This week, Helen and I remind viewers of the long-lost parenting storyline on Jackie Warner’s Work Out. We also commemorate tax week with a rant on our own filings, and on a more positive note, discuss various approaches to children’s allowances and why we don’t have any answers.

Plus: What were those weird pipes in our living room that you may have glimpsed in last week’s vlog? (Long-time readers may recognize them as the Musical Pipes we made last year, and which reader Erin reproduced with great success.)

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion.

Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.

HRC is celebrating tax season with their “7 Days to a Better Financial You” campaign, and kicks it off with the video of two lesbian moms talking about the financial difficulties of raising children under the unfair burdens faced by same-sex couples. HRC hits the high points here, but doesn’t discuss the fact that it can be harder for a same-sex couple to have one partner stay at home to take care of their children.

When one partner leaves paid employment, the working partner must pay income tax on any medical benefits her employer provides to her partner, if she is even lucky enough to work for a company that offers such benefits. A few companies “gross up” salaries to compensate for the extra tax burden, but they are rare. This problem isn’t exclusive to parents, but has to factor in when a couple analyzes the impact of one parent staying home, especially if that person has had her own employer coverage.

The non-employed partner’s IRA can also no longer take in new contributions. A married couple filing jointly, however, can have the working spouse contribute as much as $4,000 to his/her own IRA, plus $4,000 to the non-working spouse’s IRA. (It’s a little more complicated than that, really; the IRS has details.) Same-sex couples need to consider this when evaluating the long-term impact of a non-employed partner on their financial plans.

Federal law rules both of the above, so even we same-sex couples lucky enough to be married in Massachusetts have the same problems.

Whether to have one parent leave paid employment is a decision couples must make for themselves. Those who feel that doing so is the best way to raise their children, however, should not be disadvantaged because both partners happen to be the same gender.

Here’s the HRC couple (whose IKEA Effektiv bookcase indicates they are money-conscious in other ways, too):

(Yes, we own the same bookcase. Three of them, in fact.)

H&R Block’s TaxCut Online software doesn’t support tax filings for civil union couples, as two Connecticut men have found out. The ACLU has sent a demand letter to the company asking it to change its system. The ACLU also states “Although the tax requirements for couples with civil unions in Connecticut are very similar to the requirements for married gay couples in Massachusetts, H&R Block’s online tax preparation service seems to accommodate married gay couples there.”

Hmm. Maybe . . . but if so, they have a few improvements to make. Here’s what I get after I start my TaxCut Online return:

What’s a married Massachusetts lesbian to do? Read more »

If you happen to own shares of Wells Fargo, make sure to open the proxy statement you should have received recently, and take the time to vote your proxy. Item 9, “Stockholder Proposal Regarding Neutral Sexual Orientation Employment Policy” (pages 105-107) is a vicious, anti-LGBT proposal asking the company to create an equal opportunity policy without reference to “any matters related to sexual interests, activities, or orientation.” As a supporting statement, the proposal adds “While the legal institution of marriage between a man and a woman should be protected, the sexual interests, inclinations and activities of all employees should be a private matter, not a corporate concern.” There’s more bile from the ultra-right, but I won’t repeat it here.

Wells Fargo has long been a corporate leader in LGBT rights, scoring a perfect 100 on HRC’s Corporate Equality Index, and sponsoring many LGBT events. The Board of Directors is urging shareholders to vote AGAINST the proposal:

The Company believes that welcoming all people and opposing discrimination in all its forms, including discrimination based on sexual orientation, represents a commitment to fairness that Americans support. This belief is how we conduct our business successfully.

This is the kind of proposal the far-right tries regularly to get past shareholders at Wells and other corporations. Wells, with its strong record of LGBT support, seems an unlikely target. Still, we can’t afford to let down our guard and assume the measure will fail.

You can vote by Internet, phone, mail, or by showing up in person at the annual meeting on April 29 in San Francisco.

(Thanks to April for the tip.)

I rarely pass along a press release wholesale, but this one from COLAGE, about scholarships for children of LGBTQ families, seemed worthy:

Sponsored by COLAGE with generous support from the Horizons Foundation Joseph Towner Fund

COLAGE is pleased to announce a continued partnership with Horizons Foundation to award four $1,000 scholarships to support the undergraduate studies of students who have one or more LGBTQ parent(s)/guardian(s) and have demonstrated ability and commitment to effecting change in the LGBTQ community and the community at large.

