DISCUSS: Okay for parent to open bank account for child without consulting spouse?

[Anonymous]

My spouse decided to open a bank account for our child who's 7 years old. It was done without any discussion with me. Thoughts on if this is okay or not.

[Anonymous]

Yes of course. If you're married, each parent has 100% rights at all times, not 50/50

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes of course. If you're married, each parent has 100% rights at all times, not 50/50

That makes no sense. I assume you didn't take math in school? How can each parent have 100%? That equals 200% which doesn't exist. 100% means one parents makes the decisions. 50/50% means both parents make decisions. Just pointing out your math is incorrect.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: My spouse decided to open a bank account for our child who's 7 years old. It was done without any discussion with me. Thoughts on if this is okay or not.

I don’t think it is a big deal. Many kids have bank accounts, including my own, and I don’t ever recall discussing it. The amount of funds isn’t huge.

[Anonymous]

It wouldn’t even occur to me to consult with my spouse over something like this. And frankly I’d be really happy if my spouse did it without involving me because it would be one less thing on my plate. Seems a strange thing to be upset about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: My spouse decided to open a bank account for our child who's 7 years old. It was done without any discussion with me. Thoughts on if this is okay or not.

I don’t think it is a big deal. Many kids have bank accounts, including my own, and I don’t ever recall discussing it. The amount of funds isn’t huge.

I don't think that's the point of the OP's post. It's about if both parents should have known about the bank account. It seems the account was opened without the knowledge of both parents. To be, that's not right. Both parents should be aware of anything financial.

[Anonymous]

I don't think it's a big deal but I can't imagine it never coming up. Like I would at least be..."Hey honey, I'm going to open a bank account for the kid next week, so he has a place to put his money." and she'd be like..."OK". I don't think it would be a big deal if I didn't say that...I just can't really imagine NOT saying that. I think that's where you issue is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: My spouse decided to open a bank account for our child who's 7 years old. It was done without any discussion with me. Thoughts on if this is okay or not.

Depends...
How’d you find out?
If spouse came home and said, “Hey honey I opened up an savings account for Larla today”, it’d warrant some discussion since you weren’t involved in the decision-making process but not a big deal since they were forthcoming. Now if you’re sorting thru the mail and see a bank statement with Larla’s name and see that it’s for an account opened six months ago and you were none the wiser that’s not cool.

[Anonymous]

All decisions for children should be discussed with both parents. Camps, school, money, etc. If I signed up my kids for a camp without telling my spouse...that wouldn't go over well. It's just respect. Even if it's just an FYI. The people saying it's no big deal are not thinking straight. You don't open a bank account without telling your spouse. That's fishy.

[Anonymous]

How did you find out?

[Anonymous]

Does the spouse deal with the family finances? I intend to open an account for my ds. When I do, I intend to tell dh about it, and hopefully that conversation will happen before the fact, but I could easily see it happening afterwards. I don’t understand the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All decisions for children should be discussed with both parents. Camps, school, money, etc. If I signed up my kids for a camp without telling my spouse...that wouldn't go over well. It's just respect. Even if it's just an FYI. The people saying it's no big deal are not thinking straight. You don't open a bank account without telling your spouse. That's fishy.

Give me a break. My DH has absolutely no interest in knowing what camps the kids go to. If you discuss that level of detail with your spouse that’s fine, but it certainly isn’t the norm in our circle of friends. If we discussed the minutiae of the kids’ activities we would have no time to discuss anything else.

[Anonymous]

I’d have no problem with this bus see absolutely no downside so don’t even understand the issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All decisions for children should be discussed with both parents. Camps, school, money, etc. If I signed up my kids for a camp without telling my spouse...that wouldn't go over well. It's just respect. Even if it's just an FYI. The people saying it's no big deal are not thinking straight. You don't open a bank account without telling your spouse. That's fishy.

Give me a break. My DH has absolutely no interest in knowing what camps the kids go to. If you discuss that level of detail with your spouse that’s fine, but it certainly isn’t the norm in our circle of friends. If we discussed the minutiae of the kids’ activities we would have no time to discuss anything else.

Exactly. I can’t imagine having discussions about camps. Heck I’m not sure we even talk about what schools our kids are going to go to.

[Anonymous]

Why are you upset? Did you want to be the one to do it? This is like being upset your spouse signed your kid up for swim lessons without asking you first. It doesn’t make sense unless there’s some (unrelated) underlying issue. What are you really mad about?