When I was growing up, my mom tried to control me through guilt and money. I try hard NOT to do that to my kids, but I’m sure I’m not perfect.
I do some things that may seem odd to other people because of my internal “fairness factor.” For example, 2 of our three kids never made enough during the summer to warrant them paying for things like gas to and from work, and we provided them cars and paid related expenses. Youngest son got a pretty good internship which required a terrible commute/long drive. Some people said I should make him pay for gas, car expenses, etc. I felt like that would be punishment for succeeding.
One thing I am struggling with is that 2 of our kids went on expensive trips during college that we paid for. Third has no interest in a trip, but would love to have extra cash or additional IRA funding. I am thinking of throwing some cash his way, mostly as recognition for his overall frugality during school.
@1214mom, it sounds like throwing some money towards your child who didn’t have the expensive college trips would be greatly appreciated AND fair. It is up to you to do as you see best.
These are definitely issues that can be linked to money but when there are big resentments, I think there are often other issues and money is just ONE sign of the underlying issues that often are not addressed.
My IL’s have helped out DH’s sister & her family significantly more than they have helped us, even though SIL & crew live in a much bigger house in a more expensive neighborhood. However, we are thrilled they do this. Sister has a special needs daughter and this daughter now has a highly special-needs son both of whom live with SIL. For 30 years it’s been a parade of aides, therapists, surgeries, etc and a degree of stress I cannot even imagine. Anything DH’s parents do that relieves a bit of their stress is wonderful.
I have a friend whose mother has been taken advantage of by her only son. She has 4 daughters too, and 2 of them are bothered by it while the other two tend to enable it. Friend and her siblings own part of mother’s house and mother was thinking about selling it. It’s hardly worth a lot but friend told her mother that she would give her $ from the sale back to her. Oh no you don’t! I advised friend, she’ll just turn around and give it to your brother. Buy her something instead. Something she can’t give away like new clothes or medical devices, lol.
Such an interesting discussion. Thus far, it’s been easy to keep things pretty equitable between my 3. This past holiday season, one kid’s computer was so old and so slow it wouldn’t run the software she needed for some of her classes. I mentioned to my other two that their sister was going to receive a bit more than they would bc of the need for a new computer. Both assured me that they had no issues whatsoever. I has assumed that they’d respond that way but felt proud when it actually happened.
So far, no one’s gone to grad school and no one has gotten married (undergrad was covered for all and the costs were pretty comparable). We’ll definitely have to figure out how we feel about being equitable if all don’t both go to grad school and get married. Not sure I feel that we truly NEED to make things equitable if they make different choices. My bigger concern is that one is well on her way in her profession and will be unlikely to ever need our help. One is graduating this May and already has a job offer and it’s doubtful she will either. The third, however, has had a tough time getting started in her career and, while we don’t help her at all now, it’s not appearing right now that they will all have the same need over the long haul. So, it’s been interesting to hear other’s thoughts.
My mother tries to keep things very equitable. She has struggled because 2 of us have 3 kids and 1 has two. She has grappled with this exact issue about whether you divide things by 3 or by, in our case, 14. Not sure what her final decision was but, fortunately, whatever she decides will be fine with all of us.
This has been a very interesting discussion, as @collage1 says, and it’s great to see everyone’s insights.
I think some of us care about fairness between siblings far more than others do.
When my kids were growing up, I always made sure that their Christmas presents cost approximately the same amount and that both received the same number of packages to open. This was sometimes tricky to do, but I always made it work because I couldn’t imagine doing anything different. My parents had always been scrupulously fair with my sister and me, and it felt natural to me to do the same.
My husband thought I was nuts.
Like me, he had one sibling. But apparently, fairness didn’t play as big a role in their family’s life.
Years later, my husband’s brother had a serious disagreement with their father. In his anger after this argument, the father changed his will to give a much larger proportion of his estate to my husband than to his brother. The father died while this will was in effect, and my husband inherited much more money than his brother did. I mean MUCH more. 85/15.
When my sister – who had grown up in our fairness-conscious family – heard about this, she asked how my husband planned to even things out. She assumed that he would do so because it is what either of us would have done in the same situation (although the existence of such a situation in our family was almost unimaginable). She was curious about how he would go about it because it might be an awkward thing to do in terms of legalities and taxes. But my husband had never even thought of doing such a thing and was puzzled that anyone would even consider it. And apparently, the thought never occurred to his brother, either. The two brothers stayed on good terms after the will was read and the money was distributed.
