Is it wrong to subsidize lower earning children?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i think you should treat all children equally.

100%

[Anonymous]

You are giving your must successful kid the least.

Unless you are tight on money, pay for all of them.

It is a family event.

[Anonymous]

There is room to help later if kids are married, divorced, have their own kids. Maybe you pay for summer camp or help babysit or whatever you do quietly. But, with 3 twenty-something not married kids you need to treat equally. Maybe the 29 year old is saving for a house or grad school and now she is treated unfairly because she makes more money? That is a recipe for some serious strain in the family dynamics.

[Anonymous]

Why world you share that information. How did you think that was going to work out. Were you attempting to humiliate the low earners and anger the high earner. Somethings are better left unsaid.

[Anonymous]

One, the siblings without as much money could be teachers. Would you shame them for “not making more” if they were doing the great work of teaching?

Two, of you are strapped for money and paying for all three would be a burden, you should have explained that - “would you mind if I payed for the flights for x and y, in addition to housing for all of you? I’m concerned we won’t be able to be togther as a family if we dont help them with their flights.” I have been that sibling and totally understood.

[Anonymous]

A better solution would have been to ask all three kids to contribute some amount to their tickets, maybe $200. The oldest might have offered to pay for her own ticket.

[Anonymous]

We just have lots of money.

Like just say we keep 1m in our bank account at any given time. I know people say that's stupid because of FDIC insurance but do you think under this administration people are going to be penalized because of "too many deposits"

I own half of it since he earned it during our 39 35 year marriage and we're in CA

There's more.

We just both choose to give it to our kids. Over time. My job is to stay alive (I've got a little cancer) and if I died their whole inheritance would go to his girlfriend if they got married.

I think she would literally kill him to get it all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have three 20 something kids and two of them work low paying jobs while one is more established and successful. I think she makes 250k at 29. We are having a family reunion in another continent and I told her that I’ll be paying for her siblings (25 and 27) flights (because they wouldn’t be able to afford it otherwise) but want her to pay for her own ticket because she can easily afford it. Well, yesterday we were discussing the trip and my daughter said she is deciding not to go because she’s busy with work. Usually she always travels with us so I’m not sure if she’s angry that I asked her to pay for her own airfare. It would cost around $1500. Was I wrong to do this?

You are wrong if you can afford to pay for all their tickets. Not just some people’s. $1500 flight is $3000 pretax gross salary in big cities.

Don’t start this precedent of rewarding low earners and unambiguous people. Or perhaps you already ingrained that and now you see the results of it.

[Anonymous]

I’d go over the state of the wills/trusts with the three children and reiterate that everything is to be divided equally amongst the three adult children.

Nip any family harmony issues in the bud right now.

And stand by it.

Most families, barring obvious handicapped offspring, are per stirpes and split equally.

[Anonymous]

The attitudes on here seem to bear out the aphorism "to those that have, more is given."

If you really want to be fair, give each child some money based on their relative salaries. So if you give your high earning child $200 towards the ticket, and the other children make 1/5 of what she makes, then give them each $1,000. Then each will have what they need. It's dumb to give someone rich the same amount as someone who is poor. The poor need it more. And as has been pointed out many times, poor doesn't mean lazy. Grad school, lower paying but noble professions, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It depends. If you are overall wealthier than your daughter, you should pay. However, you should also just accept that maybe she really does have to work. Getting paid that much at a young age comes with strings attached.

The bigger problem is why the younger two don't make much. Focus your concerns on that. Subsidizing them in any significant way can lead to dependence. Why don't you just plan something everyone can easily afford?

NP-op says it's a family reunion. It's tough when you have family abroad because it's a huge money sucker just with plane tickets alone and it's not even a "fun" trip, so asking young people to prioritize it is a lot.

True.
Working adults don’t want to burn through a third of their vacation days and tons of money to go Kiss the Ring at grandmothers homeland and do nothing much. That’s difficult to do during high school given how busy teens can be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why world you share that information. How did you think that was going to work out. Were you attempting to humiliate the low earners and anger the high earner. Somethings are better left unsaid.

Prob because they all have the same damn flight in the same hometown since Mommy bought them all except one kid’s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The attitudes on here seem to bear out the aphorism "to those that have, more is given."

If you really want to be fair, give each child some money based on their relative salaries. So if you give your high earning child $200 towards the ticket, and the other children make 1/5 of what she makes, then give them each $1,000. Then each will have what they need. It's dumb to give someone rich the same amount as someone who is poor. The poor need it more. And as has been pointed out many times, poor doesn't mean lazy. Grad school, lower paying but noble professions, etc.

Wrong.

Slackers love that progressive BS you listed above.

Get paid for not doing much. Oooh, and a formula!! Def don’t make over $42k gross or you loose your welfare benies too! Plus mommy allowance. Poor poor me. My low pressure check the box job.

[Anonymous]

“Noble professions”. Lol. In most circles that is code for “avoiding real life.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The attitudes on here seem to bear out the aphorism "to those that have, more is given."

If you really want to be fair, give each child some money based on their relative salaries. So if you give your high earning child $200 towards the ticket, and the other children make 1/5 of what she makes, then give them each $1,000. Then each will have what they need. It's dumb to give someone rich the same amount as someone who is poor. The poor need it more. And as has been pointed out many times, poor doesn't mean lazy. Grad school, lower paying but noble professions, etc.

If you state that made-up definition of fair you incentivize poor decisions and behavior. You know that. You create dependency too.