Thoughts on grandparents paying private school tuition for one grandchild and not others

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, DCUM is followed by many people who benefit from generational wealth. Read other threads, and you'll see that many of them have received huge gifts from parents to purchase homes, send kids to privates, and go on vacations.

The responses you'll receive here may very well be skewed, because PPs are the recipients of their parents wealth.

Yes, that’s true.

However, it’s often the case that grandparents make a gift of a down payment to ALL of their children. If they’re making education contributions to 529’s they’re funding ALL the grandchildren. Wealthy people have figured this out already. It’s the middle class/upper middle class that end up fixating on CHOICE and how they owe their children nothing and nobody should be offended if they give one grandchild extravagant gifts while ignoring others.

Wealthy people are not this stupid. They fully understand the implications of money and they’re using it as a tool to bond their families together instead of blowing them apart.

[Anonymous]

Things are not equal, yes; whether that is fair or not depends a lot on how you personally define fairness, and upon circumstances that you may or may not be aware of. If you choose to let that blow apart your family relationships, that’s on you.

My values tell me that my relationships are more than the transfer of material goods, services, or cash. How was your relationship with the grandparents besides this? Are you really willing to torch this relationship over this perceived inequity?

Whether you think this is reasonable grounds to alienate your children from their grandparents will say a lot about what your values are.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I see what you mean- I have been pondering this myself. My in-laws watch one set of grandkids and we are pregnant with our first and they have not offered the same to us. Even watching the baby 1 day a week would save us so much money and it hurts that one set of grandkids gets this financial burden lifted off of them and have a loving grandparent to watch this part time. My husband doesn't think things necessarily have to be "fair" but it makes me want to try to be fair across all my future grandkids because it does breed resentment.

Holy crap. These senior citizens are looking after multiple small children and you want to stick a newborn with them too? Because it will save you money?

If you are resenting them then there is something seriously wrong with you. Grow up.

It obviously about fairness... if one set of grandkids gets tons of time with grandparents and the other set is not treated the same, how is that fair? How could that not breed resentment? It is their decision so whatever but for my own future grandkids I will try to be equal because even if it is their right- it does breed resent to have one set cared for while the other set is not care for at all.

NP here. JFC, get over yourself. You want free childcare from your in-laws because they already are watching other grandchildren who ARE ALREADY OUT OF THE WOMB?! Do these parents look like a daycare center? You lost, your husband’s sibling already had kids before you so the daycare is full. People who expect free childcare from grandparents shouldn’t be having kids. You sound ridiculous.

No one said anything about expecting things in fact we waiting because we were saving for childcare while the other sibling went ahead and bullied them into caring for the kids since they could not afford childcare. That is not the point. The point is that I’m sad my kids won’t have as close a relationship with their grandparents because it does leads to inequality when you set a precedent like that. You are already more use to the kids and care for them more- the more you care for something the more you feel for that person. I know this because I was that grand child that was raised with my grandma and I’m absolutely closer to her than the other grandkids. I just think grandparents should be aware of this dynamic going forward and try make things equal if they can or be mindful of the impact.

Oh, now your story's changing. Before you said that you were mad because they weren't going to save you money on childcare. Now it's all about the emotional bond they won't have with their grandparents? In your original post you moaned about the "financial burden" and now it's allllll about grandma time?

You are SO out of line here. Any wedge driven here between your in-laws and your kids will be driven by you and your massive sense of entitlement, not by them. D

Listen to your husband, who seems a lot more reasonable and less spoiled than you are.

One last question -- do you expect them to stop looking after the other sibling's kids? Or are you insane enough to think that a newborn and two small kids are a reasonable burden to dump on two senior citizens? Or do you not care how it happens as long as you get to save that daycare $$?

NP. What seems fair, actually, is that the sibling benefiting from the free grandparent childcare pay some money toward the other sibling's childcare. Why should one sibling get free childcare and the other doesn't, just because they had kids first? That's really weird. Your response, PP above, is ridiculously aggressive. My guess is that you're a sibling that gets the free childcare, and you're scared to lose it.

