How cruel is parents not paying for oldest children's college, yet paying for the youngest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Unlikely the “investing” stops with college. They’ll pay for her wedding and try to help her with a down payment on a house too. Parents (and grandparents) with fluid values and belief systems that change depending on the favored children are rotten. And they will never admit they favor one over the other. They always have some backwards ass excuse or perceived slights to rationalize it. It’s not worth your breath calling them out because they’ll refuse to admit how cruel it is.

+1 This is how my parents are. It created a really dysfunctional dynamic.

[Anonymous]

I was told my older sibling would turn around and pay for my grad school because there was money for their undergrad but not mine. Yeah, never happened. But I generally don't let it bother me. I'm more independent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Happened to my husband. Parents couldn't afford Boy Scouts for him, but paid for Girl Scouts for his sister. They didn't have time to take him to travel soccer games or practices, but they could take his brother to all his travel music recitals. They paid for 100% of brother and sister's college educations. They even gave sister an allowance through college so she didn't have to work, and they bought her a car.

The dynamic continues now in our 40's and 50's. They buy daughter and her teenager new phones and laptops every couple of years. Bought her a new car a few years ago. Subsidize her rent. (Mind you, she has a professional job.)

DH worked his way up in a government job with only a HS education, but makes more than his sister. I've got a decent government job. We were a 1 car family for years to save money, I cut my own hair, we have a 15 year old car and only replace our phones when they're obsolete or dead. For many reasons, we don't have much in the way of assets but we have pensions. One thing we splurge on is travel because I have family abroad and we live to take our child there.

Despite not getting any family support, my DH is the one who they call to drive them to health appointments c fix his dad's car, do jobs around their apartments (they're divorced now) and we are expected to host the extended family for holidays (we have the only house that's central to both parents). DH does all the heavy lifting of elder care,

So recently DH was told that he and his brother were being taken out of MIL's will because neither he nor his brother really need the money but his sister does. FIL's will all goes to MIL (they're divorced, but they agreed she would inherit his assets if he does first.) so essentially DH is cut out of both wills. His brother is legitimately quite wealthy in a field that they financially supported his whole young adulthood. But we're far from wealthy. Their evidence that we don't need the money is that we travel every year and own a home. SIL still rents and seems to spend everything she has (and I'm being judgmental here anonymously, but she spends it on stuff like daily Starbucks for her and her child...which adds up to as much as I spend in airfare, the evidence they have that we don't need money.)

We're not talking about life changing money. It might be $10,000 or $15,000 for each child at the most. It's a legitimately helpful sun for paying for a semester of tuition for our child, but we can live without it. It's just the IDEA of them purposefully excluding DH and his brother to advantage a sister who has already been advantaged her whole life. And still it's DH who they call on to do all of their errands and literal dirty work like fixing clogged toilets.

And then they wonder why their kids aren't close and don't enjoy spending time together.

He needs to learn how to hang up. For me, getting taken out of the will after all of that would mean blocking phone numbers

[Anonymous]

On the surface, yes, but DK the back story, so there may be more here.

[Anonymous]

My cousin has two age sets of kids (separated by a decade). She couldn’t afford to pay for the older three but can do so for the younger two. It makes zero sense for her to not pay for the caboose kids simply because she couldn’t for the elder three. That’s a way to build resentment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then if you couldn’t do something for one of your kids you shouldn’t do it for any? I’m not in this boat because my older kids did not go to college. But frankly, if we were so inclined, we could do much more for our youngest than we would have been able for our older kids due to having a paid off mortgage and no longer having to pay high medical bills for one of our kids and higher incomes.

Also I was in this situation sort of. My father died when I was young and my mom had to choose which kids to support because she couldn’t support all of us. I was the one she choose not to support. It must have sucked to be her and have to choose. No resentment here.

You can do whatever you want. But there will be blowback and consequences because the slighted person will feel hurt by the injustice and may respond in ways you don't like.

