Anonymous wrote:My cousin has two age sets of kids (separated by a decade). She couldn’t afford to pay for the older three but can do so for the younger two. It makes zero sense for her to not pay for the caboose kids simply because she couldn’t for the elder three. That’s a way to build resentment.

Anonymous wrote:My kids aren't graduated yet, but some of my friends kids are. Some kids just do better paying for it themselves. One family I know started out paying, then quit and almost instantly the kid started taking life much more seriously. Some just need that responsibility factor. Maybe the parents plan to give the other kids money Some other way. Maybe the youngest is just a better investment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unlikely the “investing” stops with college. They’ll pay for her wedding and try to help her with a down payment on a house too. Parents (and grandparents) with fluid values and belief systems that change depending on the favored children are rotten. And they will never admit they favor one over the other. They always have some backwards ass excuse or perceived slights to rationalize it. It’s not worth your breath calling them out because they’ll refuse to admit how cruel it is.

+1 This is how my parents are. It created a really dysfunctional dynamic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Happened to my husband. Parents couldn't afford Boy Scouts for him, but paid for Girl Scouts for his sister. They didn't have time to take him to travel soccer games or practices, but they could take his brother to all his travel music recitals. They paid for 100% of brother and sister's college educations. They even gave sister an allowance through college so she didn't have to work, and they bought her a car.

The dynamic continues now in our 40's and 50's. They buy daughter and her teenager new phones and laptops every couple of years. Bought her a new car a few years ago. Subsidize her rent. (Mind you, she has a professional job.)

DH worked his way up in a government job with only a HS education, but makes more than his sister. I've got a decent government job. We were a 1 car family for years to save money, I cut my own hair, we have a 15 year old car and only replace our phones when they're obsolete or dead. For many reasons, we don't have much in the way of assets but we have pensions. One thing we splurge on is travel because I have family abroad and we live to take our child there.

Despite not getting any family support, my DH is the one who they call to drive them to health appointments c fix his dad's car, do jobs around their apartments (they're divorced now) and we are expected to host the extended family for holidays (we have the only house that's central to both parents). DH does all the heavy lifting of elder care,

So recently DH was told that he and his brother were being taken out of MIL's will because neither he nor his brother really need the money but his sister does. FIL's will all goes to MIL (they're divorced, but they agreed she would inherit his assets if he does first.) so essentially DH is cut out of both wills. His brother is legitimately quite wealthy in a field that they financially supported his whole young adulthood. But we're far from wealthy. Their evidence that we don't need the money is that we travel every year and own a home. SIL still rents and seems to spend everything she has (and I'm being judgmental here anonymously, but she spends it on stuff like daily Starbucks for her and her child...which adds up to as much as I spend in airfare, the evidence they have that we don't need money.)

We're not talking about life changing money. It might be $10,000 or $15,000 for each child at the most. It's a legitimately helpful sun for paying for a semester of tuition for our child, but we can live without it. It's just the IDEA of them purposefully excluding DH and his brother to advantage a sister who has already been advantaged her whole life. And still it's DH who they call on to do all of their errands and literal dirty work like fixing clogged toilets.

And then they wonder why their kids aren't close and don't enjoy spending time together.

He needs to learn how to hang up. For me, getting taken out of the will after all of that would mean blocking phone numbers

Anonymous wrote:So then if you couldn’t do something for one of your kids you shouldn’t do it for any? I’m not in this boat because my older kids did not go to college. But frankly, if we were so inclined, we could do much more for our youngest than we would have been able for our older kids due to having a paid off mortgage and no longer having to pay high medical bills for one of our kids and higher incomes.

Interesting. I was a younger sibling in the opposite situation. My parents paid for my older siblings’ college but by the time I was going to college there was no money left for college. No one ever told me or prepared me.

Also I was in this situation sort of. My father died when I was young and my mom had to choose which kids to support because she couldn’t support all of us. I was the one she choose not to support. It must have sucked to be her and have to choose. No resentment here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So then if you couldn’t do something for one of your kids you shouldn’t do it for any? I’m not in this boat because my older kids did not go to college. But frankly, if we were so inclined, we could do much more for our youngest than we would have been able for our older kids due to having a paid off mortgage and no longer having to pay high medical bills for one of our kids and higher incomes.

Also I was in this situation sort of. My father died when I was young and my mom had to choose which kids to support because she couldn’t support all of us. I was the one she choose not to support. It must have sucked to be her and have to choose. No resentment here.

You can do whatever you want. But there will be blowback and consequences because the slighted person will feel hurt by the injustice and may respond in ways you don't like.

It's great that you hold no resentment. Many people understandably would.

Anonymous wrote:Happened to my husband. Parents couldn't afford Boy Scouts for him, but paid for Girl Scouts for his sister. They didn't have time to take him to travel soccer games or practices, but they could take his brother to all his travel music recitals. They paid for 100% of brother and sister's college educations. They even gave sister an allowance through college so she didn't have to work, and they bought her a car.

The dynamic continues now in our 40's and 50's. They buy daughter and her teenager new phones and laptops every couple of years. Bought her a new car a few years ago. Subsidize her rent. (Mind you, she has a professional job.)

DH worked his way up in a government job with only a HS education, but makes more than his sister. I've got a decent government job. We were a 1 car family for years to save money, I cut my own hair, we have a 15 year old car and only replace our phones when they're obsolete or dead. For many reasons, we don't have much in the way of assets but we have pensions. One thing we splurge on is travel because I have family abroad and we live to take our child there.

Despite not getting any family support, my DH is the one who they call to drive them to health appointments c fix his dad's car, do jobs around their apartments (they're divorced now) and we are expected to host the extended family for holidays (we have the only house that's central to both parents). DH does all the heavy lifting of elder care,

So recently DH was told that he and his brother were being taken out of MIL's will because neither he nor his brother really need the money but his sister does. FIL's will all goes to MIL (they're divorced, but they agreed she would inherit his assets if he does first.) so essentially DH is cut out of both wills. His brother is legitimately quite wealthy in a field that they financially supported his whole young adulthood. But we're far from wealthy. Their evidence that we don't need the money is that we travel every year and own a home. SIL still rents and seems to spend everything she has (and I'm being judgmental here anonymously, but she spends it on stuff like daily Starbucks for her and her child...which adds up to as much as I spend in airfare, the evidence they have that we don't need money.)

We're not talking about life changing money. It might be $10,000 or $15,000 for each child at the most. It's a legitimately helpful sun for paying for a semester of tuition for our child, but we can live without it. It's just the IDEA of them purposefully excluding DH and his brother to advantage a sister who has already been advantaged her whole life. And still it's DH who they call on to do all of their errands and literal dirty work like fixing clogged toilets.

And then they wonder why their kids aren't close and don't enjoy spending time together.

Anonymous wrote:Unlikely the “investing” stops with college. They’ll pay for her wedding and try to help her with a down payment on a house too. Parents (and grandparents) with fluid values and belief systems that change depending on the favored children are rotten. And they will never admit they favor one over the other. They always have some backwards ass excuse or perceived slights to rationalize it. It’s not worth your breath calling them out because they’ll refuse to admit how cruel it is.