NP, but this is crazy. Mom is not a shared financial resource. What you "fairness" PP's are missing is the element of grandparent choice involved. They aren't just ATMs that you can assume are broken if they give out more money to one customer than another. My mom provided free childcare to my sister for 7 years. They live near to each other and my sister is a single mom. She doesn't owe me money for daycare, FFS.

Of course, not. That’s not what I’m suggesting at all. However, if all other factors are equal (e.g. no single parent situation) decent, functional human beings work together to create an equitable situation.

I forgot to add, if a grandparent is providing free childcare...they are acting as a financial resource. Without this free service, the recipient of the service would bring paying for these services.

That doesn't make them a SHARED financial resource, owned by their kids (which is what "sibling should reimburse the ones who don't get childcare" means). It's the grandparent's own time to use as they see fit. If they spend it helping a specific kid out with childcare, it doesn't mean they owe all their other kids the same. It also doesn't mean that kid owes their siblings money. (That's legitimately the craziest thing in this crazy thread.) If adult human beings could just accept that they aren't owed anything by their parents in the first place, maybe they could stop tracking how much extra they believe their parents owe them now since they had the temerity to spend their time/money/effort on anything but you or your kids.

There are variations of this trope on pretty much half the threads in this family forum. Pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: grandparents don't owe their kids anything. Grandparents get to spend their money and time any way they see fit.

However, like I said in my earlier response, decent people make things fair when all the other variables are the same. If grandparents have made the choice to provide a free, and typically very expensive, service to one member of the family why would all parties involved not share this? Your very intense response tells me you have a personal stake in this issue. Are you mooching off your parents or inlaws?

I literally said that my sister got free childcare and that does not mean that she owes me money, and you're trying to pivot to "you must be the mooch!" The fact that you cannot conceive that there exist people who don't look at everything our parents do from the perspective of "how is this affecting the money I am owed upon their death" is deeply gross. If you're going to be mad at your parents for anything, it should be for raising you to not know how to be a decent sibling, aunt/uncle, or child.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I see what you mean- I have been pondering this myself. My in-laws watch one set of grandkids and we are pregnant with our first and they have not offered the same to us. Even watching the baby 1 day a week would save us so much money and it hurts that one set of grandkids gets this financial burden lifted off of them and have a loving grandparent to watch this part time. My husband doesn't think things necessarily have to be "fair" but it makes me want to try to be fair across all my future grandkids because it does breed resentment.

Holy crap. These senior citizens are looking after multiple small children and you want to stick a newborn with them too? Because it will save you money?

If you are resenting them then there is something seriously wrong with you. Grow up.

It obviously about fairness... if one set of grandkids gets tons of time with grandparents and the other set is not treated the same, how is that fair? How could that not breed resentment? It is their decision so whatever but for my own future grandkids I will try to be equal because even if it is their right- it does breed resent to have one set cared for while the other set is not care for at all.

NP here. JFC, get over yourself. You want free childcare from your in-laws because they already are watching other grandchildren who ARE ALREADY OUT OF THE WOMB?! Do these parents look like a daycare center? You lost, your husband’s sibling already had kids before you so the daycare is full. People who expect free childcare from grandparents shouldn’t be having kids. You sound ridiculous.

No one said anything about expecting things in fact we waiting because we were saving for childcare while the other sibling went ahead and bullied them into caring for the kids since they could not afford childcare. That is not the point. The point is that I’m sad my kids won’t have as close a relationship with their grandparents because it does leads to inequality when you set a precedent like that. You are already more use to the kids and care for them more- the more you care for something the more you feel for that person. I know this because I was that grand child that was raised with my grandma and I’m absolutely closer to her than the other grandkids. I just think grandparents should be aware of this dynamic going forward and try make things equal if they can or be mindful of the impact.

Oh, now your story's changing. Before you said that you were mad because they weren't going to save you money on childcare. Now it's all about the emotional bond they won't have with their grandparents? In your original post you moaned about the "financial burden" and now it's allllll about grandma time?

You are SO out of line here. Any wedge driven here between your in-laws and your kids will be driven by you and your massive sense of entitlement, not by them. D

Listen to your husband, who seems a lot more reasonable and less spoiled than you are.

