Were these same things offered to your H?
@CTTC no. We would totally have said yes if they’d offered (we’re hard working, not stupid, lol).
Why not? Why did H’s parents treat one(?) so differently?
@CTTC I don’t know how they justify it.
I just helped MIL buy a new car (because I’m good at hunting and cost-comparing), and I said “your current car is worth X for trade in” and she said " oh I’m giving that car to Bob, don’t tell him, it’s a surprise." Bob already has a car, now he has two cars. The car she just gave to Bob would have been a perfect fit for our daughters to drive. I just bit my tongue and nodded. It is what it is.
I hope you won’t have to be the ones to do the elder caregiving when the time comes.
This sounds like a ‘rule against perpetuities’ situation. Complicated tax and trust law. See the movie Body Heat for an explanation.
My theory, based on observing family dynamics, is that often parents enjoy and relish the feeling of being needed. They might respect the financial prudence of the adult child that has their “stuff” together, but they tend to favor the child that makes them feel needed.
I will definitely not let that happen in my relationship with my own 2 kids. I’m trying very hard to reward sound financial management and impart financial knowledge (not to be equated with salary=success).
I think you are right, doschicos. Parents can be suckers for the children who need “help.” We can talk about people being rewarded depending upon whether they made good or bad decisions, but that’s not usually how it works for the elders. The Golden Child can be favored no matter their life choices. And of course the elders can do whatever they want to with their money, divide it however they want, and we are told over and over that, “it’s their money to with what they want.” Yes, but then they will reap what they will sow. I would fully understand if the not-favored sibling(s) leave the hassle of elder caregiving to the favored sibling(s). Actually, I think that’s what should happen.
Money can come with so many strings that sometimes it’s best to say - I did it on my own without help, so let sibling continue to be co-dependent … Not my problem. Wash your hands of it.
“They might respect the financial prudence of the adult child that has their “stuff” together, but they tend to favor the child that makes them feel needed.” With the elderly, sometimes they think this brings closeness and the ability to depend on the needy one. Odd equation, unless it’s really happening.
I would want each to have equal shot at buying a home, travel and other enrichment, or even the ability to live decently month to month, if things were bad. But one thinks, plans ahead, has a good salary (not great, not google, lawyer, IB level,) pays her bills and still has a good time. The other doesn’t, yet. Very happy in a noble but low paying job, doesn’t manage bills (though she gets the fun part.) I’ve already had to dig her out of some $ problems and could not, in good conscience, leave her more than the other.
Btw, I’ve got a friend whose grandparents’ lakeside summer home was divided equally among their kids, in perpetuity. So the next two generations ended up with a situation where 32 living family members (all close) share ownership. Good idea, at one point, now a mess. They have to form annual committees to manage who can visit when, handle maintenance and assess each other for costs, etc.
Real estate can be very tricky, especially if people have to pay periodically for maintenance, property taxes, etc. at some point, it will likely be sold and proceeds split among the co-owners. It is especially difficult if some can’t easily come up with funds to help maintain, etc.
I agree that the child who has the responsibility to care for the elderly parent should be either gifted money or willed a larger share. In our family, H has all the responsibility for caring for his mother’s finances, her insurance, her home health care workers (a major pain), etc. She calls him once or twice a day with another problem. Meanwhile his brother is enjoying his retirement on his island vacation home and visits once a year. Yet when MIL gave H $2,000 for getting her long term care insurer to pay up (a two year battle), brother hit the roof, saying it was wrong to take money for taking care of a parent. If the shoe were on the other foot, he wouldn’t have said that.
Agree TatinG. Retired brother is being very selfish.
A lakefront summer home around here is often worth a lot more than residences only a few miles away. Giving the summer home to one side of the family (the poorer side) created a lot of ill will from the other side of my wife’s family. The result was the other side was never invited over to swim or go boating for an entire generation. The next generation have mended fences and acted like it never happened. But it definitely tipped the scale towards the poorer children.
I think it’s very manipulative for parents to use the promise/threat of inheritance to influence their adult childrens’ life choices. And it’s very foolish and craven for adult children to rely on such promises as motivators.I couldn’t respect myself if I chose my career or my lifestyle as a way of getting more money out of my parents upon their death.
Another friend was the last child from his father’s multiple marriages. Older two half brothers were left to manage the large oceanside place. It was specified each child got a week or two, but he was bottom of the priority list. Usually got the end of summer weeks, sometimes conflicting with when school started.
It’s just good to be cautious, think it out.
oh my goodness, doschicos & CTTC in posts #126 and 127, you just described my family dynamics perfectly. That’s with respect to my mom.
As for my dad, I am currently living through this right now, except it’s the stepmother raiding the trust dad set up for the 4 kids (she broke up my parents marriage, she came with 2 of her own). It’s heartbreaking and infuriating and just plain depressing.
He had a great estate plan in place for blended families/older children situation, and as he aged, they suddenly made a change for one major piece of real estate. Two weeks after they established the Trust, he told 3/4 of his kids what the Trust was intended to do (we were beneficiaries), but when he died 2-1/2 years later, she within weeks took the real estate out of the joint trust, placed it in her own new trust, with her own 2 kids as beneficiaries, and put it up for sale. Long story short is that what he thought he was signing was designed without his knowledge, I believe, because he trusted her, to enable her as remaining trustee to raid the trust and cancel out his intentions.
The ironic thing is that among the 4 of us kids, two are so far out there that frankly I would not have blamed him for cutting them out. My other brother and I were the good ones, and he explained he just didn’t feel right about not splitting it equally among the 4, which I totally respected and appreciated. Meanwhile, though, my poor mom had to work hard her whole life to have some sort of pension, but the 20-year younger second wife who did virtually nothing lives off my dad’s earnings, and her kids get the remainder.
And so here I am, left with nothing from dad’s estate, which I actually would have been totally fine with because he was a wonderful dad and I always told him he should spend the money he worked so hard for while he was alive, except that I am absolutely positive that was not his intention. I feel like I must have been a bad daughter, which is totally illogical, of course, but it just makes the grieving process even harder. Probably I am also grieving/reliving when he left the family, all these years later. We never get over our childhoods (and I wasn’t even that young)!
@TatinG my friend paid herself a fee from her parents accounts, as she oversaw the care for her parents and a aunt. Friend is unable to work a full time job due to the care responsibilities. She has Power of Attorney and the lawyers informed her that it is perfectly legal. She also has no interest in doing all of the work for free and eventually splitting the estate 50/50 with a brother who doesn’t even call. She taking some compensation now and with split with B later.
As for our own kids, it’s simple, there are two, right in half. I really encourage everyone to spend the money and get a very good estate plan, which anticipates your own kids’ possible marriages/divorces, tax implications, beneficiary designations… it’s well worth it.
I’m glad my parents did the split plan, even though my sister, the artist, makes less than I do. I have no doubt that she would have paid for her friends medical care, etc. My parents knew she was generous. I have no doubt I could be supporting her. Thus, I plan to work til I am 70, and am very frugal. I wish they had set up annuities that went for 20 years, not 10. It was like receiving an allowance. Don’t get me wrong, my sister still works, sometimes until exhaustion. How nice it would be to win the lottery.