Money Moral Dilemma: Is it fair for my parents to penalise me for not having children?

Ed264

I've only just read this. Personally, I find it a little unusual to not divide the will 50/50 between you and your brother. But this also shows that they want to take care of their grandchildren. I wouldn't look upon this as penalising you because you don't have children. I think you're taking this too personally.

Pollycat

JAParker said:

One thing I do know for sure, as a parent, they would definitely never do anything to deliberately hurt you, or penalise you, however much it feels like it x

How do you know that for sure?
As a long time poster on this website, I've read enough horror stories about how parents treat their adult children to not be sure of anything based on the few lines of a MMD and no additional information.

WeAreGhosts

My grandparents left me half of what they gave their other grandkids. I donated it to charity as I didn't want their money when they put in black and white that I was less of a grandchild than the others.

With these situations there's always more than meets the eye, a lot of emotion built up over the years about feeling inferior etc.

mojo2345

That last comment from WeAreGhosts brought a tear to my eye - So sorry that happened to you, and that it's still affecting you - completely understandable.  Hope you have managed to move on from this ...

Sapindus

TIGERSQUEEZE said:

annabanana82 said:

I wonder if people of the same mindset as the OP also get annoyed that the siblings with grandchildren will also have more spent on them as a household at Christmas and Birthdays too? 

I don’t think this is relevant to the dilemma. 

I think it's entirely relevant and a good point.  I think the situation described by the OP is quite reasonable, although it's maybe unusual for the grandchildren to get the same at their parents.  I'm assuming they are at least late teens and there probably aren't any more likely to come along. If the grandparents split the inheritance equally between their two children and expected the one who is a parent to pass some or all of it onto the grandchildren, I think the parent would be justified in feeling penalised for being a parent!  And equally so if the same thing happened at Christmas "child 1, here's £50, child 2, here's your £50 but I'm not getting your kids anything you can spend some of it on them if you want."

Chris_Jay

I found the comments about gifts and fairness really interesting, although a slight detour from the original problem, so I'm going to share with you what I did last Christmas. You lucky things!
Mine is a small family, and very close. Due to some sadly early deaths in one branch, I am the only aunt to my sister's children, who now have very young toddlers of their own. I worked out what I could afford, and decided that rather than faff about with shopping for gifts, they would be given £10 each. Not a lot, by some family's gifting standards, but I do have my own children too. Sister and brother-in-law £20, niece, nephew -in-law, two small cherubs (they tell me!) £40 and nephew and niece -in-law with one equally delicious cherub £30. At first glance, it may not look fair, but on the basis of per head, it's totally fair, it was manageable for me, as tokens of my love for them. How the adults spent it was up to them entirely, though I think my sister and brother -in-law bought a nice bottle of wine with theirs. The children do have gifts for birthdays, and it's less pressured than trying to do it for Christmas.
Anyway, how's your day going....?

DangerousDaveDur

I'm with you. Not really fair. Of course its entirely up to them (they could leave it all to the cats home if they chose!), but I agree that you could feel aggrieved. What's to say that you don't have children in the future? Are you and your brother expected to be joint executors or are the grandchildren going to be doing their share of the work/arrangements after your parent's passing?

tayknthyme

Maybe a bit harsh to say your parents are penalizing you for not having children. Wills normally benefit family members that actually exist, not members that might/could have existed in theory. Seems fair to me.

getmore4less

The best use of excess wealth is to help those that will/can make best use of it for the next generation.

That's how wealthy families get wealthy retain wealth.

Childless is a dead end.

WeAreGhosts

mojo2345 said:

That last comment from WeAreGhosts brought a tear to my eye - So sorry that happened to you, and that it's still affecting you - completely understandable.  Hope you have managed to move on from this ...

Thank you for your kind words.