Bank of Mum & Dad - Fairness??

Tigsteroonie

TBagpuss wrote: »

I think one issue is that "fair" and "equal" are often two different things.

Your comment reminded me of this:

JIL

My younger brother has never married, he owns his home, no mortgage. He has a number of cars, lots of disposable income and earns a really good living.
When Christmas comes around my parents work out what they give to me, husband and three children, which is usually £25 each and then give him the same £125. That's fare in their eyes and as it's their money, its up to them. Same happens at birthdays.

I am very different with my children, if one gets then so does the others. I may not give it to them at the same time but I am careful to ensure that they get the same.
Even at Christmas I actually add up what I spend on each to ensure its the same.
I helped one with a house deposit, the others then had the same put aside,one then needed help with rent up front and the other with a car so that came from the money set aside. Complicated but makes me feel better.

Sea_Shell

JIL - Sorry if i'm missing something but from what you've said, your parents did give equally to you both...your £125 'share' just had to be split towards between you, your husband and 3 kids. Do you think your Brother should have only got £25 because he is on his own?

JReacher1

JIL wrote: »

My younger brother has never married, he owns his home, no mortgage. He has a number of cars, lots of disposable income and earns a really good living.
When Christmas comes around my parents work out what they give to me, husband and three children, which is usually £25 each and then give him the same £125. That's fare in their eyes and as it's their money, its up to them. Same happens at birthdays.

I am very different with my children, if one gets then so does the others. I may not give it to them at the same time but I am careful to ensure that they get the same.
Even at Christmas I actually add up what I spend on each to ensure its the same.
I helped one with a house deposit, the others then had the same put aside,one then needed help with rent up front and the other with a car so that came from the money set aside. Complicated but makes me feel better.

I think your parents are being perfectly fair. Why should your brother get less than your family because he is single?

selement

In terms of gifts I think my parents try to be pretty even. I think me and my sister are fairly equal, our partners are fairly equal, and shes the only one with a child and they spoil her! So her family gets more than mine, but I think it makes sense to spend more on kids.

My parents helped my sister pay for her wedding and contributed a little to house deposit, so they are offering me the same money plus a little interest as its a few years later towards wedding/house (although I htink wedding might eat most of it up ) (not in line with how much more expensive both weddings and houses have become though sadly!)

I have probably received more help from my parents because after uni for my first full time job I moved away so they helped me with deposit to rent first apartment and cheap Ikea furnishings. The locations for where I could work were limited due to nature of degree and I had already tried to get a job locally so I wasn't really moving away by choice. They also probably helped me more at uni itself because I went away and my sister studied locally as she had a boyfriend nearby (she was originally moving away). But then I'm sure my Dad drove to and from Switzerland to drop her off and pick her up when she was an au pair for a bit in her gap year so I wouldn't say shes had a rough deal!

Thinking about all this think our parents have been pretty good to us!

Jagraf

JIL wrote: »

My younger brother has never married, he owns his home, no mortgage. He has a number of cars, lots of disposable income and earns a really good living.
When Christmas comes around my parents work out what they give to me, husband and three children, which is usually £25 each and then give him the same £125. That's fare in their eyes and as it's their money, its up to them. Same happens at birthdays.

I am very different with my children, if one gets then so does the others. I may not give it to them at the same time but I am careful to ensure that they get the same.
Even at Christmas I actually add up what I spend on each to ensure its the same.
I helped one with a house deposit, the others then had the same put aside,one then needed help with rent up front and the other with a car so that came from the money set aside. Complicated but makes me feel better.

Out of interest, what would you do if you had the money to help with upfront rent for one (knowing they wouldnt be able to rent without your help) but knew you could never help financially any more with any of them?

Happytravelling

I read a blog topic on this that said you should give money to your harder working children/ those who make more sensible financial decisions, rather than the least well off, because that gives an incentives to the other sibling(s) that hard work and sensible financial decisions get rewarded. If you’re going to do this, I think its only fair to set it as an expectation earlier on in life because parents don’t want to see their children have financial problems if they’re in a position to help.

My sister and I got the same value of money to put towards whatever we wanted: Uni, car, house, wedding, holiday of a lifetime, whatever. Sister’s was spent on a wedding, mine is sat in the bank because I remember how much my parents struggled when I was younger and I feel guilty spending their hard earned money.

It think you can try to be too fair, its just money after all. I’ve posted on MSE before about how my mum came round with something like £2, because she’d bought my sis something for her house for that value. I solemnly replied that she could have a cup of tea but it would cost her 30p, as I wouldn’t have had to make her one if she hadn’t come round with the £2. There was a moment where she thought I was being serious… :rotfl:

Jagraf

What about a grandparent. They have three grandchildren under five, one from their daughter, two from their son. They give their daughter £500 for the one child, and £1000 to the son for the two children, and tell them they can use it, for the children, in any way they wish.

Effectively they have given one of their children twice as much as the other.

Is that fair? Or should they have split £1500 down the middle and given each of their own children £750 each).

No correct answer, just a Sunday morning teaser!

silvercar

Jagraf wrote: »

Out of interest, what would you do if you had the money to help with upfront rent for one (knowing they wouldnt be able to rent without your help) but knew you could never help financially any more with any of them?

We had the reverse.

Elder managed to get a place at an amazing state grammar school. That meant we could afford to send younger one to an excellent private school. If the eldest hadn't have got into the grammar school, he would probably have gone to the fairly decent comprehensive that isn't local. By taking up the grammar school place, that meant that the younger one didn't automatically qualify for a sibling place at the decent comprehensive so we had to consider other options.

So they both ended up at the best schools for them, but had they not been in that birth order, things wouldn't have turned out so well.

PasturesNew

I'd open an account for all of them. If one has something, the same amount goes into the other two accounts. That way you keep it even over the years. Even if those "accounts" are just you keeping X small notebooks in a drawer and no actual money goes in/out of real banks.

Eventually the one who gets nothing will realise their sibling's been milking you for years ..... and the one who has been doing the milking sees it as "normal" and has no idea the other one/s don't get a bean. This can build resentment when the one who had everything doesn't believe/see that the other one had nothing.