AIBU for giving my step-niece less than my nieces for 17th birthday?

DB (CF) was probably relying on you paying for the StepDC’s lessons. Oops! More fool him. You’ve been more than generous and that’s all there is to it. StepDC’s biological family can pay for their lessons if they’re that bothered!

I think your gifts have been reasonable.

I would have treated them all the same.

You are not being unfair, I presume your SN also recieved gifts from her biological family, do they buy for your neices ? If not, don't give it a second thought, your brother and his wife are being grabby.

When people argue that step children (with the other family still around and involved) should be treated just the same as the other children by extended family, it always makes me wonder:

If the marriage splits up, would the child's biological family still be facilitating contact with all these ex-step-relations? Would the ex-step-relations be given birthday cards or be visited in care homes after a split? Will they all be invited to the child's 18th/wedding/etc?

If not - if indeed the relationship only lasts while the marriage lasts - then why expect everyone to pretend it's exactly the same as the other children?

Sounds like SD is happy and it’s bro who is disappointed as her mum might now have to pay for driving lessons.

It’s So so hard because sometimes you just have to be the bigger person … I was always treated as an outsider by my dads girlfriend and it makes me really sad remembering how hurt I was by it. I imagine her argument would have been that I had my own mum/ extended family. I do, and we have a strong relationship, but it didn’t mean that I was left out / sidelined. I remember watching them all open presents and not having anything at all (I’d had mine at other times) but I remember feeling awkward not because I wanted presents but it made me feel unwanted when I didn’t have a choice about being there.

A thread like this prompted me to text a step uncle on my mums side recently. He and his wife were so wonderful to me and my sister when we visited - we were treated the same as my step sisters, they always had little treats for us all, we were all invited to sleep over etc etc he replied saying how it wouldn’t ever have been otherwise as we were great kids, but in any case we were children. Which is the point really. Kids don’t ask to be in blended families and we owe it to them to be kind.

Op, it sounds like you are very kind to your brother’s SD. Your gifts to her were thoughtful and it seems that she was delighted to receive them.

I would not bring it up with your brother, and I would be telling my parents to butt out, unless they wanted to be the ones to pay for the lessons.

Your DB needs to grow up.

This is another case of I wish people would read the whole thread.

I think you were very generous to the step niece. She also seemed happy and grateful with your thoughtful gifts. Job done. No one was traumatised.

Your brother on the other hand sounds weak, greedy and passive aggressive. He has a nerve talking to your parents about his disappointment in your gift. Had he saved 15 pounds a week since the 23 year-old got her driving lessons he would have been prepared. You are not financially responsible for his lifestyle choices. And as others have pointed out, step niece's biological father is in the picture - why isn't he providing driving lessons.

I also don't think you should say anything but I think it will drive him mad and he will have to blurt out something. Instead of being grateful you got two daughters on the road - he thinks you haven't done enough! He is a bloody chancer. Be prepared with some comebacks.

Sorry @Namenamchange I didn't mean that as a reply to you in particular.

Agree with this. Feels very entitled of the brother to me

YANBU and there is no need for you to say anything to him at all. The gifts you gave were more than enough. The cheeky bugger is being incredibly grabby.

It is up to SN's mother and father to fund the lessons. Of course, your brother could chip in but it sounds as if he prefers to spend other people's money.

No of course not but he hasn't directly has he. He told his parents and it is the OP saying she feels like he wanted her to find out because they don't keep anything to themselves. It doesn't mean that was the case.

I agree. But Mumsnet is very anti step family 🙄

You either give them all the same or not at all, especially after 8 years.

I have a stepdaughter and if anyone in my family did this we would honestly have to consider if we wanted to remain part of their lives. But we feel exceptionally strongly about children being treated equally as children of our family: it’s not about high value gifts, we would say if you can’t give everyone the same then please give nothing to anyone. I’ve raised DSD since she was 2 with DH though and DH and his siblings had a horrific experience with a stepmum, so we are probably over sensitive to this kind of thing. Luckily it’s not an issue and my family treat her equally. I think there’s a huge difference between £100 and £1000 and it’s very “othering” but it’s MN where no one in a stepfamily should do more than the very bare minimum so I’m sure you’ll get complimented for even giving her a gift.

This is a very difficult situation and blended families are always difficult to navigate as there are so many variables.

I had a stepfather growing up and his family always bought me a token gift for birthdays and Christmas but I would have never expected anymore from them as they were not my family and I had my own grandparents, aunts and uncles. I always thought it was nice they thought of me but I never referred to them as my family.

I think the very fact your brothers SD has her own dad and extended family means that she be treated more favourably than your own nieces if your brother got his way. Does your nieces step father and his family lavish them with expensive gifts?

