Giving to Adult Children

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
141

Both ds and niece most certainly said, “Thanks.”

As I wrote above, I think it would have been fine had grandpa expressed his desire that they both use money toward education costs. Or just said nothing at all. My guess is that sil never said anything to niece about being offended by it. Or telling her that she (niece) should be offended by his statements. Idk how niece felt about his comment.

Money was most certainly not refused. Niece did re-enter school part-time, and tried a different path but never finished. No idea if she used that gifted money toward that or not. She may have. As far as what @DrGoogle123 wrote - there wouldn’t have been a, “they,” to refuse the money. Just the niece.

But, this ties back to my comment about not really being able to attach conditions to gifts. If he wanted to attach the condition of her using the money specifically for school, then that could have been handled by making payments directly to the school.

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My kids have been reminded numerous times to not commingle gift money with their spouse. When one bought a house she had the majority of the down payment, they recorded a notarized document that said the said dollar amount was my daughter sole and separate property and that if the house was sold she got her money back. That happened when they sold that house. She got a check from escrow made out to her that she deposit her separate account. When they bought the 2nd property they did the same. My daughter also owns another property that is her own. She also is in another property partnership that is her sole property. She deposits rent and pays expenses out of her sole account. They are now having a child and they are going to go see an estate attorney about setting up a trust. She wants to make sure that what she has goes to her child if something happens to her. I’m not concerned about smaller gifts or if they want to use some of their money to buy an item they both use. My kid works for a family law attorney so is very aware of how ugly things can get.

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I disagree. Grandpa is the one recognizing that kids aren’t equal. Your son didn’t need education money. Your niece did. He certainly could have said nothing. I’m not sure that was in his wheelhouse while making that gift (I’ve no idea). He gifted both kids the same amount and made no demands.

I’m not arguing with anything here. But it sounds like there were never any strings attached to the gifts given to either grandchild.

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No, there weren’t any actual strings attached. With the way he chose to gift (out right and directly to them), he had no standing to attach any strings or make any demands.

The conversation here had turned to inequality in gifts causing hurt. The point I was trying to make was that sometimes even if gifts are equal there can be hurt, particularly depending on the words accompanying a gift.

To me, his comments highlighted the differences in resources between my dh and his sister. To me, his comments highlighted the fact that our ds was in school and that dear niece was not. Why recognize those inequalities out loud in front of everyone?

I also have no idea what had gone on behind the scenes leading up to these very unexpected gifts. If I were guessing, fil had nagged at sil that granddaughter needed to get back in school. Sil had probably either said that she had no control over that or that going forward it would be on granddaughter to fund her remaining schooling should she decide to return. So maybe she felt undermined as a parent by what he did. Again - speculating.

There is more to the story. They (my sil and bil) had paid for four years. Unbeknownst to them, niece lied her entire senior year about being in school at all. This came to light two weeks before she was supposed to graduate. She apparently had academic issues her junior year and flunked out. Never told anyone. Her whole senior year, “How are classes going?” “Fine.” For whatever reason, they gave money to her to pay her tuition rather than paying the school directly. She lived off-campus.

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145

At least she gave everyone something. My MIL only gives to the favorites.

146

WOW! No grandparents around here. Long passed. I had felt bd my kid didn’t get to have grandparents but maybe we weren’t missing much.

Giving money can be a power play. One can never attach a string if given to adult children imo.

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147

Ouch. Yes, no one was excluded.

148

How do the spouses feel about that?

149

I’d remember this when/if it comes time to be involved with parents as they age.

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No one gifts money to anyone on either side of our families that I know of, so no issues there, but my father always used his will as a control mechanism, making sure my brother and I knew each time he felt he needed to change it. Neither my brother nor I care one whit what he does with his money, so a few years ago when we happened to be together and he started hinting again, we told him that we hope he enjoys spending every last penny and dies with a dollar. Changing his will so often must be exhausting, so perhaps he should just focus on enjoying it all and not leaving anything, we certainly don’t need anything from him. That was one of the most satisfying conversations I’ve ever had in my life, brother too. It took away all my dad’s power. He tried bringing it up again later, but I just laughed and told him perhaps he should buy that Excalibur he’s always wanted or take his wife to Monaco and stop fussing with his legal documents. Haven’t heard a peep since.

I really don’t understand first spouses keeping money/assets separate. Everything we have belongs equally to each other, but we came to the marriage with nothing but our dorm furniture and his car. Since then, everything we have earned/acquired belongs to us jointly, no separation.* Our son is certainly bringing more to his upcoming marriage than his fiancée, but I can’t see any reason for a pre-nup. Once married, everything they have will and should be jointly owned, including the house that is in his name.

*One exception. After we retired, DH kept consulting to one of his corporate clients. I told him to open a separate account for any money he earns consulting and consider that his Hookers and Beer fund. He can do whatever he wants with it, I don’t need to see that statement.

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151

And as Paul Harvey used to say --“And now for the REST of the story…”
Certainly puts a spin on things.

