In-laws talking to 6 year old about inheritance

That was part of my point. There isn't a way for them to have a discussion about this that won't result in OP seeing her arse.

But yeah, it's either a deal breaker or it isn't.

• and the investing will also mean older DD gets financial training.

That's going to be a huge disparity in wealth.

How are you and the real dad and step dad going to allow for that when older daughter is 18 and can't pay for uni or get on the property ladder ?

How old is daughter 1.
Can you start investing for her as well have you already ?

It's excellent your little one is being exposed to investing and is leaning about compound interest however this may be more valuable than the actual money

So if this was me I'd be putting my energy into how to level up no 1.
Small amounts will compounds in the scotch maket.
Have you got dd1 a stocks and share junior ISA if not get one open now minimum to open about 100 then you can add and get dads both to add.
.

This.

Also others here should not confuse this situation with normal parenting duties. This is a situation of ils and grandparents making these difficult decisions which they feel reflect their wishes.

as a parent- you don’t go around telling your small children oh when I die, I will leave you with this and that. No, what you do is gently give them knowledge about money and also gently guide them by saying, as parents, you will be supporting them as much as possible.. so you don’t have to worry about they becoming lazy thinking they inherit. The only reason which I see here in which you want to share such sensitive information with a young child is in circumstances like the ones we are discussing here. These are Normal circumstances..

My late husband's elderly aunt has made me one of her main beneficiaries in her will, which is extraordinarily kind of her. What she would have left to him, she's left to me.
But when she goes I'll be signing a deed of variation so that the money goes to my children. They need it more (and she loves them too) and it's also tax efficient, and takes the money out of the pot should I ever need care.

It's really not unusual for wills to miss a generation, either by design or by deed of variation

It's not the way I would've shared such important information if I were DH,

He knows OP's going to have a fit. His family knows too. He's going to be open and transparent with his child about money. He's willing to live with OP being mad. She's always mad about his family's money but she's not going anywhere and he knows it.

They took her out of the equation. Just like the inheiritances bypassing her husband and going to the blood related grandchildren.

It is very interesting to read as myself and my DP thought we wouldn’t be telling our children how much they’d be getting from us. We don’t want them to know because we want them to work hard for their money and be independent.

there’s a risk that when you tell the children they might get lazy as there’s inheritance coming.

When your youngest is 18, she’ll still have a sibling with different prospects 🤷🏻‍♀️
That’s what happens when you blend families.

I agree with you @SpanishFork . Inappropriate to give that info to a 6 year old. Imagine she will tell her friends in school that she got 77 k - her friends will tell their parents etc. You don't say that to a young child! We save for our sons (13 and 16) and they don't know it. We don't want them to know before we give it to them and we will give it to them when they really need it.

I agree. Crazy telling a 6 year old this information and the child won’t have access to the money for years. Surely they should have discussed this with both your history and your self.

I’m aware that my parents want to leave everything to me and my brother equally so I asked them that they leave my share to my children as I don’t need it.

I'm surprised anyone thinks that the OP's daughter, who is nearly seven, is too young to be told about an inheritance. My great-great-aunt left our family £70K in her will, and our parents told us. My sister was eight at the time. It would never have entered my head that she was too young to be told. Children know money exists, it's not a taboo subject.

@SpanishFork OP in the nicest possible way, you have issues. Might we suggest you seek counselling?

you are angry:

• becaise only your DH was not gifted money to go on property ladder predicable because the house would also house your 10 yo who is not related to ils who are the rightful owner of the money.
• now uncle clearly by passed a generation and no money has gone to DH (but straight to dh’s child) and therefore becomes YOUR family of 4’s money.

on practical note, start saving for 10 yo so she gets something from you. You can tell her not to worry about sis as she will have her own provision.

i was not wrong that the compound convo pissed you off as no interest can be creamed off.

and what will you inherit from your family? Where is your family in all this? The other family is fine and they have their boundaries!

