<p>My parents love Christmas and are generous with their gift giving. I have an only child and my sister has 3 children. Bay you would find it reasonable if I demanded my parents gave my daughter gifts equalling the value of those given to her 3 cousins?</p>
<p>The father would be doing him more of a favor by telling him to take his self-centeredness and s…t in his hat than by giving him money.</p>
<p>Yes, because your deathbed is a great place from which to teach lessons to your grown children. Why not use your last opportunity to make your kids happy, rather than “teach them a lesson” (blech).</p>
<p>When my brother died, he left some money to his neices and nephews. However, not in equal amounts. My other brother has one son – he got 10% of the estate. I have 2 daughters - they each got 5% of the estate. So, each “side” of the family got the same amount. But as a member of the side whose children got “less”, it doesn’t really feel fair. Because it was in the will, we (the adults, at least) all know how it was divvied up. My kids do not know.</p>
<p>But really, while it is a little annoying, it just isn’t that big a deal in the scheme of things. I have never held it against (or even commented) to my living brother or nephew on it and never will. And the person who did it is deceased, and likely had his own reasons for doing it this way. </p>
<p>Now I happen to also know that my dad has cut one of his grandchildren out of his will completely (kid of the dead brother). He has some legitimate reasons for doing so, but I know I will be the one who might have to explain his reasons after his death. Not looking forward to it. I talked a bit with dad about it to see if some accomodation for his concerns could be reached that would still allow at least a small inheritance. He is adamant, though. And it is his money. </p>
<p>For the OP, what is done is done. If your brother is going to be a jerk about it, well, you can’t stop him. What you should do is maybe chat with your dad. First tell him how grateful you and your children are for the gifts. Then ask if he makes any future gifts to you/your kids or your brother, to please keep the information on those gifts completely private if he can. What you want is to stop giving your brother ammunition to be a bigger jerk, but hopefully encourage your dad to continue gifting if he wishes to for estate planning purposes (I assume that is part of what is going on here).</p>
<p>This isn’t deathbed–this is a live, intact grandfather giving something to his grandchildren. </p>
<p>Also, I think it’s sort of ridiculous to say of someone that their bad behavior is either someone else’s fault (and thus they’re not to blame) or innate (and thus they’re not to blame?)</p>
<p>At what age does a person need to take responsibility for their behavior? Never?</p>
<p>My parents had resources to help with their grandkids’ educations but did not do so. I admit there were times when I thought this was just terrible as we made the sort of career decisions and savings decisions necessary to get our kids through college without debt. Oh, how I’d have loved for my parents to have charged in like Santa and handled it all for us.</p>
<p>Now I’m very glad they didn’t do that. My siblings and I all have different numbers of children and our kids have pursued different types of education and careers. It would have been completely impossible for my parents to have been “fair” if they’d gone down that “helping” pathway. And I do think it is part of being a responsible adult and parent to shoulder this on your own. It was a good rite of passage for my DH and me. It taught us a lot and I think our kids also learned from it. They saw our sacrifice and it made them value their educations and make decisions about what to study and how hard to work that were informed by a sense of that.</p>
<p>I must have missed the post about dad being on his death bed. You are correct he should have done it sooner. Deathbed or not the son should not dictate how dad distributes his money. What happens if the d decides to act even more unreasonable than her brother- which pita gets to dictate to dad then?</p>
<p>
</p>
<ol>
<li><p>No one is responsible for someone else’s happiness, especially if they’re over 18.* Each individual person has the prime responsibility for finding it for him/herself. </p></li>
<li><p>It doesn’t make the most logical sense nor is it prudent to effectively reward entitled bad behavior. Where does it end?</p></li>
<li><p>There’s a good reason why the word appeasement has a particularly disgusting connotation for those of a certain older generation… </p></li>
</ol>
<ul>
<li>This very issue is also a reason why IME many people have trouble in finding and maintaining good relationships or even friendships. If someone’s having such a hard time making themselves happy, they should seek someone who is naturally good at being a counselor and willing to do so or find themselves a therapist. Placing this burden on SOs and friends is IMO, unfair to them and corrosive to such relational bonds.</li>
</ul>
<p>I would suggest talking with your father about his will. To avoid issues with your brother, it might be best if he designate an executor outside the family, and make sure the executor understands the dynamics of your family. Further, while it sounds vindictive, he might want to include a clause that states anyone who unsuccessfully contests the will loses his inheritance. I have known several families where that was done, and it does make the greedy relative at least hesitate if not stop in their tracks. They are no longer just trying to take a bigger share, but risking the share they already have.</p>