It's great that you hold no resentment. Many people understandably would.

Meh. It depends on the family.

This happened in my family.

Parents paid for youngest sibling's college. He is much younger (7 years between him and the next youngest).

My parents' financial situation did not change. They probably felt like they could be a little more flexible with spending because all the other kids were adults and independent.

We were happy they did. And we probably would have chipped in to help him take less loans than we did if our parents did not pay.

[Anonymous]

My kids aren't graduated yet, but some of my friends kids are. Some kids just do better paying for it themselves. One family I know started out paying, then quit and almost instantly the kid started taking life much more seriously. Some just need that responsibility factor. Maybe the parents plan to give the other kids money Some other way. Maybe the youngest is just a better investment.

[Anonymous]

This is basically what happened in my family. I am a woman and the oldest and my parents didn't contribute a dime. They even refused to take out the low interest rate gov't loans in their name. My only option was to get a loan through a private bank with a super high rate after they finally agreed to co-sign. I was making payments approaching $1k/month before I even set foot on campus in the mid 90s.

My parents agreed to take out loans, in addition to making significant monetary contributions to both of my younger brothers' educations. Brother 1 started just a year after me. There were no significant changes to our finances.

I graduated at the top of my HS class, never got into any trouble, was actively involved in my school and community and worked from age 12 on. Parents said I was an unproven commodity that they didn't want to take a risk on. Home was abusive in many ways and in hindsight this was my codependent mom's way of punishing me for trying to "leave" her. Of course, that wasn't a concern when it came my brothers.

I did get a partial academic scholarship, but the debt I racked up so quickly at a young age was staggering and undoubtedly impact my life's trajectory. I worked up to 4 jobs at a time during school and sometimes could not afford to eat. This is just one of the many reasons that I am estranged from my parents today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So then if you couldn’t do something for one of your kids you shouldn’t do it for any? I’m not in this boat because my older kids did not go to college. But frankly, if we were so inclined, we could do much more for our youngest than we would have been able for our older kids due to having a paid off mortgage and no longer having to pay high medical bills for one of our kids and higher incomes.

Interesting. I was a younger sibling in the opposite situation. My parents paid for my older siblings’ college but by the time I was going to college there was no money left for college. No one ever told me or prepared me.

Also I was in this situation sort of. My father died when I was young and my mom had to choose which kids to support because she couldn’t support all of us. I was the one she choose not to support. It must have sucked to be her and have to choose. No resentment here.

Yes, these family situations change. I didn’t understand it at the time, but I now know that my parents filed for bankruptcy around the time I was headed to college. Very different financial situation than when my older siblings were going to college.

[Anonymous]

My father didn't contribute a dime, said he didn't believe in it. Said that's what student loans are for. Then when my kid sister was headed to college, he immediately sold his prized antique car and bragged it was a sacrifice to pay for his daughter's college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Happened to my husband. Parents couldn't afford Boy Scouts for him, but paid for Girl Scouts for his sister. They didn't have time to take him to travel soccer games or practices, but they could take his brother to all his travel music recitals. They paid for 100% of brother and sister's college educations. They even gave sister an allowance through college so she didn't have to work, and they bought her a car.

The dynamic continues now in our 40's and 50's. They buy daughter and her teenager new phones and laptops every couple of years. Bought her a new car a few years ago. Subsidize her rent. (Mind you, she has a professional job.)

DH worked his way up in a government job with only a HS education, but makes more than his sister. I've got a decent government job. We were a 1 car family for years to save money, I cut my own hair, we have a 15 year old car and only replace our phones when they're obsolete or dead. For many reasons, we don't have much in the way of assets but we have pensions. One thing we splurge on is travel because I have family abroad and we live to take our child there.