I wonder what my own children, raised by parents with such different attitudes toward fairness, think about issues like these. I’m reluctant to ask them.
Oh, I would ask them. They must have an opinion on it, assuming they know.
Wow, just discovered this discussion which is fascinating. My DH is estranged from his sister because of this very issue. Both of their parents are now deceased, and the disparate way their dad treated them in his last years of life is at the root of the estrangement. SIL (my sister-in-law) lives about 8 miles from us and we never have contact. My DH’s mom died when he was 30 and his sister was 26. Their dad remarried but we get along fine with the 2nd wife. It was always clear that SIL was FIL’s favorite child, which DH said wasn’t so bad when their mom was alive because he was her favorite so he felt like it somehow balanced out. After his mom died it was ok until SIL got divorced. After that it became clear that FIL was subsidizing SIL’s lifestyle. I won’t go into the details but this went on for about 8 years until she remarried. What griped DH was that his dad would routinely lie about it and make pious pronouncements about how there’s no money fairy and you have to be self reliant, etc etc to DH while we all knew he was paying SIL’s way. And what really hurt DH the most was that it seemed that his dad and sister had essentially a private agreement to keep him in the dark about it. As mentioned, SIL had always been the favorite anyway and DH spent the last years of his father’s life resenting the way he felt kept in the “outer circle.” His father rebuffed many attempts over the years to have a heart to heart talk about it. It left DH feeling that they were jointly pushing him away and keeping him from having a closer relationship with his dad in his last years.
People sometimes say this is “just about money” and “you shouldn’t be so materialistic.” But in my opinion the underlying issue is feeling loved and valued. The way money was handled was just a symptom.
I have 2 kids, my sister has 3. It would never occur to me to expect that if Dad spent $50 for each of my sister’s kids at Christmas that he should spend $75 on each of mine in order to make it “equal.” It seems some people here have that expectation? Or are talking about family members who would?
@Nrdsb4 , I was assuming that people concerned about equalization of gifts from grandparents are seeing much larger gifts than the $20-50 per occasion that my kids got from both sets of grandparents. Otherwise, the very idea of thinking about it seems ridiculous.
To me, it makes a difference whether the lower-earning sibling won’t be at the family gathering without the subsidy. Parents do what they have to do to get the family all together. It’s not all about the sibling; it’s about the parents wanting to be with all their children. The higher-earning siblings have to be grown-ups about it.
(I’ve been the higher-earning sibling in this scenario.)
I just remembered a situation that occurred with my father’s family. My father was one of 5 children and my grandfather died in his 40’s, leaving a pension for my grandmother. She never had much but made due. She outlived 3 of the 5 children.
The oldest child was a spendthrift that never married. He was the 3rd child to pass away and when the estate was settled everyone was shocked to find he had several million dollars scattered between accounts, investments, pensions, etc. my father was the executor and just kept finding money. He had no will but had designated his 2 remaining siblings as beneficiaries on pensions and life insurance but the remainder went to his mother.
His mother (my grandmother) died about 2 years later with essentially all of his money intact. Her will designated that the two remaining children receive a 50/50 split thus leaving out the grandchildren (all adults) from the 3 children she outlived. My father convinced her that was unreasonable so she agreed to a codicil that left each grandchild and great grandchild of those 3 a nominal amount (less than $5,000). Those of us that still had living parents received nothing, which I agreed with wholeheartedly.
One of my cousins called me, drunk, on a Friday night when she received the news from the will, which listed each of the family that received a nominal amount and she noticed several of us that did not appear, which she found odd. I played dumb, alerted my father (again executor) to expect a call. Long story short my cousin realized what was happening and was not happy. That side of the family showed up to contest the will, it got ugly, and I have never again heard from that side of the family, a side I was previously pretty close with.
My grandmother had her reasons. Her two remaining siblings lived in town and took care of any of her needs the last 20+ years of her life while the others were out of town and had very little contact with her. She also looked at the money as not hers but her departed son’s and since he had designated his 2 remaining siblings as beneficiaries she felt she was following his wishes (which is probably the case).