<p>I would also make sure you are NOT one of the witnesses to the will - that avoids the possibility of him arguing undue influence.</p>
<p>If your brother would rather, your father could pay you for everything you do, which would still move the money out of the estate. I wonder how he would react to your father spending the inheritance (whether paying or not), rather than gifting it away to grandchildren.</p>
<p>Okay, sorry, I thought I read that OP’s father was in his 80’s (maybe I was projecting my own experience), which to me is “deathbed” age in America, but I don’t mean that to offend, just as a fact.</p>
<p>Obviously, people can do whatever they want with their money, but it is important to know that sibling-recipients will view unequal distributions in more than one way - maybe not my way, and maybe not your way. </p>
<p>If my son was hurt over money I’d given to his sister or her kids, I wouldn’t think of him as being spoiled or behaving badly. I’d be genuinely concerned that something was wrong between us. If all it took to fix it between us was writing a check, I’d do it in a heartbeat. I’d do that even if it wasn’t all that needed fixing. I am not a perfect parent, but I will always try to fix things I might have screwed up with my kids.</p>
<p>Bay- I agree with you here. My point if dad decides to do that and now the sister feels why did brother get the same when he does not have kids and is in better financial condition. I would tell her to go pound salt. It is dads money- appreciate what he gives you and do not worry what he gave someone else.</p>
<p>First, I am sorry for the upset OP. Sibling rivalry is never fun.</p>
<p>I have been on both sides of this equation and can see both sides a little bit. But bottom line, it was your dad’s choice and your brother’s choice and you can’t change either one of them. Give yourself permission to ignore it. Love your dad and your kids and from a distance, your brother.</p>
<p>I have thought about this for years because of my two grandfather’s estates. We are 3 kids, only aunt (on one side) has 2. My mom was furious (yes, she has issues) about my dad’s dad giving dad 1/3, aunt 1/3 and 5 grandkids 1/3, equally divided. Mom thought aunt’s side got MORE. I thought each PERSON got the same.</p>
<p>So for OP, just tell your brother that each PERSON in the SIDE (his term) of the family got the same amount. 0kids * amount = 0$. </p>
<p>When Mom’s parents’ estate was divided, each kid did NOT get the same thing because some had been gifted during the life of grandparents. It did not seem fair to the son who had had major bills paid and etc etc not to get anything in the will. I thought it was wrong at the time, but who am I to judge?</p>
<p>Really, I think it is less about the money than a “reason” for bro to choose to feel hurt. People find what they are looking for. If he has had a bad relationship with his dad for a while, no amount of $$ will help. I think OP needs support to deal with feelings and let the bro have his own responsibility for fixing his feelings. I agree that OP dad did a good thing, and hope the grandkids let him know.</p>
<p>My mother gifts her four daughters yearly and also has given a substantial amount of money towards my children and one sister’s daughter college educations.</p>
<p>One of my sisters does not know this and we all agree to keep it that way since she is greedy and has the attitude that she is entitled. She also has received enormous support to help her out in terms of her housing and that has caused rifts between the sisters…not that any of us object to my mother’s choice , but that this sister does nothing to help herself or show any appreciation whatsoever. She is the oldest and by far ,the least responsible when it comes to her finances.
The last time there was a bailout because she moved into a house that was a month to month rental . The home had been on the market for some time and the realtor offered it to my sister under these terms. She had just turned down a more affordable yearly lease , but it wasn’t in an area that would allow her to pretend to live a life of leisure , high off the hog. The house sold ,sure enough leaving her with no where to go during a time of year where yearly rentals are all but nonexistent None of us were happy when she moved in with our mother since she isn’t very nice to her…solution was for mother to purchase a condo , not for sister , but to be owned by her estate and rented to sister…we all agreed and it was done with zero input from this sister…at least we got her out of mom’s house and she has place to live with no chance of eviction. Now if only she would try to show a little appreciation</p>
<p>Bay, your position only makes even partial sense assuming a grandparent with unlimited money. Sure, if you are Warren Buffet (who has, I believe, expressed his intention to leave all his money to charity), why not give all the kids “equal” amounts? But even for a very wealthy person, the cost of a college education may not be a drop in the bucket, especially when one considers how quickly money can go if, for instance, this person ever needs to go into a nursing home.</p>
<p>Even assuming the gradfather can afford it, though, I don’t see why he should have to. If a parent has two children in more or less comparable financial situations but gives substantially more money to one because he disapproves of child two’s spouse, that is score settling. If a parent is closer to one child than the other, but has never had any kind of falling out with the other, and uses his will as the opportunity to show his preference, that is score settling. Recognizing that two children are differently situated and have different needs is reasonable, and if OP’s brother doesn’t get that, he’s the one being unfair. When my uncle was out of work, my grandparents, who were not remotely wealthy, gave money to his family. My mother would never have dreamed of complaining.</p>