Despite not getting any family support, my DH is the one who they call to drive them to health appointments c fix his dad's car, do jobs around their apartments (they're divorced now) and we are expected to host the extended family for holidays (we have the only house that's central to both parents). DH does all the heavy lifting of elder care,

So recently DH was told that he and his brother were being taken out of MIL's will because neither he nor his brother really need the money but his sister does. FIL's will all goes to MIL (they're divorced, but they agreed she would inherit his assets if he does first.) so essentially DH is cut out of both wills. His brother is legitimately quite wealthy in a field that they financially supported his whole young adulthood. But we're far from wealthy. Their evidence that we don't need the money is that we travel every year and own a home. SIL still rents and seems to spend everything she has (and I'm being judgmental here anonymously, but she spends it on stuff like daily Starbucks for her and her child...which adds up to as much as I spend in airfare, the evidence they have that we don't need money.)

We're not talking about life changing money. It might be $10,000 or $15,000 for each child at the most. It's a legitimately helpful sun for paying for a semester of tuition for our child, but we can live without it. It's just the IDEA of them purposefully excluding DH and his brother to advantage a sister who has already been advantaged her whole life. And still it's DH who they call on to do all of their errands and literal dirty work like fixing clogged toilets.

And then they wonder why their kids aren't close and don't enjoy spending time together.

He needs to learn how to hang up. For me, getting taken out of the will after all of that would mean blocking phone numbers

So true. One (grown) kid is at their beck and call, while the other (grown) kid is helpless, enabled and given whatever they want. Such a gross dynamic. So telling about what kind of parents the grandparents were, when they can't bring themselves to be nice to the new wife, and don't spend time with the grandchildren, but run for the other (grown) kid and their children. Don't think that the grandchildren don't make their own minds up, and form their own opinions over who did what, based on actions (not words). DP here.

The favored (grown) kid truly has it in their head that they are the only one that matters. They probably continue to siphon money, because they have siphoned other things, as well - yet can barely tie their own shoes. Why do parents enable this unhealthy dynamic? They are only hurting themselves, in the end.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlikely the “investing” stops with college. They’ll pay for her wedding and try to help her with a down payment on a house too. Parents (and grandparents) with fluid values and belief systems that change depending on the favored children are rotten. And they will never admit they favor one over the other. They always have some backwards ass excuse or perceived slights to rationalize it. It’s not worth your breath calling them out because they’ll refuse to admit how cruel it is.

+1 This is how my parents are. It created a really dysfunctional dynamic.

+2

So unhealthy, for all involved. Makes me wonder if the favored one takes money from the parents on the side. You know, the type that gets "paid" some outrageously high amount of money for "helping" the parents when they are old. Gross.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kids aren't graduated yet, but some of my friends kids are. Some kids just do better paying for it themselves. One family I know started out paying, then quit and almost instantly the kid started taking life much more seriously. Some just need that responsibility factor. Maybe the parents plan to give the other kids money Some other way. Maybe the youngest is just a better investment.

Unless the family qualifies for a lot of financial aid, that just isn't possible for most people now. Best case scenario would be a commuter school and a job willing to work around school hours. More likely is a job that shifts schedules and forces you to start choosing between missing class and getting fired or a night job that leaves you too exhausted for class. It's the delusional boomers who think you can waitress your way through UVA who end up screwing their kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My cousin has two age sets of kids (separated by a decade). She couldn’t afford to pay for the older three but can do so for the younger two. It makes zero sense for her to not pay for the caboose kids simply because she couldn’t for the elder three. That’s a way to build resentment.

So the caboose kids get launched into the middle class and the older kids get?

[Anonymous]

My half brothers had a completely different life experience than I did. I was sexually and physically abused by two stepfathers, witnessed substance and ohysical abuse in the house by their father. I raised those boys until they were about 5, when I left home and my mom found their stepfather, a man who was good and whose family raised those little boys. Despite starting with trauma, They had opportunities I would have given anything for.

I was solidly white trash, they were only born into it, and my mom gave them things I wished I had, and still do. But that’s life, isn’t it? They’re doing well now, and I am too from the outside.