Reply to My Parents are considering leaving our inheritance to charity

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "My Parents are considering leaving our inheritance to charity"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't feel entitled, but I would be upset. [/quote]

Why would this upset you if you didn't feel entitled to it? Seems to me the appropriate response would be to take pride that your parents were going to help others.[/quote]
It doesn't seem that complicated to me. I acknowledge my parents' right to do as they please; I'd never contest it. Yet, I have every right to feel however I feel about whatever.

It does not seem normal to me that my parents' charity would start that far from home. I might feel different if we were wealthy. Unfortunately, no trust funds here. So whatever few bucks we manage to save should go to family. I'm fine with the idea of leaving money to grandkids. But not strangers, no.[/quote]

Ok, so you think you have every right to feel however. Just acknowledge you also feel entitled to their money. You don't get to say "I don't feel entitled, but I would be upset." Because, you DO feel entitled, which is why you're upset.

That's legitimate. Just let's not pretend like you don't feel entitled. [/quote]

+1.

There is nothing wrong with feeling upset.  However, you don't feel upset unless you feel entitled.  You think of their money as your inheritance.  Your inheritance doesn't exist unless they die and will it you their money.  Until they die, you have no inheritance.  It's their money to do with as they please.  If you don't feel entitled, you would be happy that they were using their money to help people as opposed to just squandering it away.  Think of this way:  if you have a choice, would you prefer that they spent it away lavishly enjoying themselves, like cruises around the world, trips to casinos, hosting large dinner events for friends, etc so that there was no money left, or would you rather they leave money to charity.  If you considered that you would never get the money, what would you prefer they do with it?  That's the attitude that you have if you did not feel entitled to the money.  Another way to think, if they were not your parents, but were a wealthy childless couple, what would you expect them to do with their money?  That's the non-entitled perspective.

[b]If you are upset because you are not getting "your inheritance" then you feel entitled to that money.  [/b]You feel that you deserve to get that money.  It doesn't matter if you feel that you deserve it to care for their grandchildren, if you feel that you deserve it as their child, or for whatever reason, you are entitled.  You can't hold the lofty opinion that you don't feel entitled and then feel upset that they chose to do something positive with their money like donate to charity.

I don't think there is anything wrong with you feeling upset or feeling cheated by your parents' decision.  But you feel entitled to their money.  I do too.  I just acknowledge that I feel entitled.  And why do I feel entitled?  That's the way I was raised BY THEM.  They made the point that family was the most important, that having and caring for children and grandchildren is a priority.  My parents have told me explicitly that they will use some of they money to help my kids pay for college.  They have financially helped my siblings and I regularly throughout our childhood and adulthood.  If they opted to give their money to charity, I would be happy that they did something good but I would feel cheated because of what they told me they would do.  [/quote]

Not necessarily. The parents are using the money to send a signal to her brother that he isn't good enough to be trusted with money.  It's a very harsh judgment from a set of parents.  Somehow they have decided that OP shouldn't get the money either, and there is a possible judgment hidden in that as well.   That's upsetting regardless of entitlement or not. [/quote]

Nonsense.  It's clear that OP isn't upset because she thinks her parents are judging her.  She is upset because she isn't going to get the money that she thinks she's entitled to.  She made it pretty clear in her post that her parents' reasoning is that they don't think it would be fair to favor one child over the other and leave one the money and not the other.  That's pretty reasonable.  And I actually think they are to be commended for reaching that conclusion.

I also don't think it's that they don't "trust" either adult child with money.  It's possibly more that they don't want either adult child to live their life with the expectation that there's a windfall coming.  And it's pretty clear that they're probably correct in that judgment, as it sounds like OP was *expecting* that money.  Maybe they don't want either child to expect an inheritance.  So if there is some judgment of OP, it's probably justified (at least given OP's outrage enough to post on a forum).[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics