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?
I can think of many parenting decisions we’ve made that have money as an underlying factor, but the big one that I struggle with day in and day out is that I am working even though I’d rather not be. Both my partner and I would love to stay home with our daughter but the money has to come from somewhere! My income potential is higher so for right now, I work full time and my partner works part time (to reduce to full time SAHM when/if we have a second child).
I know that heterosexual families sometimes encounter a situation where both parents want to stay home but I imagine that it comes up more often in two mom families. It’s been difficult for me but we do what we have to do. Perhaps someday we’ll be in a position where we can both be part time or I can spend at least a year at home but it’s not viable right now. (And before anyone suggests that we scale back our expenses, we do not live an extravagant lifestyle.)
I would have to say money (or lack thereof) drives more decisions than I’d care to give it credit for.
We are a family of 6 living on my $35K take home. We do get NYS stipend for 2 of the 4 kids (they were foster children we adopted)- but we use this for college funds on all 4. It is a huge decision with much debate when we dip into this money to pay for things like karate classes, art therapy classes, or scouting trips.
We have become the most frugal, tightwaddy, homespunny lesbians we know in order to have one mom be home.
Does anyone know what the cost is for second-parent adoptions?