The application deadline is Monday, June 2, 2008.

Read more »

Vlogging barefoot! Helen and I kick off our shoes and socks this week in honor of the k.d. lang concert we just attended, advise when not to sport a fauxhawk, and then discuss some financial ideas for parents. Thinking about starting a family or already planning for your childrens’ college educations? We share what’s worked for us and explain why the “Bank of Mom” may help instill good money habits in your kids.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

If the Veoh video above isn’t working (sometimes their server can be flaky), you can try it at Daily Motion, though the picture quality isn’t as good there.

(Brought to you in partnership with After Ellen.)

Tax-preparation software TurboTax has a number of Web pages devoted to helping people determine the tax implications of various life changes, such as changing jobs, getting married, or having children. To the right is the image they use under the title “Your Child.” They also use it in one of their television ads.

Not exactly the picture of my family, even ignoring the strange Weeble-like leg of the woman. How hard would it have been to make an image of a child or children at play, or to show some building blocks and a bicycle, images that would get the point across while excluding fewer parents?

The TurboTax software does in fact address the particular twist on tax preparation we married Massachusetts folks (or civil-unioned/DP’d folks in other states) face, which goes something like this: Complete and file our separate federal forms as “Single.” Fill out a third federal form, which the federal government will never see, as “Married.” Fill out the state form as “Married,” and submit it with the Married federal form. Of course, if you are not married/unioned/DP’d, but are both the legal parents of your child(ren), you may have to do additional iterations of your taxes to determine who should claim the child as a deduction. Read more »

“Mass. Gay Marriages Lead To Increase In IVF” proclaims the headline at 365gay.com. Since marriage equality became law in Massachusetts, more same-sex couples are using in vitro fertilization (IVF) to create their families, they report. Samuel Pang, Medical Director of the Reproductive Science Center of New England, one of the largest such firms in the country, says RSC is seeing an annual increase of “about 50 percent” in the number of same-sex couples seeking IVF. Neither he nor 365gay.com speculates on why this might be, however, except to note “an evident rise in public awareness of the IVF option among gay and lesbian couples as one pathway to having children.”

Hmm. Couples who experience infertility after plain old assisted insemination attempts usually find out about IVF from their doctors, and I don’t see any reason marriage would increase the number of couples finding out about it. Furthermore, an increase in public awareness about IVF wouldn’t necessarily lead to more couples trying it. IVF is a complex and very expensive procedure, and in most cases, not the first choice for couples trying to get pregnant. It’s not like you read an ad for IVF and then go down to the store for a DIY kit. The article also doesn’t discuss what the increase in opposite-sex couples using IVF is over the same time period, or if there is a general move in the medical community towards using it sooner in the assisted reproductive process.

It’s possible, of course, that the security of marriage is leading more couples in Massachusetts to start families, regardless of the method. A rising tide would float all boats, including the IVF one. The one specific connection between marriage and IVF that I can think of is that companies usually provide health insurance for spouses, so even if one is not working, she would be covered by the others’ employer. IVF is sometimes covered by medical insurance, so an increase in coverage could lead to an increase in the number of couples able to afford IVF. The article does not discuss either of the above possibilities, however.

Overall, the piece seems an example of a reproductive center trying to reach out to the LGBT community and fumbling. I give them points for trying, however; I don’t sense any evil intent, only poor implementation. Pang shows no causal connection between marriage and IVF, a basic statistical error any doctor should have learned about in Bio 101 lab. He also states “I have noticed that the physiological and psychological concerns of prospective parents—regardless of their marital status or sexual preferences—are pretty much the same.” (I’m assuming Pang said this; 365gay.com has a typo in which they leave off the attribution.) That’s “orientation,” not “preference,” of course, as Bill Richardson can explain. One more helpful suggestion: if you’re going to be courting the LGBT community, the RSC Web site could use some information directed towards same-sex couples, infertile or not. See, for example, the Gay Couple Family Building page by Boston IVF.

