My guy friend’s dad died, probably 8 years ago? Mom is still living. My friend has one sister. I’m not sure how things were/are structured, but the father’s death revealed that when mom passes, 1/3 goes to my guy friend and 2/3 goes to his sister. Why? Because my friend has two children and sister has four.
I don’t ask any questions. I don’t know if he was intentionally mislead that things would be, “fair,” or if he simply assumed things would be 50/50 regardless of his and his sister’s number of offspring. He continued to live in their small hometown to work (his wife as well) in the family businesses whereas sister moved to a larger city and has no involvement with those. So, I think there is also a bit of, “We chose to stay in this crappy little town to help with the businesses,” resentment as well.
What I absolutely do know is that he no longer speaks to his mother or his sister. It was/is a lot of $$, but I’ve seen people get angry with siblings over who get what when there is much less wealth/fewer assets involved.
That makes me sad. Is it possible that the business is structured so that your friend gets more of it and the sister gets more of the other assets?
In my example above about my parents giving my siblings money for a down payment and giving me nothing, maybe they had their reasons. For instance, I am the only one who graduated from college (two years at a juco, two at a regional state uni). Now I got a lot of scholarships and lived at home those first two years so my parents got off pretty easily, but maybe they thought that the down payments for my siblings and not for me was a way to make us square money-wise. Who knows? My family never talked about these kinds of things so all we can do is wonder why they made the choices they did. I just know that it stung at the time.
Do we always really know someone’s “need”? My younger sib makes far less than my older sib. But I believe his expenses are also far less. And maybe he has saved and invested an actually has way more than my older sib. Maybe older has spent his on house and boat and doesn’t have much in savings.
One child may not “need”…now. But what if they do in the future? What happens if they experience a serious illness, death of spouse, ugly divorce, car accident, addiction, baby/child with special needs, etc?
I have seen too many families with hurt feelings - because it is not about the money, it is about the perceived love/emotions/favoritism.
What if grandparents gave artist grandchild more money than engineer grandchild based on their perceived “need”? The grandchildren would be hurt. The parents would be hurt.
For large sums or inheritance, I would give equally to because they are equally my kids.
There are certainly exceptions to the rule - one of my children having special needs (money set up to care for after I am gone) or an addiction (money set up so they could not blow it all on the addiction), etc.
My siblings and I are facing the strangest of “problems”: my mom is in her 90’s and has a ridiculously large amount of money. We know (because my Dad always made it our business to know) that it is to keep her safe and comfortable in these last years with her. Perfect, and we are managing her money with every intent of spending it on her.
But her investments far outstrip her needs, even with us getting her settled in AL with every necessity. She literally cannot ever spend this sum down, and we will inherit all of it PLUS her home and acreage. Split evenly among us, with smaller bequests to grandkids.
We have had chats about what on earth do we do with all this money when she is gone someday in the future years (there are already bequests in place for her preferred charities). Never thought we would have this sort of thing to tackle!
My father’s will (rewritten before he remarried 20 years ago) specifies one chunk to 2nd wife, another chunk split amongst the grandchildren. That’s fine by me because my sister has 3 kids and I have two…. this way the next generation gets even shares (assuming there are funds left at the end). Now if I were in need of inheritance money I might feel differently, but life’s been good to me.
@RookieCollegeMom as I wrote, my will is equal. My current gifts are not. The will is changeable at any time. If grandkids come into play, I would probably amend. Kids are older than those of most on here.
My mother took my brothers and families on Alaska and Caribbean cruises, and left a vacation home to my wealthy brother who already owns a big house, while I was renting a studio. I am familiar with these scenarios. I took care of her for 8 years anyway. My sister is estranged.
The fact remains that my healthy kid has very large savings, I am still supporting the kid with a psychiatric illness, and helping the other kid who has substantial medical expenses but whose income may grow. The fact of the matter is, I want all my kids to have a roof over their head and be able to eat. That is in question for one, frankly, without my gifts.
I am not judging anyone’s decisions and ask that mine be respected as well.
ps More well off kid totally agrees with what I am doing.
Bottom line is there is no “absolute right” one size fits all answer that works for every scenario. Everyone needs to do what they feel is appropriate and fair for their situation.
