Equal to the households. We gave $$ to our daughter and SIL to help with the down payment on their house. We’ll do the same for #2D, but since she’s not married and the house will be bought with her partner, it will all go to her (split between years to avoid gift tax stuff).
I don’t know if the ILs gave their daughter more to compensate for what they gave our kids (significant savings bonds), but it wouldn’t surprise me.
Split it evenly.
I liked option 2 until I read the above post. I definitely think “need” should be a considered factor in the distribution of funds. However we don’t have complete information…not knowing the true amount or the “children” involved.
I will say that if I was confronted with this situation, I would talk with my married child and explain (without disclosing exact amounts) my feelings and thoughts on the subject. I’d explain that I love both kids equally and am hesitant to show favoritism in any way. But seeing the grad student with a less secure financial situation distresses me. I’d explain how I’m feeling and see how this child reacts. In my case I believe the child I was discussing this with would encourage me to help the sibling and not worry about “how it looks”…that it is understandable that we’d try to help each other in times of need. If the married child reacts contrary to how I expected I would consider option 2…perhaps even reserving an amount (give $2K to each and reserve $2K for later). I realize that sometimes appearances may be deceiving. Married child might be experiencing something where the funds might actually be needed. Jmo
Interesting about the wedding scenario. We did give child one money toward the wedding. Nothing to child 2. True , child 2 may never get married so I could use that to give more to child 2.
However if child 2 does get married the expectation would be that we would give the equivalent to them to help with wedding. I just don’t think saying “we already gave that to you” would go over well.
Oh, we absolutely would give ds2 wedding money, but then we’d give a similar amount to ds1 for use for whatever. Maybe by then I could open a 529 for their kid (grandma fantasy here!!!).
I feel that i give to each child according to their need and my wishes. I definitely would feel that i need to help pay for all the reasonable and appropriate education of the children, before i start giving gifts to use for whatever they want.
Option 2
My mom’s will says her estate is to be divided among us 4 siblings. At the same time, when we decide to throw a party for my mom or pay for her vacation, the cost is divided up 4 ways. I am single now and I pay 1/4. The outlaws are not included.
My younger brother has less assets with some medical conditions, but my mom is not going to give him more. She feels she needs to give equally to us. She doesn’t take who is doing better/worse under consideration. I will do the same with my kids.
Option 2, no question. If the couple feels like they would rather their sibling have a bit more, they are free to gift it over to them. Unequal distribution, even for the best of reasons, ends up breeding resentment.
I have one sibling and so does my husband. Both of those siblings are single.
If we were to receive any money and were asked I would ask our parents to gift the money equally between their children.
Why should our siblings be penalized because they don’t have a spouse? For both it wasn’t their choice and by giving more to the child who has a spouse, it feels unfair to me. It also helps that neither us nor any of our siblings has any great need.
I also am not sure about the one child who has more student debt. It sounds like graduate school. To me, graduate school is a choice.
Say one child has a finance degree, goes into IB. Makes piles of money with a undergrad degree. That’s a choice. Can get a MBA, can be funded by their employer. I digress.
The other child decides to be a physician. Requires lots of school but that’s also a choice. They could have decided to be an engineer (or many other degrees) and not incur all that debt. There’s also PSLF which complicates things.
But then, we could afford undergrad, graduate school was on their own. They made enough to fund that. One did, one didn’t. We didn’t pay. Didn’t feel at all guilty.
Option 2 is obviously the clear winner in this thread!
However, I’m tending to agree with @parentologist a bit.
I really struggle with the amount of student loans child 2 will have. We have helped where we could to the same extent we helped child 1. If it is weighing on me this heavy I can’t imagine how much it is weighing on child 2.
That would lead me to put it all to student loans.
However, I want to be fair to child 1. As I said child one is in a much better position. As a couple their income is higher than our income. They are homeowners and great savers. They are well ahead of the average 27 year olds. I don’t want to cheat them because they are doing so well but mentally I am struggling.