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152

My dad did the threaten to change the will thing too because he wasn’t happy with how my brother was choosing to live his life. He was all talk though and in the end, the will was never changed. If he had cut my brother out, I would have given him his 1/2 after our dad died anyway. I told my dad that years ago and said the only thing he’d accomplish was irreparably damaging the relationship with no opportunity to ever fix it again. There was enough history of bad feelings that he didn’t need to heap that on and I’m grateful he didn’t.

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153

This is something I think about a lot. My D is in a long term relationship. Her BF makes a lot of money but not great deal of assets. My D will never make much money because of the type of profession she is in but she has sizable assets to bring in should they get married. I am sure they will sort it out when it comes to it. If she asks me for an advise, I don’t think I’ll advise her to commingle.

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Do you mean that this reflects on their spending habits? I.e. high income, low assets → spendy, and low income, high assets → frugal. If so, that suggests that if they do get married, they need to make sure that their household financial habits are compatible before then.

Or is it more of a reflection of educational debt?

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They don’t have to, when they’re hungry, love will keep them alive, well at least from the lyrics of one famous band.

I think this thread focuses on money, but really relationships are more important.

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156

On equality of gifts, I have three siblings. One is a sweet guy who never seemed to get past the mental of 13 and retired at age 64 after a career as a public school teacher. If he has a financial decision, it is highly likely that he will choose the worst option. I suggested to my siblings, who agreed, and my mother, who eventually agreed, to give him a bigger share of what is not a big estate but to put that in trust with one of my sisters as a co-trustee to him. So if he got two or three hundred thousand, it could be used for his care/needs later on in life rather than a souped up Mustang or a Ferrari.

It was very hard for my mother to tell my brother this. My mother and my brother somehow inferred from my suggestion that I didn’t like him, which was not the correct inference, but OK.

The other two siblings are doing fine. We probably have significantly more assets than either but also lead a bigger life. The two siblings and I prefer that our brother have access to a bigger share of the estate, but with controls on how it is used rather than all of us having equal shares.

Generally, I don’t think that things have to be equal. As I have written in other posts, it is plausible that ShawSon (and his new wife) will accumulate greater wealth than ShawWife and I have and that ShawD will not (although that may depend upon a spouse to be named later). We have a trust that can give to each kid and their progeny for their health, welfare, housing, education, etc. If he doesn’t need it, the trustee probably would not distribute. But, you never know who will have problems (medical, psychological, businesses not working out, etc.) in life and so the trust is intentionally flexible. I think this is better than trying to make things equal.

If ShawSon has a favorable exit from his startup, he could have quite a bit of wealth in his 30s. He is very grateful for all that we have given him to enable him to be in the situation he is in (lots and lots of help to enable him as a brilliant but severely dyslexic kid to get an education commensurate with his gifts, guidance, college and grad school paid for so no debt, a modest investment in his first company, etc.) so he has suggested that if he does well, he will help ShawD with things like buying a house (or a nicer house).

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157

My sister-in-law and her husband have done the change the will a million times thing. They got married later in life and each had plenty of their own money. They have no children. They own a house and have put that in trust for my daughter (only niece/nephew) when they both die. He has estranged adult children. At some point in the past few years, these children decided to contact him again and “be friends”. Turned out they just wanted his money (now - not even wait until he dies). Their wills got changed back and forth so many times during that period. It is back to my daughter being their ultimate heir, once they are both gone.

158

So far they are fine with it.

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159

On the topic of equal treatment, I think it’s super important to treat your children equally but don’t believe that necessarily translates into requiring that the same amount be spent on each one. We told both our kids that we would cover whatever UG college they wanted to go to (treating them equally) but spent a lot more on the kid who got accepted to a super selective LAC that offered no merit, versus the one who chose the LAC that offered generous merit. Our viewpoint is that we are gifting them the same opportunities - a chance to go to the college of their choice which they each received - we are not gifting them the cash.

On the subject of wills, and separate money vs. co-mingled gifts to adult children who are married, I have mixed feelings on this. I know someone who married into a wealthy family - she and her H have 3 kids who are college-aged, and she quit work when they were younger to be a stay-at-home mom. When her H was diagnosed with cancer a few years back, it surfaced that his family had stipulated that all the money he brought into the relationship would pass on to the kids, leaving her nothing. I felt outraged on her behalf. But on the flip side, my H’s grandfather remarried late in life and ended up leaving it all to his second wife who left it to her children from a previous marriage, and not to his 4 children - two of whom could have really used the inheritance. I am sure that H’s grandmother would have been very upset to learn that her children did not see a dime of the wealth they had accumulated together.

H and I are working on a trust now, and both agreed about wanting to put in restrictions stating that when one of us passed, our share would go directly to the kids instead of the surviving spouse. But our trust attorney talked us out of it, saying that it would overly complicate matters for the surviving spouse (i.e. only owning half the house, for instance). Now that both kids have SOs, I am also thinking about how best to ensure that anything our kids inherit won’t get lost in the event of a divorce, but agree with the other poster upstream that you can’t control everything and just have to take a leap of faith that your kids will choose well when it comes to marriage, and will make the right decisions for them.

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160

In NYS, $ inherited during marriage is not considered marital property (for the purpose of divorce). Unless commingled.

And money that each party had before the marriage also not marital property.

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