One last question -- do you expect them to stop looking after the other sibling's kids? Or are you insane enough to think that a newborn and two small kids are a reasonable burden to dump on two senior citizens? Or do you not care how it happens as long as you get to save that daycare $$?

NP. What seems fair, actually, is that the sibling benefiting from the free grandparent childcare pay some money toward the other sibling's childcare. Why should one sibling get free childcare and the other doesn't, just because they had kids first? That's really weird. Your response, PP above, is ridiculously aggressive. My guess is that you're a sibling that gets the free childcare, and you're scared to lose it.

NP, but this is crazy. Mom is not a shared financial resource. What you "fairness" PP's are missing is the element of grandparent choice involved. They aren't just ATMs that you can assume are broken if they give out more money to one customer than another. My mom provided free childcare to my sister for 7 years. They live near to each other and my sister is a single mom. She doesn't owe me money for daycare, FFS.

Of course, not. That’s not what I’m suggesting at all. However, if all other factors are equal (e.g. no single parent situation) decent, functional human beings work together to create an equitable situation.

I forgot to add, if a grandparent is providing free childcare...they are acting as a financial resource. Without this free service, the recipient of the service would bring paying for these services.

That doesn't make them a SHARED financial resource, owned by their kids (which is what "sibling should reimburse the ones who don't get childcare" means). It's the grandparent's own time to use as they see fit. If they spend it helping a specific kid out with childcare, it doesn't mean they owe all their other kids the same. It also doesn't mean that kid owes their siblings money. (That's legitimately the craziest thing in this crazy thread.) If adult human beings could just accept that they aren't owed anything by their parents in the first place, maybe they could stop tracking how much extra they believe their parents owe them now since they had the temerity to spend their time/money/effort on anything but you or your kids.

There are variations of this trope on pretty much half the threads in this family forum. Pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: grandparents don't owe their kids anything. Grandparents get to spend their money and time any way they see fit.

However, like I said in my earlier response, decent people make things fair when all the other variables are the same. If grandparents have made the choice to provide a free, and typically very expensive, service to one member of the family why would all parties involved not share this? Your very intense response tells me you have a personal stake in this issue. Are you mooching off your parents or inlaws?

DP

Because all these parties are not “involved.” It’s not anyone’s business but the grandparents. Thinking other adult children are “involved” means that those adults think they are entitled to their parents’ money/time/energy. Why do you think that?

How does it not become everyone’s business when everyone knows? People are all free to do what they want...including judge and infer. You can’t have it both ways.

People will always judge but that doesn’t mean they get a share - of the choice, of the money, of any of it. Don’t you tell your kids that fair doesn’t mean equal? Or do you treat them all exactly the same regardless of what they actually need?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Things are not equal, yes; whether that is fair or not depends a lot on how you personally define fairness, and upon circumstances that you may or may not be aware of. If you choose to let that blow apart your family relationships, that’s on you.

My values tell me that my relationships are more than the transfer of material goods, services, or cash. How was your relationship with the grandparents besides this? Are you really willing to torch this relationship over this perceived inequity?

Whether you think this is reasonable grounds to alienate your children from their grandparents will say a lot about what your values are.

Sure, this is something that a disfavored child can overcome. I never said otherwise. They can draw upon resilience and set boundaries so as to not let resentment build up. I never said that was impossible.

The difference is that these grandparents are not using their financial assets as tool to build family unity, rather as something that their (unflavored) children have to overcome. The wealthy understand that this is a stupid approach. Everyone in the family is better off when you can work together to build wealth and (equitably) pass it on to the next generation.

The middle class’ lack of emotional and financial literacy towards generational wealth is yet another reason why they can never catch up. The wealthy aren’t as naive.

[Anonymous]

Either get aggressive too or your sister is going to get EVERYTHING in the estate. I've seen it happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, DCUM is followed by many people who benefit from generational wealth. Read other threads, and you'll see that many of them have received huge gifts from parents to purchase homes, send kids to privates, and go on vacations.

The responses you'll receive here may very well be skewed, because PPs are the recipients of their parents wealth.

Yes, that’s true.

However, it’s often the case that grandparents make a gift of a down payment to ALL of their children. If they’re making education contributions to 529’s they’re funding ALL the grandchildren. Wealthy people have figured this out already. It’s the middle class/upper middle class that end up fixating on CHOICE and how they owe their children nothing and nobody should be offended if they give one grandchild extravagant gifts while ignoring others.