All of this leads me to option 4. Equal amounts to both households for whatever they want, yet an equal amount to help pay down child 2 student loans…… as much for my well being as theirs.
I have a story about my own wedding experience. When we got married it was a time in my parents and my in laws life where finances were tight.
My parents had paid for my sibling’s wedding earlier that year and they didn’t make much money. We knew they were pretty tapped out.
My in laws were paying for my husband’s brother’s medical school. They were also going through a very rough period with their finances on top of paying for medical school.
My husband and I wanted a very modest wedding. My husband to be decided that we would pay half of the reception, and that the other half would be split between our parents. Their portion was $500. My husband and I covered all the other expenses.
When his brother got married a few years later, my in laws told them they would contribute the same amount as they did us. Boy, my sil was mad about that. Because they had a sit down dinner for 150. $500 didn’t even make a dent in the bar bill.
So fair or not is the question. If you look at the above, my bil was way ahead. My husband, they only paid for his undergraduate degree, we paid for his masters.
Life isn’t fair. But I guess I try to be. And we hold no resentment to his parents, because we understood that they were in a financial position not to contribute more. Something my sil never did.
Afyer all children are grown and educated and launched, gifting is that - gifting. But child 2 is not there yet. Education is something parents help with, within reason and appropriately.
None of my kids have student loans to pay off. Their educations have not cost the same, by a large difference. All got the appropriate for them BA, free and clear. One plans expensive but appropriate pro school. I havent yet decided how to handle that one. But when it comes time for gifts, i will have to take that into account.
Unless it is a question of rapidly gifting to diminish a taxable estate, seems fairest to gift to children only, not inlaw kids. But of course, the giver gets to decide.
It does sound like you want to give child 2 more because of their financial situation.
That’s your choice and the question is if child 1 will be understanding. Or if it matters to either of them.
I don’t want to give child 2 more in the hand. If I choose that route I will give equal amounts for their “fun” money. However, I will pay whatever I give to student loans directly to the loans. I will not hand over the money directly to child 2. That’s not an option.
I guess that can be considered giving more to child two.
I have less a problem with this than your Option 1, which I strongly oppose. I don’t see any justification that makes sense for well-off couple no. 1 to get more than ds2, who has the greatest need. I hope ds1 is as understanding as the posters on cc. 
Is the third the spouse of one of the kids?
In the Thumper household…that ended when undergraduate school ended…and we were very clear about that from the get go. Grad and professional schools were on the kids, not us parents.
We gift equally when we are giving a gift like the one in the OP. We have given larger amounts to both kids for things like wedding, and help with downpayment on a townhouse. But those things happened at very different times.
If we decide to give a gift to both kids, we gift an equal amount per household. We have kids with VERY different incomes. We don’t take that into consideration at all when giving a gift at the same time to both of our kids.
I’ll add…kid one doesn’t have any idea how much his sister’s wedding cost.
Kid 2 has no idea how much her brothers town house cost.
So…they have NO idea how much we gave.
I doubt my kids would contact each other and ask how much money we gave them as a gift. Would all of your kids really do that?
I never like to withhold information from one party because those things never turn out well for me. They always get found out.
So in full honesty, I would tell one what I did for the other.
We were very honest what we paid for the one kid’s wedding and that the other was getting a like amount. With both kids.
@bhs1978 i think I for one have given my honest opinion and so have many others. It’s your decision to make.
If it is a special gift that is a lot more than the usual Xmas/bday type stuff, I would do option 2. But, that is also assuming that each kid has roughly the same intellect/ability to earn money. If one kid was handicapped, my answer might be different. That does not seem to be the case here.
For Xmas/bday, I have been giving the kids roughly equal amounts, long time GFs get a good (IMO) gift amount, but lesser. However, once GF got bumped up to finance status, I changed her bday gift to the same, since she is now officially part of the family. For Xmas, my parents give us one check with both our names on it. I may do that eventually.