I guess the moral of the story is that there is never going to be a way to make everyone happy. Had my grandmother divided the estate by 5 and then subdivided between the children of her departed offspring it would have been equitable but in her mind that was not fair. She did what she thought was fair given her life experience and opinion. In the end she was happy with her decision and I think that is all that really matters when it is said and done.
I think some people worry more about equitable distribution than others. I have a nephew who still gets gifts on his younger sister’s birthday because it bothers him that she is getting gifts and he isn’t. She gets gifts on his birthday too, but doesn’t really care about it. Their parents are trying their best in a difficult situation but it gets a bit ridiculous IMO. I hope he grows out of his worry about gifts.
But, there are some horrible stories here. I can’t imagine favoring one child over the others and even plotting with them to keep the others in the dark! I guess I’m lucky that all my kids annoy me equally over time, lol. Seriously, I would be bothered to think that I loved one more than the other. Even more bothered to think that I might act on it! I don’t understand how these parents can live with themselves. This is like infidelity in a marriage.
@greenwitch, I completely agree.
My parents are not wealthy, but will have saved and will have a small estate to pass on when they are gone. The biggest asset is a house in SoCal which keeps going up in value. They have already told my 2 brothers that they are leaving their house to me. My parents have helped both of my brothers financially over the years including down payments on their homes and loaning them money. In contrast my H and I have been fortunate to be self sufficient and not need any assistance from my parents. I am happy that my parents explained to both of my brothers why they thought it was fair that I should get the house.
Unbelievable.
“she was happy with her decision and I think that is all that really matters when it is said and done.”
She had to do what she thought was right, but I think the relationships among the living matter when all is said and done. Her choice led to a long-term rift among people who previously were close. I wouldn’t want that to be my legacy, even if there were good arguments that the distribution was economically fair.
My husband and I are executors for both my parents and my in-laws. The big thing we are concerned about is that there are no nasty surprises to create rifts. Yes, some heirs may be unreasonable or have unfair expectations – it’s true that you can’t make some people happy – but the goal of the distribution is to make it as likely as possible that everyone continues to get along.
I never got the concept of giving gifts to the non-birthday sibling. At all. That has nothing to do with fairness, IMO, as everyone gets their own day to celebrate.
@Hanna your comments resonated with me. When thinking about their estates, people should care about what the relationships will be among the living. And no nasty surprises. I think a lot of heartache can be assuaged if parents take the time to explain why they are doing something and to reassure the person who may be getting shortchanged that they are loved and valued as much as the other(s). One of many things that happened to my DH was that when his mom died, his dad told DH and sister that he was putting the mom’s fine jewelry away for safe keeping and that he would split it up equally and give it to them when he died. Later DH began to suspect that sister actually had been given the fine jewelry, but the dad and sister would repeatedly deny and refuse to talk about it. After the dad’s death, of course it came out that sister had had the jewelry for years. Of course it was his dad’s right to give the jewelry to the sister. But like everything else it was done with lies, denial and obfuscation, instead of just coming out and saying something like: “Son, I love you but think your mother would’ve wanted the jewelry to go to her daughter.” Handling it the way he did, my FIL spared himself an uncomfortable conversation with his son but at the expense of poisoning the future relationship between his children.
I’m going to have to stop reading this thread - too much that is upsetting me long after I thought I had dealt with my mother’s control issues. She means to be “fair”, but the result is that her offspring are treated as children, not the responsible, reasonable adults we are.
Example - dividing my grandmother’s many “collectibles”. I loved them - but had no room in my house or life to be the new caretaker, I felt others should claim their favorites. I made that clear to all concerned. My mother took my sister aside privately and said that she wanted her to take some of the items no one “claimed”, but that “we will keep this secret from your sister so she doesn’t decide she wants something and starts an argument.” In the context of the recent death, hearing my mother voice this low opinion of my possible actions - which would not have been in character for me - was extremely hurtful.
My mother has appointed her lawyer as executor as she feels that there would be fights among her adult children if appointed. She is wrong - and again, it hurts me to hear her express this opinion. We would all have the background and professional experience to act as executors singly or jointly, but my mother cannot recognize this. She has always known better than anyone else and will control even beyond the grave.