<p>Bay, let me turn your scenario from an earlier post around. Suppose, in order to avoid hurt feelings, Grandpa gives the three kids of child 1 a total of 100K, and also gives 100K to the one daughter of child 2. He’s avoided angering child 2 for not dividing the money equally between the two families. But isn’t it just as likely that child 1 will then be angry because her kids are only getting a third of what their cousin is getting? If we assume that we need to take irrational and petty behavior into account in every case, where does it end?</p>
<p>“And my answer to all of your statements, owlice, is So?”</p>
<p>So don’t reward bad behavior. The brother is not entitled to his father’s money. His whining about not getting more of it is at <em>best</em> childish, but there is evidence here of a deeper rift that appears to be caused at least in part by his feeling <em>entitled</em> to his dad’s money. And he simply isn’t; the money is his father’s, and his father can do whatever the heck he wants with it. The brother certainly isn’t showing his father respect; why on EARTH should his father reward that?? What one gets when rewarding bad behavior is more bad behavior. Ick.</p>
<p>Whatever the relationship between father and OP’s brother, and regardless of whose “fault” it is, the brother is very definitely acting entitled to his dad’s money. Brother could be a saint, and the OP a witchey shrew, and it wouldn’t change the fact that kids are not entitled to inherit their parent’s estate. </p>
<pre><code>What makes the OP’s brother seem so greedy and entitled is that he isn’t arguing over the fair distribution of the estate at the end of grandpa’s life, for which I would have more sympathy. He’s peeved because what grandpa spends now on sister’s kids reduces the amount he will eventually get when grandpa dies. He’s already eying the end of grandpa’s life and counting his chips, and grandpa is NOT on his deathbed–only in his eighties and “needing support,” which sis is there to give.
</code></pre>
<p>Brother needs to butt out of grandpa’s decisions as to how to spend his money unless he has evidence that grandpa is being fleeced by con artists.
(Grandchildren can be con artists, but I don’t think being cute, loving and bringing grandpa joy in the later years of his life would be defined as a “con” in court.)</p>
<p>apprentice,</p>
<p>I actually am not favor of the idea of giving money to ones’ grandchildren, when their parents are still living. It makes more sense to me to give the money to the parents, unless there is some good reason not to. In OP’s case, I don’t see any reason grandpa needed to give the money directly to her sons.</p>
<p>In my experience when siblings are squabbling over money it’s not about the money. It’s about deep seated childhood issues. In this case, probably, “Dad gave you and yours $40,000 and me $10,000? See, I always knew he loved you 4 times more than me!”</p>
<p>My parents have gifted money to my siblings and myself and have even offered to pay tuition at a specific school. We have all benefitted in different amounts. We have different numbers of children, some have attended “free to the grandchildren” school, some not, and there have been other discrepancies in what we have received. The key for us is to recognize that whether we agree or not, this is a strategy our <em>parents</em> see as fair. We know they’re doing their best to be evenhanded and that the actual dollar amount we receive has nothing to do with how much they love us.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, being on what you brother sees as the fortunate side of the equation, you may not be able to make this point to him without being accused of being self-serving. Would your dad be able to address this with him without becoming angry? I know if it were me I would have a hard time hearing someone tell me that my generous gift wasn’t enough and that I “owed” the giftee more, but perhaps if Dad can explain his rationale without leaving the issue up for discussion he can help your brother to understand why he’s gifting the way he’s chosen to.</p>
<p>If I were you I’d avoid the question of whether this is fair with your brother. It’s not your decision to justify and trying to do so will probably just continue to do damage to the relationship. “I have no idea why Dad makes the choices he makes. Wanna come over for dinner? We’re having lasagna!”</p>
<p>btw,
I am also not in favor of giving money to one’s children based upon a perception of how much they “need.” If we are reducing this discussion to <em>rewarding</em> appropriate behavior, then I don’t see the rationale for giving the less-successful child more than the more successful child.</p>
<p>Bay-done intelligently, giving money directly to the third generation can be a good way to avoid estate taxes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Taxes aside, again, it’s grandpa’s decision. I see no reason why my 83 year old mother needs a $600 Longchamp purse, but it’s her money, her decision. Not my call.</p>
<p>To elaborate my point, giving money to the kids for their education probably gave grandpa joy. The handbag brings my mom joy.
They earned it, they’re entitled to spend it as they choose. Kids who expect to get their estates should remember that what brings the elderly happiness is not for them to judge.</p>