Bank of Mum & Dad - Fairness??

Jagraf · 21 February 2016 at 2:09PM

silvercar wrote: »

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.

That sounds brilliant! Shows not all kids can be treated 'equally' but 'best for them independently'.

Poppy9 · 21 February 2016 at 2:22PM

Jagraf wrote: »

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!

Years ago as I only have one child and all my siblings have 2 or more children they were spending twice as much on her birthday, christmas gifts to reflect they were only buying one present for my family while I was buying 2 for theirs. I told them this was totally unnecessary and would be happier if they spent only half the amount (at the time I was spending around £50 per child and my DD was getting £100 gift) which IMO was too much so they did stop. If my parents had been alive they would have continued to buy a gift for each grand child and not one of us would have dreamt to question if it was fair as we hadn't been raised that way. We all had a bit of help when we needed it, sometimes financial, sometimes just emotional support. Just as my parents never questioned if we as children all spent the same amount on them for gifts. My mother always said it was the thought that counted.

I remember once after buying my first house and my OH had been made redundant my father gave me £20 to go out for the night as we hadn't been out for ages. He didn't feel the need to go give the other 3 the same, it was just a thoughtful gift when I was low.

At the same time I bought a £3 sale dress for my mother from M&S for her birthday. It was ridiculously low end of sale price of a beautiful wool dress (my mother was a size 8 petite so often found sale bargains) and she wore it to death and always said it was her favourite dress. I didn't hide I had spent only £3 and she didn't feel I hadn't treated her as much as my siblings.

When I lived at home I used to periodically randomly pick up one of the utility bills and just say "I'll pay that this time" as I was working full time and could afford it. I never asked if any of my siblings did the same thing (I was last at home as siblings quite a bit older), for me it was something I wanted to do especially as my father had retired due to ill health and while I knew they would have budgeted and had the money one side for the bills I had so much pleasure out of paying the bill and seeing how happy it made them.

My mother was right, giving gifts should give you pleasure and should be thoughtful. Receiving gifts should make you happy that someone has spent time thinking what to give you. I am so glad we weren't raised with "I bought X a bar of chocolate today so now you must all have a bar of chocolate".

harz99 · 21 February 2016 at 2:26PM

bouicca21 wrote: »

Fairness has been bothering me. I gave one some money towards a deposit but that was before property prices rocketed. The other one is just getting to think about buying, but to put her in the same buying position as the sibling would require at least twice as much (probably more) to be gifted.

As it happens my circumstances have changed and I could afford to give her that much. On one level this would be fair; but in terms of actual cash it looks as though they are being treated differently so not fair. I'm in a quandary ...

I really think you have answered your own question there. It will be totally fair for you to put the second sibling into the same position, the actual cash amount used is to me a secondary matter. Explain your reasons too both and go ahead with a clear conscience.

Jagraf · 21 February 2016 at 2:33PM

Poppy - my sil has 4 kids and I have one. We give them all £20 for Christmas so imagine my surprise when DD got £80!! I told her there and then to stop such nonsense!

Wise words from your mum 😊

ibizafan_2 · 21 February 2016 at 3:19PM

My youngest son has had more financial support then his brother. He changed course and Uni after the first year and I have 'lent' him money for travelling as well. My eldest son is in a highly paid job in London and has rarely asked for anything. I dont keep a running total on what has been given out, and there has never been any resentment shown. It hasn't occurred to me to hand out equal amounts to my eldest son, and he wouldn't expect it. However, if he ever needed financial help, he would get it in the same way. Having said that, they are both now doing well in their careers, and the youngest now has a baby daughter. Obviously, I want to treat her now, so I find it hard to see how you can get things strictly equal. My parents have lent me money in the past, but I'm not interested in whether they've done the same for my brothers, and I'm sure they feel the same about me.

Jagraf · 21 February 2016 at 5:50PM

Also us parents change our financial situation regularly.

I'm interested in why money needs to be so equal when every child needs different emotional / academic support (etc) and we wouldn't dream of giving the exact same support there.

Although I had a friend whose child needed a maths tutor so paid for tuition for the other one, even though he didn't need it!

duchy · 22 February 2016 at 4:37AM

My brother won a scholarship but because of certain political implications and changes at the time he only got it for the first year of secondary school my parents had to pay the fees after that. They weren't happy with my state education so decided to really stretch themselves and sent him to that school. He did really well and ended up with a good career . Should they have sent him to the local comp instead (he wasn't exceptional academically and needed pushing) for what they felt would be an inferior education because they hadn't stumped up fees for me ? (I was four years older so even if they could have afforded it - which they couldn't- it was to late to educate me privately by that point)

Later on (much later) they paid for my wedding. As far as I know they didn't pay for my brother's (actually I do know they didn't because my Dad had died by then and Mum couldn't have afforded to) . Frankly I'd have preferred the education to the wedding for myself- but that wasn't how life worked out. I don't think they were unfair-it just happened the money wasn't available (and they hadn't realized just how awful our local comps were and that by allowing me to be bored by poor teaching how disengaged I'd be by education)

Life isn't always fair by design or circumstance - I don't think it harmed me to learn that -and my overall feeling is my parents probably gave us much the same in total over the years even if the distribution was different.

onlyroz · 22 February 2016 at 9:41AM

Jagraf wrote: »

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!

But what if they'd been giving both families £1000 and their daughter then has another child?

tea_lover · 22 February 2016 at 9:45AM

For Christmas / birthdays, my parents (and until last year my grandparent) gave me, my sister and my niece the same amount of money each. So my sister's household was effectively getting twice what I do. Seems perfectly fair to me.

Person_one · 22 February 2016 at 10:44AM

tea_lover wrote: »

For Christmas / birthdays, my parents (and until last year my grandparent) gave me, my sister and my niece the same amount of money each. So my sister's household was effectively getting twice what I do. Seems perfectly fair to me.

I agree with this. It seems a bit strange to decide gift budgets based on 'households'. Those people are all individuals!

When my sister was single, I used to spend say, £30 on her birthday. Now that she's married with a child I don't split that £30 three ways and give them all £10 each as though they are just extensions of my sister rather than actual human members of my family I care about for their own sake.

I can see that if you're on a tight budget you might have to adjust the spending down a bit as a family grows, and that if you're a parent giving money for say, home improvements or a deposit, that would make sense to be done by 'household', but birthday and Christmas presents?

Bank of Mum & Dad - Fairness??

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