That said, IMO if any distribution is unequal, it probably makes sense to discuss in advance so the reasoning is understood and there are (hopefully) no hard feelings.
When my grandmother died, her will said to divide things equally between her two children, and things still got messy, because my uncle tried to claim that her true intentions must have been for the grandchildren to benefit equally. (He had more children than my mom did, of course.) The lawyer shut that down pretty quickly, but my uncle felt there was enough room for interpretation, in the wording of the will, to protest and create a lot of bad feelings. My mom had just lost my dad a year earlier, and then her only remaining parent, so the prospect of a rift with her only brother was enough to make her consider caving. (The moral of the story is, have a will, and make sure it isn’t ambiguous in any way!)
This is an interesting question and very hard to answer or get consensus about.
My Dad did his best to die without money so when he built up enough ($9000 because he had 9 grandchildren) he would gift $1000 each to each grandchild… BUT for birthdays and Christmas he gave every family member $100. So me, my DH and 2 kids got $400. My brother, SIL, and 5 kids got $700. THEN bro’s kids married and niblings spouses got $100 and then their kids got $100.
It always seemed fair to me. Even though neither of my kids were married before he died. Either way it was his money and most every one was appreciative.
SO when our son married, we gave the $$ part of Christmas that we had always given to our kids and gave the same to new DIL… our D was not happy, she somehow felt she was being punished because she wasn’t married. And she felt bad for feeling that way, but that is what she felt.
So even with history and examples and (in our case) the $$ not making much difference in their lives (D, S and DIL all well employed) it did make a difference. WHATEVER you chose, all I would say is please do it transparently gifting OR estate planning. It gives a chance to get / give feedback. And can help healing if there is unintentional pain involved somehow.
My mother was required to receive the income from my dad’s trust (brother and I were beneficiaries for after she was gone) and she had plenty of retirement income from pensions, SSA, her IRA, etc. Whenever she thought her checking account was getting too high, she would “share the wealth,” usually $5000 each to my brother and myself, and $3000 to each of the three grandkids.
I still don’t understand why the grandchildren and parents would be hurt. Money does not equal love. You can’t buy love with money or exchange the two as currency.
I guess that I could see feeling hurt if there was other evidence of favoritism for a particular child, but I remain surprised that so many people perceive cash as a symbol of being loved. Flipping it around, personally as a parent, I would be hurt if my children measured their love for me by how much money I gave them. Does a cash gift or lack thereof really erase the previous 20 or 30 years of love between us? Would a child turn on me so easily over money?
Maybe for the spurned child/grandchild, the issue isn’t so much feeling unloved as not feeling valued, seen, or respected when they don’t receive the same amount as a sibling or cousin. So if a lack of a cash gift really is going to become the difference between a family member feeling respected or valued and feeling unvalued, I suppose the most prudent course of action is to split the money as evenly as possible and accept that my children measure their value to me in how much cash I bestow. Or I suppose donate it all somewhere so that no child gets anything and they are not comparing amongst themselves (kidding a bit on this last one, but isn’t that what some people do to avoid hard feelings?).
I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t carry some kind of family baggage. Money is just a stand-in for all the other kinds of things that go on in families. In the example quoted I absolutely could hear the engineer grandchild feeling some kind of way about their artist sibling with the perceived greater need – “Why should I be punished for making the ‘right’ decisions by going to college and studying this difficult subject that would be more lucrative in the end while my ‘artist’ brother just coasts through life hoping to make it big some day.” Now, don’t jump on me! I’m not saying anyone should feel that way. But I could see it happening.
I don’t think that either of my college aged children would dare say this to me because they know how hard I would laugh. And I am a total softie as a mother, but I just can’t imagine why my kid would think I owed her a car at college (whether or not their sibling had one).
DH is the unfavored child. My father was the unfavored child. No matter what a parent says about “but they need it more” or “their circumstances are different” or “you seem fine” unless there is some clear and devastating need (disability, catastrophe, accidents) parents cannot know for certain what is going on in their children’s lives. It’s not reasonable to think we do, and it is bewildering to feel like you and your struggles are invisible and unconcerning to your parents.