If your SD had no other family than her mum and your brother I think your brother might have a point but it shouldn't be on you to gift driving lessons when she has a whole host of relatives that could do the same. Sounds like your SD was very grateful for the gift and money she got and it's her mum and your brother that are the problem.

This with bells on.
You’ve been very generous so just let it blow over. Your step niece sounds well adjusted and very nice. She’s clearly happy with your lovely thoughtful gifts.
If yr brother personally raises it with you, you now have some fodder from Mumsnet opinions to chuck back at him.

You should have posted as the SDD mum and you as her Stepdad's Mum, the replies would have been the opposite. You've declared that she isn't real family. I think that it's fine to not see step children as you do biological family, because as said by a pp, if the relationship breaks down, you don't see them again. I'd speak to your brother so it doesn't fester and come up at Christmas (if you all meet up).

Honestly, that sounds very generous especially as it appears that your nieces don't receive much, if anything, from their step-mother's family. It's hypocritical of your brother to complain about you to your parents when he doesn't have a go at his own wife about her family not bothering with his daughters and being much less generous than you.

The cheeky bastard was expecting another grand to be spent on his step-daughter’s driving lessons. Whilst she was happy with her present, he wasn’t. Presumably because he or his partner may have to fork out now. He’s got a cheek.

Step-Auntie paying for driving lessons, so it’s her Mother’s new bloke’s sister?

What about her father? Her maternal Grandparents? Her paternal grandparents? Your parents? I would tell him there’s a lot more people in front of you in the queue that are liable for coughing up for driving lessons before her step-auntie.

Ouch. 1k versus £50. After 8 years. Unless there's something else at play here then that was a stingy and hurtful way to behave.

You can't turn the the clock back, but if you could have known how this would turn out, it would have been better if you could have given the girls themselves £100 of presents and the balance to your DB, and told him it was your contribution towards driving lessons 'for your kids'. Then, if he spent it all on the first two... well, that's him not treating his own kids equally, isn't it?

Could he not have saved up over the past years himself to give the equivalent to his step-DCs on their 17th birthdays? Has he just assigned 'paying for driving lessons' to you? Does he think you're an endless tap of money, and he only has to present a 'qualifying' child in order to 'earn' £1,000 from you once they're 17? What if he'd ended up with 8 step kids? And am I reading it correctly that he'd only been with her mum for a year when you gave your DN's the money?

I do feel for the step-DN, as she never chose to be in a family set-up as she did, and none of this is on her; but your DB is an absolute CF.

If they don't keep schtum about anything then he can't have had any reasonable assumption they would here. I highly doubt he has nobody else he could confide in.

I would absolutely not expect my sibling to treat my step daughter the same when the value is that high! Xmas day, make sure that the gifts they open in front of each other are similar value (my sister did this but then put money in my two’s bank account) as from personal experience that feels extremely demoralising BUT £1k to your brothers step daughter is incredibly unrealistic! I would actually feel very embarrassed if my sibling/parents spent that much on my step daughter!

I would make sure my daughter and step daughter are treated the same (to some extent (clothes, pair shoes, pocket money when out together etc) but again driving lessons (for example) may have an unfair balance as my two have my ex husband (high earner) or from my sister, parent etc (unlikely but even so) to help with driving lessons, university etc. And I wouldn’t say to my ex “you cannot give my two £££ as my step daughter won’t have that so you have to pay for her too or my two don’t get the help) because he would absolutely tell me to fuck off!

And the same applies the other way round - if my step daughter was supported more than my daughter from the other half of their family I wouldn’t expect my partner to pay for my daughters lessons to keep it fair! We both may choose to, to ensure they have the same amount from us but we won’t stop their other side of the family adding their own contributions!

We are taking our kids (we have a son each too) to Asia next year and for that they will be absolutely treated the same but again - if my ex gives my two extra spending money i
wouldn’t expect him to supplement my partners children!

So…. Your brother can choose to treat his daughter and stepdaughter the same but you don’t have to!

There's an almost identical thread where the OP is being told that of course her brother's step children don't need to be treated the same as nephews and nieces.
Mumsnet is weird sometimes.

Putting £2000 aside for driving lessons is very different to £4000, if this were 4 biologically related children you may not have been able to budget that and they'd have each gotten 500.

Yes, this very much so. He hasn't been able to save up the money for his own children's/step children's driving lessons, but he assumes that you have!

Like so many times when you try to be kind, if OP had given them £100 each and kept the £1,800 to spend on herself at the time, none of this scenario of her being a big meanie would ever have arisen.