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Our Dads Taught Us: Don’t Be Stay-at-Home Moms

4 min readMar 9, 2025

One explanation for women’s resistance to being stay-at-home moms.

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Silhouette of man tossing young girl into the air
Photo by lauren lulu taylor on Unsplash

People like me are called SINKs — single income, no kids.

For me, the SI goes hand in hand with the NK. Never, in my many years of employment in public service, could I have afforded to have a kid.

Correction: My income has not been sufficient for me to feel I could make the choice to have a kid and be able to support the kid without relying on government assistance should the father bow out of his financial responsibilities.

Oh — does making plans based on the possibility that a future husband might leave me financially high and dry sound pessimistic? Cynical?

Well — step right up if you want to solve the mystery of why some married women choose to work jobs instead of be stay-at-home moms.

Is it because they lllooooooveeee their jobs? Not necessarily.

Is it because they’re feminists roaring “I am woman!” while living paycheck to paycheck? I can’t speak for all women, but there is no roaring here.

The reason some women choose to work: Because our dads taught us that we should not be stay-at-home moms.

We’re a generation of women who saw our dads leave our moms.

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Lee Bidoski
Lee Bidoski

Written by Lee Bidoski

I’m a psychology professor trying to understand and improve our lives. Relationships | Dating | Health | Careers | Law Enforcement | Military

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