DD won £5k - should she share it?

aliasojo

Isn't it possible that all those children who are raised 'equally' grow up to be expecting and unable to deal with situations that are unequal in life?

I'll rephrase that.

It IS possible......

lostinrates

aliasojo wrote: »

Isn't it possible that all those children who are raised 'equally' grow up to be expecting and unable to deal with situations that are unequal in life?

I'll rephrase that.

It IS possible......

This exaxtly.

This never arose in our family, but my sister and I, I absolutely know, would have been expected to treat the winnings as our own. It would have been apprexiated but not expected to share the luckwith a family treat or gifts. We both had different earnings and spending (different fathers and a large age gap), and inequality of finances was taught to us as one of those things, and furthermore, not a judgement of value of any other kind. It concerns me that those feeling finances must be equal above all else are placing too much on the value of money in their childrens eyes, and not enough on the benefit of a philoshical attotude, the abilty to be pleased for someone else. By extention its creating an attitide that money is the most important thing, and potentially and attitude to be extended towards the richest and poorest in society.

This did not make us ' self centred' i do not think. (other things did that ). For example, last year my sister had cancer and making ends meet was hard, And we had no central heating. We had already used some of the central heating fund on our dog who broke her leg, the decision to hand over the rest was easy, not because we ' shared', because we did not, but because money is one of those things that is unequal, love and responsibility doesn't have to be,

Taadaa

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be treated equally by your parents. Unless of course the parents don't mind one or more of their children focussing on that perceived unfairness and it affecting their relationship with them.

In this instance, I think it is less about fairness, more about weighing up the lesser evil - one party may feel left out. This could cause real problems in the relationship. Yes, they could say 'tough !!!!, your numbers didn't come up' - but is that really a lesson in fairness? I think not - that is about luck, something we have no control over, not fairness. On the other hand, the siblings may be quite happy with a treat and not really give a fig about the rest of it - the parents won't know unless they speak to them about it.

I agree that undue emphasis shouldn't be placed on the financial - in this case, the benefit of winning the money seems less than the dilemma it has caused.

Wickedkitten

aliasojo wrote: »

Isn't it possible that all those children who are raised 'equally' grow up to be expecting and unable to deal with situations that are unequal in life?

I'll rephrase that.

It IS possible......

I wouldn't say all of them do. Certainly I have a lot of friends whose mums treated them equally to their siblings and are now can be really irritating when they start whinging about how unfair things in life are and are really entitled at times, but not all of them do.

In hindsight my mum was really clever in that she made it so that we didn't have time to worry about anything because fair or not, the only time she bought us toys was for Christmas and Birthdays. Other than that, if you wanted one you had to save up your pocket money or find ways to get the money to buy it yourself and even then they all got passed around.

lostinrates

Taadaa wrote: »

I don't think it's unreasonable to expect to be treated equally by your parents. Unless of course the parents don't mind one or more of their children focussing on that perceived unfairness and it affecting their relationship with them.

In this instance, I think it is less about fairness, more about weighing up the lesser evil - one party may feel left out. This could cause real problems in the relationship. Yes, they could say 'tough !!!!, your numbers didn't come up' - but is that really a lesson in fairness? I think not - that is about luck, something we have no control over, not fairness. On the other hand, the siblings may be quite happy with a treat and not really give a fig about the rest of it - the parents won't know unless they speak to them about it.

I agree that undue emphasis shouldn't be placed on the financial - in this case, the benefit of winning the money seems less than the dilemma it has caused.

But 'equality' varies from day one, both from parents (there are lots of interesting reading about how the same parents parent different children differently) and 'luck', health for example, whether you get the 'fabourite' teacher, or the 'prettier' or 'brighter' genes in the family. Luck impacts on an awful lot more than money, and i find it sad that it seems such an issue with money, when in reality it is impacting on a plethora of things that pass unnoticed or barely acknowledged in all our lives.

aliasojo

Wickedkitten wrote: »

I wouldn't say all of them do. Certainly I have a lot of friends whose mums treated them equally to their siblings and are now can be really irritating when they start whinging about how unfair things in life are and are really entitled at times, but not all of them do.

lostinrates wrote: »

...(there are lots of interesting reading about how the same parents parent different children differently)

Yes I agree individual character plays a part as well as parental influence and there's nothing to say 'x' will happen to all.

