Reply to How to say this nicely & succinctly to my brother

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=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?[/quote]

It seems you are the one keeping score. Maybe you could suggest no presents for adults? [/quote]

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