AIBU not to pay for my sister’s younger children’s hobbies?

No by treating all the children the same it means your children or grandchildren not all your nieces and nephews over hobbies! By generous paying for your older nieces or nephews it was because you wanted your children to be with their cousins.

We all want for our DC. We all then pay for it.

Why has she chosen to have not 1 but 2 more children when she can't afford them? If she wanted them to do activities maybe if she'd just had 1 more she could afford it. Granted children's activities are not essential, it's something you pay for if you can afford it/you plan your family size around what you'd like to provide.

If your sister wanted her youngest to have a certain lifestyle she should have made sure she had the means to pay for it. It's just cheeky her asking and expecting you to fund it. I'd say no and explain you paid for the others as they attended with your children, had you not had similar aged children you wouldn't have funded it back then either. They aren't your children, the only person who should feel guilty in all this is your sister who has had more children than she can provide for.

I don’t call it child suffering either!

There are a lot of what if type possibilities here. What if one of them died or got bullied, or, or, or, from doing the thing. OP implied that this is not a hardship financially, so I'm just saying that I would do it from that perspective.

It is very cheeky of her, and I’d reply to her that it feels pretty cheeky of her to ask. Tell her that you did it previously because your kids were the same age and it was good company for them, and also because she didn’t have a partner at that time.
Could you perhaps say you’ll pay for the kids to do the activity as a birthday and Christmas present?

Your mum’s logic makes no sense. So before doing a kindness and helping one child out, you were meant to extrapolate and work out if you could afford for four, six etc children to do exactly the same for a decade. No one would ever help anyone

Gosh I wouldn’t be happy that she assumed I’d pay infinitely. So if she went on to have 4 more children, she would just tell you to pay?! It’s a bit grabby of her! I think I’d text, I was happy to pay last time as it meant they could bond with their cousins. I just wanted them to spend time together and knew you couldn’t afford it. I was worried yours would feel left out. I’m glad they did it together, as they spent a lot of time bonding over it which was lovely. However it is not the same situation this time as your children would not be doing it with mine. Perhaps we can think of another way for them to bond together?

A grandparent should treat them as the same, so she's right on that.

But that’s not what OP’s mum said. She is guilt tripping Op, which I don’t think is right.

CF alert

tell her you already paid for 4 kids so now it’s her turn to stump up

wow. Cheeky and entitled much?

Surely her choice to have 4 kids is nobody else’s financial burden to bear

cant believe the brass neck of some people

You shouldn’t feel obliged to pay for her children. That’s where this begins and ends for me - the expectation this is your obligation rather than a generous gift you CHOOSE to give would be the end for me. No sorry sis, this is a completely different situation, you had two more children and the responsibility to pay for them is yours and their dad’s.

Yes, I know OP's mum "can't afford it."

As she's mighty quick off the mark spending OP's money, perhaps she could instead reassess her own financial priorities to pay for her grandchildren's hobbies rather than dumping expectations on their aunt.

I think the OP's mum is being outrageous to think it's not on the children's parents (or even grandparents) to fund hobbies.

I agree - not a chance!! Tell her she’s being a cheeky cow!!

@SheGood the firstbtime around, did the children know you were the ones paying?

I can totally see why you’re annoyed. She is a CF really.
I can also see why you’d still want to say Yes - fir tge younger dcs sake.
In which case, I’d want it to be very clear it’s a gift from you (and your dh). Maybe like ‘here is a birthday present from @SheGood’

Thecreality though is that her first dcs got a certain childhood, the next too will have a dufferent exierience. Down to age difference, the fact she is now married etc etc.

They're your neices and nephews and I would want to treat them all the same so I think yabu. Its not their fault they were born but they are family.

If you want to contribute it should have been at your suggestion. She shouldnt have assumed or asked. Her other half needs to find a better paid job.

Separate the two issues.

Your sister has some cheek and clearly you don't have to fund the younger children's hobbies because you paid for the older ones to do things with their cousins.

Separately, what would you be happy to do for your little nieces/nephews out of family love and because otherwise they'll miss out, not having had the good fortune to be born to particularly financially responsible parents. Now that the older ones are young adults, maybe it's become apparent that actually putting some money aside for the smaller ones in a savings account that they can access at 18 when they're starting out in life and need some resources might be a better use of money than funding their hobbies, and it would be better for your sister to access free/low cost activities for them?

Absolutely do not pay! Cheeky mare. Tell her to ask the kid's father's family.
Also, what if you start paying and they don't lose interest like the first 2 did, but want to carry on into adulthood? You'd be on the hook for life.

For me it would depend on the amounts and how long these hobbies are likely to go on for. It sounds like you can afford to spend some money so maybe you offer £x to help and see how things go.
I wouldn't like the expectation from her that you should be doing the funding..

Absolutely not a chance in hell. Your sister is one hell of a CF!!

This! Shockingly cheeky of her & I’d worry that she’d continually come back for more.

Tell her with the older DC it was different, she was single and you offered to pay so they didn't have to miss out on the things their cousins did. Why should it only be your family that pays, her DP probably has relatives too who could help out.
If you're feeling more generous I'd offer a modest monthly budget but that's it, no extra money for shows or equipment, that's entirely down to them

What this says to me is that your sister didn’t understand why you paid for the other two children. You were doing a nice thing and it was lovely for the cousins to all do things together. She saw a cash cow. So she’s back to milk the cow again. She doesn’t get that if your kids had given up you’d have stopped paying.

For her the circumstances are the same:

she has two children
she can’t afford the hobbies
you provided the means before
so she’s come back to you.
so you can pay for the next 10 - 14 years! Lucky you

People baffle me sometimes. I can’t imagine expecting this from family. I was the single parent with not much money. You cut your cloth and count your blessings (my mother used to pay for an activity, for which I was very grateful). She is doing neither. Your mother shouldn’t be encouraging her.

I’m guessing it’s an expensive hobby like horse riding. They will be able to do after school clubs which will be free/chesp.