I don't understand your issue at all. She can now (with your guidance) start thinking about how best to use that money to improve her life when she inherits it. What if your ILs died tomorrow? Then she'd know how much she'd inherited and she still wouldn't be in her 20s.

I did and I couldn't find anyone with that name! But now I'm wondering if it was autocorrect.

Do you think it would be better that they discovered at 18 than 1 had loads of money and one had none? I think it is better to always know, at 6 it doesn’t really mean much, but it won’t be a nasty surprise when it becomes important at 18.

Twenty quid in a birthday card or similar would hardly be a significant ask, I agree. It's what I would do in ILs situation, and doesn't involve expecting them to treat DD1 as their own grandchild.

However... the people pointing out that OP knew about this going in are right. This is a family who have been very clear about their feelings. OP has a ridiculous attitude to this bequest, of course it wouldn't be better to wait until their 20s, and there's no evidence that there's any way she could've learned about this situation without having a problem with it. It's not the way I would've shared such important information if I were DH, but OP is equally to blame for the lack of sensible communication channels about this stuff.

You think it inappropriate. Plenty of others consider it completely normal, and actually an important thing to do.

How is recognizing that this is what OP chose a disgusting sentiment? Op did choose to marry and have another child with a man whose family have significant financial resources, who will offer her youngest more than her eldest will ever get from her own paternal family. She knew they didn’t, and wouldn’t, consider her eldest a grandchild, and that they would not treat her as one. She knew her husband saw no issue with this. How exactly is that anyone else’s fault?

If your six year old can understand compound interest, your ten year old can understand that they have different blood relatives and this is the result of choices you made. You - not the ten year old or the six year old or your husband's dead uncle.

I cannot believe these comments. Discussing figures with a 6-year-old child is incredibly inappropriate. You can teach a young child the value of money and how best to manage it without providing a figure as large as the inheritance. This will become playground gossip.

It is also reasonable that OP is concerned how her eldest daughter will feel. “You are to blame as you made the decision to have a second child with a different father” is a disgusting sentiment. At this age, these young girls should not be worrying about their differing circumstances. The eldest child will be more aware of what this means for her than the younger child, and it will heighten any difficult feelings she may have as a result of her own father’s absence. OP wants to protect her children, and I agree. Let them be children.

Shows a complete lack of respect for his wife though. I definitely think the OP has a DH problem.

The in-laws do seem tight though and just generally a bit mean and strange. I don’t mean with regards to the inheritance, I understand why only the youngest daughter was named. But a child has been brought into the family by their son, the child of their daughter in-law, yet they don’t give her a birthday present and make it obvious at Christmas that her present is lesser than her sister. The child must have been very small when brought into the family, so it’s not like they were a teenager or something, you’d expect them to have grown fond of them. I also think it’s extremely weird that they’ve given two of their children additional money to upgrade their houses, yet won’t give any to OP’s husband because they are so worried that their step-grandchild might benefit 60 years down the line. Also the way the cousins etc insist on referring to her as the youngest daughters half sister, who does that?!

I think it is meant to say:

remember those who say that if you don’t know how to be with money, you will be without money whether your salary was £100k or £50k per annum.

No idea. I didn't care enough to Google it. Have you?

@SpanishFork - I hope your husband invests the money well in a child stocks & shares ISA. It could grow to £200k+ by the time you're daughter is an adult. You should be thrilled for your youngest daughter, but I can see why this is might cause resentment for your eldest - especially if she already feels like an outsider with your husband's family.

Are your eldest daughter's paternal grandparents in a position to do something similar for her?

If not, I'm not sure what you can realistically do to even things up. You can't just save and invest for your eldest daughter, because that might cause far worse long-term resentment towards you from your youngest. If you have and invest for both, your youngest is still going to end up with far more than your eldest - but at least your eldest would have something to soften the blow.

Do you work?

I would be very angry that my in laws had told my 7 year old that she will have a lot of money coming to her. In effect, they have told her that she will be much richer than her sister.

The in laws are extremely thoughtless. Putting it mildly.