My ex husband and I had different ideas on parenting. His idea of fairness was to treat the eldest two equally. Now that in itself sounds ok, doesn't it?

However the reality of this turned what were 2 average lads into selfish, greedy, spoilt brats.

Ex would buy one a present and give the other the cash equivalent. Over many years they grew up being less and less able to simply 'not get'. They were taught by example that they should expect to be given whatever it was the other got. I had never believed this was the way to go with kids and I struggled to counterbalance their expectations. On the odd occasion when one got and the other didn't (an order form the internet arrived in two parts, one was late) the whining nonsense that came from them was disgusting. Obviously I talked to them but it's hard to eradicate a sense of expectation imo.

When they reached adulthood, ex turned the tables completely and continued spending on one and not the other even to the extreme of buying one a £9k car.

One kid struggled when he started work as he found it hard to deal with instances of what he saw as unfairness in his workplace. Imo, the reality wasn't unfairness at all, it was just cases where one employee was told to do one job and another employee was told to do something else. One job may have been seen as easier or better but that was only in his eyes, not necessarily the case. Whatever the reason, as a lowly employee you have to do what you are told and he really struggled with this.

Maturity and experience have since had their effect but he still has opinions at times that I find are very selfish and I believe it's largely because of the way he was treated when he was young and impressionable.

Taadaa

Well there is a simple solution to that. Don't treat them to things other than at Christmas and birthdays, or unless for recognition for a job well done eg doing well at an exam. Treating them fairly and equally does not necessarily mean they all get the same at the same time, it depends on the circumstances. It would be fair, for example, to treat one of them when passing an exam, and treating the other one when they pass their exams to the same thing. Treating them both detracts from the specialness that the gift was supposed to evoke in the first place.

In the OPs instance, the circumstance is luck. It could have gone to either of the siblings. Of course this plays in other areas - genes etc - but the outcome is beyond anyone's control. Here, the outcome isn't. This isn't clear cut and as I said if I were in her shoes I would not be sure of what to do.

GlasweJen

I have 4 siblings.

One had a trust fund (was in an accident as a child), the fund was worth £25k+ and she got all of it when she turned 18.

3/5 siblings got a car financed by my parents (I can't drive and my brother never learned).

My youngest sister is still at home and gets free digs but when I was her age I had to pay digs in the summer when I was home from uni.

My younger brother gets food packages and "essentials" sent to him at his uni halls every week, I had to completely self fund myself through uni.

Me and younger sister went to dance lessons and got a fortune paid on those, no one else did an equivalent expensive sport.

I went on international trips with guides, little sis went skiing with the school, no one else went abroad on non-family things.

My big brother and sister used to get tonnes of money spent on them by my grandparents (I was surplus to requirements, younger two had a different dad).

It's all swings and roundabouts at the end of the day. So what if one has 5k now, if it's for you it won't go past you.

warehouse

O.P., when I was 12 my younger Sister won £60 in a competition she entered. This was in 1976, so that was a h*ll of lot of money for kids to have then. I had a paper round at 12 that paid £3 a week.

Without hesitation she said she wanted to give me £20 of her winnings. Even at 12 I was very moved by that gesture, it was such a nice thing for her to do and nobody, not my parents or myself, had insinuated in any way that she should do anything but save the lot.

Now I'm approaching 50, I still clearly remember the generosity my little Sis showed when she came into money at such a young age. Even now, I have such a great respect for that act that it has helped me show my own kids how thinking of others should be a high priority in life.

Your Daughter needs to make the call, you and your DH should respect any decision she makes.

Mojisola

I don't think there is a "right" or "wrong" answer. It depends on what's been decided. The problems arise when nothing is decided in advance.

We talked through the options with our kids - we all had about the same amount in bonds, we could keep any individual winnings or we could split them. We all preferred the idea of sharing winnings and that's what happened. Since some have cashed in their bonds and others have different amounts, the agreement has changed to individuals keeping their winnings.

When one got old enough to buy lottery tickets and had a small win, he kept that - he'd risked his money and got lucky.

There are different lessons that need to learned that are all valuable life lessons.

I don't believe in everyone having to share everything they get. Among my children's birthday and Christmas presents there was always a favourite edible treat that was theirs alone so that they didn't have to see their present being handed round and consumed by everyone else. It was also interesting to see the personality differences - who rationed themselves to a little bit every day, who ate the whole thing in the one day!