighed by the joy that they can bring.
Our children have added so much to our lives that we have been more than happy to make any trade offs of our so called freedom. We are totally free becuase we're free to be the parents and the family that God created us to be.
We had so many people telling us the negatives, lack of sleep, time is not your own side of parenting before our children were born. I'm just glad that I wasn't a child in their family.
Thanks guys. We do want to wait for a bit until we (God willing) have kids. Our entire relationship, before we got married, was long distance so seeing each other every day was initially very, very strange.
I had always wanted to wait for a few years after marriage to have kids and I'm so thankful to God for this choice. I'm only 26 and I know people who are much older and single and do not have that luxury should they one day marry.
It's nice to hear some good things about having kids. While I do want to hear the honest truth about parenthood, it seems the negatives I'm told always far outweigh the positives and just a little while ago I told Duncan that I was seriously questioning whether I should ever be a mother.
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