Wealthy people are not this stupid. They fully understand the implications of money and they’re using it as a tool to bond their families together instead of blowing them apart.

Ummm, no. You are giving the wealthy too much credit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I see what you mean- I have been pondering this myself. My in-laws watch one set of grandkids and we are pregnant with our first and they have not offered the same to us. Even watching the baby 1 day a week would save us so much money and it hurts that one set of grandkids gets this financial burden lifted off of them and have a loving grandparent to watch this part time. My husband doesn't think things necessarily have to be "fair" but it makes me want to try to be fair across all my future grandkids because it does breed resentment.

Holy crap. These senior citizens are looking after multiple small children and you want to stick a newborn with them too? Because it will save you money?

If you are resenting them then there is something seriously wrong with you. Grow up.

It obviously about fairness... if one set of grandkids gets tons of time with grandparents and the other set is not treated the same, how is that fair? How could that not breed resentment? It is their decision so whatever but for my own future grandkids I will try to be equal because even if it is their right- it does breed resent to have one set cared for while the other set is not care for at all.

NP here. JFC, get over yourself. You want free childcare from your in-laws because they already are watching other grandchildren who ARE ALREADY OUT OF THE WOMB?! Do these parents look like a daycare center? You lost, your husband’s sibling already had kids before you so the daycare is full. People who expect free childcare from grandparents shouldn’t be having kids. You sound ridiculous.

No one said anything about expecting things in fact we waiting because we were saving for childcare while the other sibling went ahead and bullied them into caring for the kids since they could not afford childcare. That is not the point. The point is that I’m sad my kids won’t have as close a relationship with their grandparents because it does leads to inequality when you set a precedent like that. You are already more use to the kids and care for them more- the more you care for something the more you feel for that person. I know this because I was that grand child that was raised with my grandma and I’m absolutely closer to her than the other grandkids. I just think grandparents should be aware of this dynamic going forward and try make things equal if they can or be mindful of the impact.

Oh, now your story's changing. Before you said that you were mad because they weren't going to save you money on childcare. Now it's all about the emotional bond they won't have with their grandparents? In your original post you moaned about the "financial burden" and now it's allllll about grandma time?

You are SO out of line here. Any wedge driven here between your in-laws and your kids will be driven by you and your massive sense of entitlement, not by them. D

Listen to your husband, who seems a lot more reasonable and less spoiled than you are.

One last question -- do you expect them to stop looking after the other sibling's kids? Or are you insane enough to think that a newborn and two small kids are a reasonable burden to dump on two senior citizens? Or do you not care how it happens as long as you get to save that daycare $$?

NP. What seems fair, actually, is that the sibling benefiting from the free grandparent childcare pay some money toward the other sibling's childcare. Why should one sibling get free childcare and the other doesn't, just because they had kids first? That's really weird. Your response, PP above, is ridiculously aggressive. My guess is that you're a sibling that gets the free childcare, and you're scared to lose it.

NP, but this is crazy. Mom is not a shared financial resource. What you "fairness" PP's are missing is the element of grandparent choice involved. They aren't just ATMs that you can assume are broken if they give out more money to one customer than another. My mom provided free childcare to my sister for 7 years. They live near to each other and my sister is a single mom. She doesn't owe me money for daycare, FFS.

Of course, not. That’s not what I’m suggesting at all. However, if all other factors are equal (e.g. no single parent situation) decent, functional human beings work together to create an equitable situation.

I forgot to add, if a grandparent is providing free childcare...they are acting as a financial resource. Without this free service, the recipient of the service would bring paying for these services.

That doesn't make them a SHARED financial resource, owned by their kids (which is what "sibling should reimburse the ones who don't get childcare" means). It's the grandparent's own time to use as they see fit. If they spend it helping a specific kid out with childcare, it doesn't mean they owe all their other kids the same. It also doesn't mean that kid owes their siblings money. (That's legitimately the craziest thing in this crazy thread.) If adult human beings could just accept that they aren't owed anything by their parents in the first place, maybe they could stop tracking how much extra they believe their parents owe them now since they had the temerity to spend their time/money/effort on anything but you or your kids.