Anyone else have examples of companies reaching out to the LGBT community and not quite hitting the mark? (I’m not talking about homophobic ads here, but rather serious but poorly executed attempts to target LGBT consumers.)

LGBT finance blog Queercents has added a parent to their roster of writers:

Dr. Jennifer Natalya Fink is a professor of English at Georgetown University, the author of two novels (V and BURN, both from Suspect Thoughts Press), and, most importantly, the mother of a gorgeous and hilarious baby girl. She and her family live in the DC area, and are interested in helping queer families prosper.

She’ll be covering issues of money and parenting, a topic I cover here on and off, but not as a sole focus. Her first post is titled “Lesbian and Gay Parents Cut Postpartum Expenses.” She offers some useful advice, like “Buy onesies and pants in a variety of sizes,” and “Find a good lawyer.”

I have to disagree somewhat, however, with her advice that “newborns need to be fed every 2-3 hours, and require constant skin-to-skin contact with their parents. . . . Instead of making a fancy schmancy nursery in which baby will be miserable and alone, we made a few adjustments in our bedroom so that our baby could have easy access to us.”

I agree that babies need skin-to-skin contact, but I don’t think that all of them need it to be “constant.” Helen and I put our son in his own room after a few days of keeping him in our room in a cradle (a handmade family heirloom; not an expensive purchase). He wasn’t “miserable” and we slept better, even though he was in the next room over and we could hear him when he needed us. I’ve written more on this in my own list of Baby Gear Recommendations.

Not that Jennifer’s way is wrong, per se. If it works for you and your baby, that’s great. My experience was different, but to each her own. If you’re not sure what you and your baby will prefer, I’d go with Jennifer’s advice to “consider holding off on elaborate baby furniture.” I’d then suggest getting a Pack N Play or the like, a portable crib (often with a bassinet attached) that you can set up in either your room or a nursery until you decide what works best. (Or, like we did, keep it on the first floor where you’ll all be sleeping until your partner’s C-section heals enough for her to climb the stairs.)

I do agree with Jennifer about keeping a rein on the fancy-schmancy stuff. Crib sets (sheets, quilt, and crib bumper) are my own personal peeve, as most doctors will tell you quilts and bumpers are SIDS hazards. Buy just the sheets. (If you get a whole set as a gift, you can buy a couple of curtain rods and some clips and use the quilt and bumper as wall hangings—well away from the crib.)

Despite a difference of opinion here, I hope it’s all in the spirit of friendly discussion. I look forward to Jennifer’s future posts and the financial light she will shed on LGBT parenting.

How much does it cost for two moms to start a family? Nina at the Bilerico Project (and also publisher of Queercents) talks about her and her partner’s experience with in vitro fertilization (IVF), and the difficult questions they face as they get close to their last affordable attempt. Should they try donor eggs or one more round of using her partner’s own? What about adoption?

Liza at Liza Was Here also writes of infertility and offers a long, itemized list of the expenses she and her partner have faced while trying to get pregnant with their second child.

Getting pregnant or adopting a child is only the start of it, of course. Let’s not forget the expenses involved in second-parent adoptions (where legal), as well as the legal papers (wills, powers of attorney, etc.) to bind and protect our families. Regardless of how we create our families, too (and even for those who have children from previous relationships), we also share many child-raising expenses with parents of all types. MSN Money has a good chart of estimated expenses, based on data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Bankrate has a calculator so you can determine your own.

Demographic studies are finally starting to reflect the fact that same-sex couples, especially with children, are less likely to be wealthy than the stereotype of “gays with disposable income” would lead one to believe. A number of Bay Area LGBT organizations published a study a couple of weeks ago that found same-sex couples raising children in California have a median household income 17 percent lower than that of married couples with children. (Some of this has to do with the old gender-wage gap and the fact that most same-sex parents are women.)

All in all, it’s enough to make one want to enroll one’s offspring in acting classes and hope they win fame and fortune to support themselves. Okay, not quite . . . but it seems that at every stage of parenting we play the money-tradeoff game: starting a family, deciding if one parent should stay home (if there are two), finding daycare, choosing a good school (do you move to a better school district? consider private options?), enrolling in music/karate/soccer/dance lessons, taking vacations (or not), saving for college, etc.

When has money forced you into a certain parenting decision?