This is interesting to me. I disagree with you. Why did he not need to give your son the same amount?
I think he really did to be fair. Kudos. An equal GIFT isn’t based on accomplishments. His grandson deserved it as much as granddaughter.
His WISH was granddaughter to go back to college and the money would be a way to do that. He voiced that–and sometimes kids need to hear it. Did he say you ONLY get the money if you go back? I’ll take the check back if you don’t go back to school? She could use it any way she wanted with no real stipulation right?
And yes, your son was already successful so spend as you wish. Good for your son. He deserved it as much as the granddaughter.
While I agree with the sentiment to give to each equally, sometimes it doesn’t make sense. My sister has 3 kids and one is autistic. He’ll never have a job that pays a living wage, and chances of marrying will be slim. So I can definitely see him getting more to make sure he’s taken care of. As it is, I told my parents to gift him their 2nd house. It’s near his workplace and he’s very familiar with it. So they have. He’s living in it now, but shares when they need to stay in town for whatever reason. It’ll be his when they both pass away and then my sister won’t have to worry about him being homeless.
I try to do the same for both of mine, but I definitely don’t keep a written list. I’m too lazy for that.
You have given your parents permission to give to your sibling part of your inheritance. That’s really wonderful and speaks loads about your family. Just know not all families are so giving.
I think what they spend before they pass away is their business, it’s afterwards I’m referring about. I spent more to D1 on college education than D2. I really don’t keep track of those expenses.
Our kids took out the federal loans that they could and we paid for them. It was our gift to them, a paid for education.
We paid off the loans in segments. We paid our sons off when he was buying a house so that it reflected he didn’t have student debt.
By the time the pandemic rolled around, the loans left were only our daughter’s. $10,000 left. We worked and got those paid off. She got her masters, took out loans and paid those off. That was all on her. We only are paying for undergrad.
Now the government has decided to forgive $10,000 of debt. Our daughter will be able to ask for a refund of money that was paid during the pandemic.
The amount we paid for college was the same for both kids. If our daughter gets the $10,000, is it for her undergrad loans that we paid? Her graduate loans that she paid? Is it a gift to her?
We aren’t really in a position to give our son $10,000 for the money which our daughter is getting back.
Honestly, I didn’t see anything wrong with what he did. I don’t know why people were livid about anything. So when he didn’t pay anything he’s cheap, when he gave away money, people were livid. It’s a no win situation. He might as well go to the casino and put it on red, less headache.
Thanks but it just made sense to me. My kids will be fine. And my grandparents built that house when they moved to be closer to my sisters family, but they only lived there 9 months until my grandfather died. My sister’s kid was the only great grandkid he really knew. And oh how he loved him. (My nephew was 1.5 years old when he passed.) I think he would have been thrilled at the thought of him building that house so his great grandkid could be taken care of. That’s the kind of person he was. He didn’t have a HS diploma, and worked up to 3 jobs to make ends meet, but he saved up really well over the years to give to those he loved. My mom was an old child so we were the only grandkids. He never once told us he loved us, but he didn’t have to. It was obvious. When we walked through the door, it was the like whole world stopped. It was the right thing to do, but I knew my mom wouldn’t have done it without me bringing it up, because she tried to be fair to a fault as well.
My way of thinking about it is that life has never been fair to my nephew. This evens up the score a little
Sounds like it was not the gift itself, but the “family diplomacy” around it, since it sounds like @Hoggirl 's sister-in-law took his comments as an insult of some kind. Would there have been this much family drama if he had not made the comments he did around the gifts?
We paid much more for our DD private university that doesn’t offer scholarships then for our son in state public. We would never try to even it up. We give as needed and not trying to be fair. When son had a large bill to pay for his house repair, we contributed half. Interesting observation. A lot of people here mentioned paying for DD’s weddings but not a lot of people with sons reported the same. Is this old fashioned rule still a thing? Our parents split the cost of our wedding. Our son paid for his wedding because his wife didn’t have any savings and her family only was able to contribute small amount.
This is where you call it quits. One, you won’t know for quite awhile if anything comes from the government. Neither here nor there.
So lets say you expect to pay X for college dollars. Great. Can it really stay equal depending on your own finances? One went to public school. The other private school. But then the public school kid goes to private college. The private school kid goes to college on scholarship. (Don’t laugh).
Now say it’s 5 years apart (with rising tuition), or in different parts of the country with different COL
So what’s fair? Nothing to the penny.
If you only have X dollars to spend for kids education then it would be dollar equivalent perhaps.
If you have a BUNCH of dollars the goal might be outcome based–one goes to med school perhaps while you try to hook up the other kid in a lesser income field they love but doesn’t cost as much.
In general, I don’t think things need to be even, but…
I remember a situation where 2 kids had both graduated from college at the same time, and were given gifts from an aunt and uncle at the same time and they would likely be opened together.
One was a biological relative, and one was a step relative, but the family had been together since kids were young.
The biological relative got a much larger gift than the step relative.
Yes, one could say each should be thankful and grateful for what they got, but… Situations like this make things even more complicated.
I (as an outsider) might guess --yes. Maybe the wording or tone wasn’t the best. No idea.
But I personally (at that age at least and probably needing the money I would guess) would probably have said Thanks big time! and moved on despite my mom’s “being offended” for me getting 5K from grandpa.
I don’t know–maybe grandpa was more in kid’s corner than mom was. Was the money refused?
S1 married first. I asked what bride’s parents could contribute as I knew it wouldn’t be too much. We ended up covering about 75% to their 25%. D1: we gave the same amount indexed up as we knew groom’s parents could easily contribute the same (which they did, plus some). D2 knows she will get the same.
Each child knew we were writing one check and not to ask for more, but we did cover other small things including hotel and tux for one groomsman, hotel for for one bridesmaid, dress, hair, makeup for DIL.
It was his money. He could have certainly done that. As @ucbalumnus pointed out, it was his lack of diplomacy. My sil did not let him know she was livid. As I wrote, she concealed that from him. Had he just given them the money without comment (or said he expected both of them to use the money for education) it would have been fine.