There are variations of this trope on pretty much half the threads in this family forum. Pretty much everyone agrees on one thing: grandparents don't owe their kids anything. Grandparents get to spend their money and time any way they see fit.

However, like I said in my earlier response, decent people make things fair when all the other variables are the same. If grandparents have made the choice to provide a free, and typically very expensive, service to one member of the family why would all parties involved not share this? Your very intense response tells me you have a personal stake in this issue. Are you mooching off your parents or inlaws?

I literally said that my sister got free childcare and that does not mean that she owes me money, and you're trying to pivot to "you must be the mooch!" The fact that you cannot conceive that there exist people who don't look at everything our parents do from the perspective of "how is this affecting the money I am owed upon their death" is deeply gross. If you're going to be mad at your parents for anything, it should be for raising you to not know how to be a decent sibling, aunt/uncle, or child.

I’ve said this is about making the choice to gift something to one person and not the other child, all variables being the same. This isn’t about the gift, it’s about the choice. It’s sad you feel the need to attack me personally because I disagree with you. Says more about you, than me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have three married children, all with kids, and we do our very best to be fair but it's not always equal. For every grandchild we set up 529's with the same amount of money and we gift each family the same amount of money at Christmas. That money can be used for private schools, savings, whatever. But, they have each had specific needs that we have been able to help them with. Bridge loans, IVF treatments etc. All three have benefited from it but the dollars aren't the same. We have told them that over time we will do our best to be fair but that we are not going to keep a tab running to make sure it's all equal. There is no doubt that if one of them was to lose a job or have a SN child we would throw equal out the window and they are all mature enough to accept it.

My kids are only teens, but they know this is how we are going handle financial gifts - we will try to be equal. Regardless of their personal life choices, the future doctor will get the same as the future yoga instructor. The more independent, competent child should NOT be penalized because her sibling is less ambitious, hard working.

Their inheritance is a gift of our love, unconditional and equal- it's important they feel this throughout their lives, not just as children.

And regardless if they care or not, we want to be fair in case it does breed resentment. I want my kids to be close, not drive a wedge between them with MY actions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have three married children, all with kids, and we do our very best to be fair but it's not always equal. For every grandchild we set up 529's with the same amount of money and we gift each family the same amount of money at Christmas. That money can be used for private schools, savings, whatever. But, they have each had specific needs that we have been able to help them with. Bridge loans, IVF treatments etc. All three have benefited from it but the dollars aren't the same. We have told them that over time we will do our best to be fair but that we are not going to keep a tab running to make sure it's all equal. There is no doubt that if one of them was to lose a job or have a SN child we would throw equal out the window and they are all mature enough to accept it.

My kids are only teens, but they know this is how we are going handle financial gifts - we will try to be equal. Regardless of their personal life choices, the future doctor will get the same as the future yoga instructor. The more independent, competent child should NOT be penalized because her sibling is less ambitious, hard working.

Their inheritance is a gift of our love, unconditional and equal- it's important they feel this throughout their lives, not just as children.

And regardless if they care or not, we want to be fair in case it does breed resentment. I want my kids to be close, not drive a wedge between them with MY actions.

I talked to my husband about this and I think I want to have a certain dollar amount set aside for each child. For example say it’s 250k- the Doctor child can use that for Med school if they want whereas the yoga teacher who did not need to go to grad school can have that money to start a business or a down payment. I think this is more fair as the Med student tuition will cost me more and the yoga teacher didn’t get that pay out.

[Anonymous]

My parents have always doted on our youngest son (13), they're indifferent but nice to oldest son (17), and clearly sort of despise our two daughters (19 and 22). No divorce or anything odd behavior wise in my kids. They recently offered to pay for 13-yo son's boarding school -- their totally random brainstorm.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents have always doted on our youngest son (13), they're indifferent but nice to oldest son (17), and clearly sort of despise our two daughters (19 and 22). No divorce or anything odd behavior wise in my kids. They recently offered to pay for 13-yo son's boarding school -- their totally random brainstorm.

You decline and tell them the kids get upset when they play favorites and help with college would be better.