How to say this nicely & succinctly to my brother

[Anonymous]

My DB got married a couple years ago, he and his wife are both in their 40s, they make very good incomes with very good retirement benefits. SIL was raised by a single mom with modest means who now lives with one of her sons, my parents are much wealthier. I guess because they have money, and because my sibs and I all do pretty well, they don't bat an eye at asking for more expensive birthday gifts, such as a new phone or computer, but they only ask when their existing one is dying or broken, they are by no means extravagant.

Cutting to the chase, my mom's been needing a new laptop for a while and I suggested to my two sibs that they split the cost of one while I get a separate, more expensive gift. They said okay at first, but now DB is complaining that it's "inequitable" because he and SIL never spend this much on SIL's mom.

DB is his own person and can choose how much to spend on gifts. But my parents have noticed that he's become cheaper about gifts since he got married, they can guess why, and it's upsetting to them, which is causing tension in our family. My parents are reasonable in their gift requests, they know DB can afford them, plus, they've given him over $200K (most of it down payment) in the last few years. They're wondering, after all we've done for you, you're going to balk over buying us the occasional nice gift? I know this is coming from DB and not SIL (or her mom). I also disagree with his inequity point; there's no way to balance things perfectly between the two sides of the family, every family is different etc. etc. I also think he takes for granted what a huge gift it is from our parents to us that they are and will be financially independent for the rest of their lives. Buying them the gifts they want is a fraction of what we would have to spend if we had to support them. By the way, I'm not saying that conversely, they shouldn't do anything for SIL's mom; it sounds like she's done a lot for her kids and deserves to be given nice things, too.

Sorry for the treatise. Anyway, how do I nicely and convincingly tell DB that he should be more generous to my parents irrespective of what he does for SIL's mom?

[Anonymous]

You don't.

[Anonymous]

MYOB

[Anonymous]

You give the gifts you want to give your parents and you stay out of your brother's relationship with your parents. This is not your issue to manage. If your parents bring it up, you shrug and move on.

Maybe others would disagree, but I think your family is the outlier in terms of the expense of your gifts to each other.

[Anonymous]

yikes op. i hope this is fake.

[Anonymous]

You really need to myob.

The only people in the wrong in this scenario are you and your parents.

[Anonymous]

So, you told your mom that your brother wouldn't cough up the dough for the expensive thing she wanted?

Are your parents planning on treating your brother differently if his gifts to them aren't expensive?

Can your brother and SIL afford to give equally expensive gifts to your parents and hers? If they can't, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for them to always give a cheaper gift to the MIL.

As a 3rd party observer, it is clear as day that your brother and his wife should give what they're comfortable with, and your parents shouldn't be such jerks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You give the gifts you want to give your parents and you stay out of your brother's relationship with your parents. This is not your issue to manage. If your parents bring it up, you shrug and move on.

Maybe others would disagree, but I think your family is the outlier in terms of the expense of your gifts to each other.

OP here. My parents are immigrants and in their culture, it’s typical for the adult children to lavish the parents with expensive gifts that the parents need, such as a new dishwasher to replace one that’s broken, and also to give the parents a monthly allowance. SIL is from the same culture. My sibs don’t do this because my parents are so well-off, which is why I don’t think it should be such a big deal to occasionally give them a nice expensive gift.

DB texted me to complain about the inequity earlier today but everyone is saying MYOB. So should I not respond or just say smth along the lines of you do you?

[Anonymous]

You don't convince. He is a married adult. They decide. Not you. If your parents have an issue with it, they can bring it up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So, you told your mom that your brother wouldn't cough up the dough for the expensive thing she wanted?

Are your parents planning on treating your brother differently if his gifts to them aren't expensive?

Can your brother and SIL afford to give equally expensive gifts to your parents and hers? If they can't, it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for them to always give a cheaper gift to the MIL.

As a 3rd party observer, it is clear as day that your brother and his wife should give what they're comfortable with, and your parents shouldn't be such jerks.

OP again. I didn’t tell my parents about what DB said.

The irony is that even though DB is the cheapest of us three (though not the poorest), he’s also gotten the most from my parents. So no, giving cheaper gifts won’t affect how many parents treat him financially, but possibly in other ways since it will make their relationship worse.

[Anonymous]

You are way too involved in this. MYOB. And this is why some people prefer not to mix money and family, and to stay away from expensive gifts in general.

If you all have plenty of money, it's unclear to me why your parents care so much about how much each family is spending on each parent's gift. Maybe they need to just let it go and stop thinking about it. What's the big deal? Maybe your brother just isn't as materialistic as the rest of you.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I have a similar dynamic. Birthdays are big celebrations in his family with expensive presents and my family doesn’t really celebrate them except for children. When we first got married, I thought it was really weird that the kids all bought the parents expensive gifts. His parents would buy both of us gifts, but they were not extravagant. My husband and I have also never bought each other birthday gifts, so it stood out as an anomaly in our general attitude toward gifts. If one of his siblings organizes a group gift, we will go in on it, but it always irritates me a little. We all have money and can pretty much buy what we want within reason. It’s a strange circulation of money for us to buy my FIL expensive headphones and them to buy us an expensive roasting pan, for example. Why don’t we all just buy our own stuff and send a card at birthdays?

Maybe this is the kind of family your SIL comes from. Maybe she will adjust to your gift giving tendencies or maybe you will see some wisdom in hers.

[Anonymous]

Op here - forgot to say that DB and SIL can afford to give equally expensive gifts to her mom. One issue is that they always claim to be cash strapped, they are saving up for a house or something or another. But it’s ultimately about their priorities.

[Anonymous]

Wow. MYOB

[Anonymous]

If I married into your family I would absolutely loathe this dynamic. Constant pressure for some arbitrary notion of "equality" (equal dollar amounts I guess?) from people who already have everything they could possibly need. Constant pressure to think of the "right" gift and to negotiate and coordinate with siblings. Ugh ugh ugh. Can we not just enjoy being together and exchange novels and bottles of Scotch?