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Of course, plenty of new parents struggle with depression—whether they're moms or dads, stay-at-home or not. A UK study published last month showed 3.6 percent of men had depression in the first year of fatherhood and another survey showed one in three new dads were worried about their mental health.But stay-at-home dads aren't just struggling to adjust to the demands of parenthood; we're also acknowledging that we aren't the breadwinners in our households, and that can hurt. I'd like to think we're more enlightened than needing our own paycheck to prove our masculinity, but financial dependency does have a correlation with depression in men. A 2013 Danish study, for example, found that financially dependent men were more likely to seek treatment for anxiety, insomnia, and erectile dysfunction. Their explanation? Social norms made these men feel inadequate."I have friends tease me about being financially dependent," said Mark Suguitan, an LA-based full-time dad-of-two, whose wife works as a naval dentist. "They'll ask, 'What's your allowance?' So I say to them, 'Well, how much do you think childcare costs? Because that's what I'm getting paid.'"Another study from Cornell University found that men who earn less than their spouses were more likely to be unfaithful, which the study's authors saw as a way to counter the threat to their manhood posed by the wage deficit. (These studies focused on men in heterosexual relationships; the dynamic could be different for financially dependent men and stay-at-home dads who are in same-sex relationships.)"We've been noticing that you come to the same park all the time. What's your deal?"
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