<p>That’s a difficult issue. The child who may be wealthy today could be in financial trouble tomorrow. The childless child will have no one to help him/her when they are elderly so maybe they should get more, rather than less than the one with children. It’s complicated.</p>
<p>allh, when planning her estate, my mom gave serious consideration to grandchildren. Her children are all financially fine and she had 8 grandchildren. My three are very, very close to her because I always worked and she was their third parent in all but name. Her oldest granddaughter is so good to my mother that she is probably the closest person to my mother in the world. Mom has decided that her estate will be passed on to my brother, with whom she lives (his house), with the exception of four large cash bequests – one to each of my kids and one to my oldest niece. She has then decided that some personal items will be left to each other member of the family, but the bulk to my brother.</p>
<p>My brother is divorced, no kids, very well-off and stable. He has two Godchildren. My son, who is his namesake and who is very close to him, and my niece – she of the epic wedding thread who treats him like garbage. My brother asked me to be executor of his estate in the event that something happens to him. In the context, he told me that if my mother pre-deceases him, on his death he will split the inheritance from her between my two girls, but his entire estate will go to my son. He made me promise that my sister and her daughter would never get anything that had belonged to him.</p>
<p>Ack. I had a long post typed and lost it. To summarize, parents don’t necessarily have their future caretaking in mind when they write their will/trust. I have done 99+% of everything for my dad for the 8 years after my mom died (and he fell apart) and for the year and a half since his death (almost done with the estate and paperwork, but not quite). My parents had put their affairs in order, for the mostpart, back in the 90’s because my brother was such a mean spirited, cruel jerk even back then, but if he hadnt nd they left everything evenly divided, I’d still have done 99% of all the work. This is common in many families, where one offspring has to do all the work, and the others contribure nothing of their time or energy- only useless armchair quarterbacking. </p>
<p>If I had considered “paying myeslf” for any of the time/effort I put in, I’d have had a legal battle on my hands that wasnt worth fighting. The only thing I let the estate pay for was the ost of being there, with some very wonderful friends, to begin to clean the house out after he died. I reimbursed only the basic exenses. Never ever, as executrix, did I pay myself a penny for the hours and hours and HOURS of time and emotional/ sweat equity it took. And speaking to my parents trust attorney, this is common-- peoples true colors come out under these circumstances.</p>
<p>When I met my DH he was a grad student who lived at home and basically ran the household so his alcoholic school teacher dad could go on drinking and his mom could go on with her affair with her university administrator boss and he could make sure his sibling 14 years younger (an accident!) could at least eat a TV dinner at night. It was truly gothic in an 80s hideous rendition. My gut instincts were to run but I just fell in love and this came with my absolutely wonderful DH.</p>
<p>We finished our grad degrees and went far afield and prospered eventually with absolutely no help ever from either family. It would kill my DH to ask for help and we just managed. </p>
<p>For a very long time the “family” guilt tripped my Dh over “leaving” the little sister in the hands of her parents. That was a pretty big deal for both of us.</p>
<p>To be really honest, my biggest focus is how my absolutely wonderful DH came from such people. They sicken me. Truly. No, I do NOT believe in genetics.</p>
<p>I consider both my FIL and MIL to be just foul. But I love their son. That’s the mystery that I ponder.</p>
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<p>I think that might be where the saying, “A rose among thorns,” came from.</p>