I used to do this with my kids when they were little all the time. It didn’t completely stop the bickering, but it definitely cut it down radically. And the best part, is it kept me out of the whole distribution decision.
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Several times over the years when my dad was alive out of the blue my sister and I would get gifts of money or stocks. Often we would find out later that he had paid for something for one of my stepbrothers and he was making it even.
My aunt often helped one of her 7 children with different things but kept detailed records and when she died that amount was deducted from their share.
I’m also in the equal amounts to biological children camp, although I do like the idea of helping pay down the student loans. I would never consider gifting the spouse the same amount, doubling the amount for that household.
I have two kids and I always try to keep it as fair as possible and I definitely try to keep Christmas presents fair – one of the big stresses at the holidays for me. We had D22’s girlfriend for Christmas last year and tried to make sure the gifts we gave her were along the same lines but we did not give her cash like we did to our kids.
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We gift the maximum annual gift to reduce our estate so we gift more to the married one. But older daughter then makes gifts to younger for half the amount her husband got to make things equal. Next year we will gift to our younger daughters live in boyfriend, it is obviously out of our control,but the plan is for him to use that money to pay all of their rent so daughter will be essentially getting that amount. He has expressed reluctance to even get a gift from us until we suggested the plan for him to use that to cover DD portion of rent.
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I understand the motivation here, but I believe that this is not legal. It is called a daisy-chain, and it’s illegal when used to disguise a gift to one person that is larger than the amount excluded from reporting.
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There is nothing illegal here. Anyone can gift up to a maximum of $18K per person to anyone they choose and there is no limit to the number of recipients The recipients can do whatever they wish with it.
It is called a step transaction, and the IRS views it as tax evasion.
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We gift equally, but we loan according to their situational need.
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Except , child 2 situational need is based on the fact that they are a student buried in student loans. Another loan just buries them further, does not in any way help them.
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You are free to set the terms of any loan to your kids. If your kids are ok with being treated differently and it won’t affect their relationship now or after you are gone, that’s a wonderful family relationship. It’s sometimes helpful to think about their relationship/feelings now and how they might be after you are gone. I was talking to a friend yesterday who is still working at 75 and allows one of her sons to take advantage of her generosity. So the other son and his gf moved across country. Things to think about….
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I settled after college 800 miles from my parents. My DW and I were and are financially sound/responsible. We also were able to have my DW stay at home for 7-8 years with the kids.
With both sets of Grandparents we definitely lost in terms of time/attention from them. Our kids weren’t watched everyday by the local grandparents. Then the out of town grandparents stopped coming to visit.
So far monetary gifts have been equal, but the time element has been noticed not only from us but the grandkids as well.
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In our case, my mom retired 800 miles from us. And over time, travel became difficult for her. And eventually not doable at all.
It’s one thing for me to hop on a plane and visit but quite another for the whole family, especially when the home can’t accommodate us as guests and mobility compromises the activities we could share. It would be much easier if we could just pop in for 30 minutes a couple times a week and help with things!
I too regret how little DS knows her at this point. Many happy memories from when he was younger, but really, neither really knows the other in an adult context.
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These stories make me so sad. Right now we live across country from our grandkids and 3 of the other 4 grandparents live locally out there. Gives room for pause.
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The gift of time is more important than the gift of money or things.
I couldn’t get my in-laws to come for grandparents day. Ever. For either of our kids. We had elder friends who stood in so our kids would have someone there. 
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For us there were a younger set of grandkids that are 8-10 years younger than mine and my other niece. The local grandparents watched the younger ones M-F 7-5 everyday. That meant anytime there was something going on at school like a play or grandparents day my kids never had their grandparents there. And because the grandparents were always tied up M-F any activity or sport wasn’t attended by the grandparents either because they were always running errands or had doctors appointments on the weekends.
DW and I always felt like we were on our own on an island with the kids. Definitely didn’t get the support that others got. We always felt it was because DW could stay home and didn’t need daily help. But getting a hand or break from time to time would have been nice.
There was also a local grandkid for the grandparents that were 800 miles from us. That grandkid got more attention that my kids did. Sadly my kids didn’t have the classic relationship with either set of grandparents.
DW and I have always said it won’t be the case if we end up with grandkids. We will make the effort.
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My D was the definitely much closer to my parents than her cousins because my parents moved to our town. They travelled regularly to see my brother and his kids but at some point it became too difficult for them to go there and my brother was only able to come out one every other year with everyone. Definitely hard!
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That is really stretching it. Like I said the recipients are free to do anything with the cash gift and that includes paying rent. In the example, the boyfriend can gift the rent to maya54’s daughter, using his own income directly.
I am sorry to hear this. I would find this discrepancy much more hurtful than any difference in monetary gifts.
I do think in some families, it can be not just favoritism but also timing. My children’s grandparents were most available in the years between the time they stopped working full-time and the point that they became more physically frail. For the most part, my kids got lucky because that window has mostly hit their K-12 years, but I could see it playing out somewhat differently if their grandparents had been much younger or much older during their childhoods (or obviously if they had been geographically much further away).
As it is, my D22 had a different set of experiences with her grandparents in elementary and middle school than my youngest is currently having. Nevertheless, I do think at least in the case of my extended family, my own parents made an effort to distribute their time and attention pretty equally amongst the various grandchildren and even grandnieces and grandnephews.
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I don’t think gifting according to need is favoritism, when the need is fairly dire.
This thread is making me realize that I might owe one of my kids some money. They got a full ride at an Ivy and the others had loans that I paid. Some time ago. I don’t think the kid without a loan feels unloved though.
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I think that my hope was that transparency is the most important objective for us when gifting or giving money to our children.
In our own circumstances, my husband’s parents did far more for his sibling than they did for us. We never felt slighted. The other sibling lived in town. Of course the grandparents would be able to watch them more, and go to more of their events.
In the other hand, the other family had more “advice” given to them. I was ok with making more of my own plans and depending on us for childcare and other family plans.
Now that the parents are older, I would say that the parents ask more of us. It’s ok, the sibling has other obligations and other responsibilities. That’s my husband’s deal also and he doesn’t feel like his parents love him less.
My family on the other hand loves to imagine slights and bring drama into all sorts of things. It’s exhausting.
But what I want is for both of my children to know that we love them and would do for them when they have need. And it’s different now that everyone is an adult. When they were kids, one got braces, the other music lessons. One got into a better college but with lots of scholarships.
Just yesterday I found socks that you can put your dogs face on them. Sent them to the couple that has a dog. Just because. Didn’t feel like I needed to send the other couple something.
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