The New York Times has an article today on “The Extra Hoops Gay Parents Must Jump Through” to gain legal and financial protections. Three experts—a lawyer, a financial planner and an accountant (which sounds like the start of a joke, but it’s not)—offer their advice to lesbian couple in Michigan with two children.
It’s worth a read—and if you’re like me, your blood boils regularly this time of year as you fill out your tax forms and think about the financial inequities we face. I’ll note, though, that unlike the couple in the example, some couples (Helen and me, in fact) would actually pay more in taxes if the federal government recognized our marriage. That doesn’t mean we’re against marriage equality, of course. With rights come responsibility, and we’d be more than willing to pay up if we also gained access to all of the other benefits (financial and otherwise) of legal recognition.
It’s great that the NYT is covering the topic—but I feel obliged to point out that the couple in Michigan is white, and one mom is a commercial litigator. Even though the other mom is staying home with the kids, I’m guessing they’re doing all right financially. With recent data showing same-sex parents are more common in the South than elsewhere, and Black or Latino same-sex couples are twice as likely as white ones to be raising children, I’d love to see more coverage of the legal and financial hurdles for same-sex couples of color in southern states—couples who, statistically speaking, are also more likely to be struggling financially. The NYT touched on these topics in a piece they did back in January that helped bring the demographics to light. I hope they dig further into the subject.
(Thanks to RealLifeUnplugd, whose tweet alerted me to the article.)
Thank you for posting this story, Dana! My closest lesbian friends are Latina moms, and let me tell you, they are struggling. I think it is high time to dispute the myth that gay and lesbian couples are alright financially and don’t need equal rights under the law.
I believe my wife and I would actually pay more in taxes too, but as you stated, “with rights comes responsibility,” and I’d gladly pay it if we could get equality across the board rather than piecemeal, “now you’re married, now you’re not…now you’re Civil Unioned (? lol).
@Elisa, hopefully the stereotype will die one day. Most people automatically assume gay = double income and no kids, which isn’t always true. Even if it were true, most gays and lesbians tend to live in in or near big metropolitan areas where income is typically higher than elsewhere, which to me can skew heterosexual perception. Gays may “seem” to earn more but in reality their cost of living is higher if they live in these areas so it balances out.
Of course all stereotypes are rooted in some truth, and those of us who either waited to have children, went the foster care route or don’t have any at all (and both partners/spouses are working full-time) might indeed have more money than our heterosexual counterparts of the same age. I still don’t think we should let that be grounds to accept the generalization that it’s true for all gays and lesbians.