Reply to What do parents "owe" their adult children?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Ugh.  Family money can be so divisive.

My mother died recently.  On the heels of that, during discussions about the eventual selling of my mother's house, my sister told me about anger my brother has harbored over the years in regard to perceived disparities in financial support and gifts given by my parents. For example, he thought that my parents paid for my honeymoon (in reality they didn't pay a penny, nor did I ever ask them to, nor would I have accepted money if they had offered).  They gave money to a grandchild to pay for college expenses, but my brother doesn't have kids to level the playing field, so he sees that as unfair.  They let my sister move in with them during a nasty divorce process, etc.  My brother targeted my elderly mother for a "real estate investment opportunity" (aka buying him a house) to even things up, but [b]fortunately my sister caught wind of it and derailed the plan[/b].  Knowing this has unfortunately made me see my brother in an unflattering light, which saddens me.

IMO if an adult child is in fairly desperate need of, say, $50000 and a parent can help them, good for them.  That does NOT mean that those parents should tap themselves out by giving the other 3 children $50k each just so everything is "fair".  Parents tend to give what their children need when they need it, whether that need is financial, emotional, childcare related, etc.

Your friends should just be thankful that they haven't been in a desperate situation where they need money from their parents and that they aren't the ones being hit up for money by their siblings.  They need to grow up already and stop treating their parents like ATM machines.

[/quote] What if your brother had derailed the plan to give to a grandchild's college fund or let the sister move in?  Why shouldn't your parent have bought your brother a house if that's what she wanted to do?

I can see why your brother is aggravated.  I am one of 3.  My parents paid for post high school education for both my brother but not me because I didn't need it.  I am still paying off the loans and my brothers are debt free.  Both have nicer houses and nicer cars.  Yeah, I do resent my parents for that.[/quote]

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