Explaining to small kids that we have a different lifestyle to their cousins amd that's okay?

[Eileen101]

My kids are starting to get envious of their cousins jetset lifestyle, travelling to stunning islands in Asia for example, or for a quick jaunt over to Europe (which would be equivalent to a holiday that I save all year for).
I do try to do really nice things with them, but they don't really compare. It's hard to make "when we go away in grandma's camper, shall we have a packed lunch at the beach or shall we have a bag of chips at the beach shop" sound exotic when their cousin is drinking out of a coconut with a straw on a beautiful island in Thailand on the family WhatsApp.
My 8 year old has a travel wish list of places he wants to go and each time I explain that India for example is a long plane journey and that "perhaps is better when he's older and can enjoy it more".
Our life doesn't really compare and they're starting to notice. I am a single parent with 1 income and topped up by UC but BIL is a high earner (even by mumsnet standards) and can easily afford that sort of thing.
Is there a 'better' way of explaining that isn't realistic for us? Or a few different phrases I can alternate between?

My parents were quite affluent and I travelled and went to some luxurious hotels as a kid. I really don’t remember those experiences as being ‘better’ than domestic holidays with my cousins etc.

I remind myself of this because DH and I simply aren’t as wealthy as my parents were at the same stage of life - and my kids are on a bursary at a private school so they have many friends who are a lot more affluent and ‘jet set’. If they ever express envy, I tend to gently point out choice and circumstances ‘X’s parents are both bankers and work very long hours, we are not as rich but are around more after school’ or ‘Y is an only child so that family will have more disposable income’. It helps them understand what money means, and there’s often a trade off!

An 8 year old should be able to understand that some jobs pay less than others. Also, just because they can't do it now, doesn't mean its not possible in the future when he's earning himself.

DD sometimes mentioned her friends were seemingly doing something more exciting. She was very lucky and was invited on a holiday abroad with one friend when she was ten - she said she was bored as they didn't do nearly as much as us on our basic holidays!

So what did Granny say when you said please don't keep showing him, he doesn't understand why he can't have those kind of holidays and it upsets him.?

I know it's hard op but you just have to keep repeating that different families have different lives, Mommy works very hard to look after you and..... but not all jobs pay the same.

Is be wary of pushing the "if you work hard you can have nice things too" cos it makes it sound like you just don't work hard enough and I'm sure that's not true.

OP, just tell your DC that you can’t afford to go on foreign jaunts and that when he grows up, he can go wherever he likes. I’m not unsympathetic - I have a BIL who is a captain of the planet, and whose DC, who are similar ages to my DC, went on amazing holidays (most irritating aspect of it was the way my DM purred over the videos which we all had to watch) - my own DC only ever went on holiday to one or other of the grandparents. Now my DC can and do travel - they are realistic enough to know that I did what I could, and that people grow up in very different circumstances. Your DC’s cousins are very much the exception, and there will be other DC in your DS’s class who also go on modest holidays. Comparison is the thief of joy (and just fyi, those coconut drinks are very much an acquired taste!)

Oh, we have the same here; Bil is earning 250k /y (he said so) and my teens are ofcourse impressed by all their trips to luxurious hotels and his eldest son (18) spent the summer travelling to luxurious places with friends with dad's money and my 16 year old would be happy to get a job this summer. Cousins don't know what work is, go by taxi and not tube and are extremely priviligied and blasé. Nothing can enchant them. I would completely hate my children having this attitude. The 18 y old has a shitty attitude to my dh because he's not as succesful as his dad and the less we see of him the better.

At 8, he will start to understand the concept of money. You can tell him that this costs a lot of money and everyone’s situation is different, some have very little, some are like your family and can do nice things but not travel that often, and some people have a lot. Don’t tell him that you’ll go to India when he’s a bit older, if that’s not realistic. And I’d also have a word with granny, obviously he will hear something about his cousins’ adventures, but mouth-watering photos every week are not necessary.

So why haven’t you told granny to bloody pack it in?

I would stop granny doing this. I am a granny.

I was that cousin who never went on holidays, and watched my cousins go to the Europe, The Caribbean and USA. It was good that I was very aware that my mum worked hard for what we already had, and used herself as an example to do better in school.

Now I'm the parent of the cousins who travel far and wide and frequently (I take them with me on every holiday because of my own life experiences). However, careful souvenir shopping for cousins is a must (my DC enjoy this, we also take requests), I arrange smaller more affordable breaks with my siblings and their families. I have also taken a few of them with us without parents/paid to support them coming with us. This is because I want my nieces and nephews to know we love them and want to share experiences with them. That is the part my uncles did poorly tbh.

Surely this won’t be the first time you’ve had to bring this up. From when they are you get you have to sometime say no to stuff because of finances. They pick stuff up in a shop and you say “that quite expensive, we can’t afford that”. Or “you can have one pair of trainers because they are expensive”. It’s just dripped into everyday conversation.

I understand where he’s coming from - it must look lovely with the sun, blue sky, sea and pools etc. but the reality can be that it’s too hot, sunburn, mossie bites, itchy sand everywhere etc! Ask granny to stop showing him so many pictures, and get him a coconut - IMO they’re revolting and if he thinks the same he’ll realise photos tell a tiny part of the story. It all looks shiny and brilliant but might not be all that.

As others have said have a chat about earnings and perhaps look at average salaries for different roles - teachers, nurses, police force and compare to known ‘high earning’ roles - there’s more people who can’t afford these trips easily than can afford them.

If he’s academic look at which he could work towards as a career, and if he’s more vocational look at what electricians, plumbers, landscapers and mechanics etc can earn when they’re qualified. Help him to plan a pathway that will enable this kind of travel when he’s older and let him know it will be even MORE enjoyable when he’s older and he’ll more likely remember it better and not take it for granted.

I think it’s hard to fully grasp the ‘people worse off’ at his age, unless he’s really empathetic and that might negate how he’s feeling but I’d definitely mention it, just not go on and on in a ‘you don’t know how lucky you are’ way. I’m sure he knows he’s lucky in one respect, but feels envious in another. It’s quite a conflicting place for an 8 year old and his feelings are valid because he’s not got an adult understanding of the world.

Also, look together at how many people - young and old - are getting in to campervans. It’s the DREAM and life goal for a lot of people - follow some ‘Van lifers’ on social media to prove this and see if there’s places and activities in the UK that he’d like to experience.

We had this when my DC was young, and my Cousin and her DH went travelling a lot (No small DC though) .I think to limit SM and tell Mum to stop! Also just to say that there are many many children worldwide without any food. and even here in the UK there are many more who go hungry once too often! I think its a difficult problem to grasp TBH.

TBH as a child I just accepted from extremely early on that there wasn’t the money for things some other kids had. Cousins were holidaying in Italy in the very early 60s (still v unusual then) girls at school were having ballet and riding lessons, etc.

IMO you just have to tell your dcs in very matter of fact tones that that’s the way of the world - some will always be better off, some will be worse off.

Also well worth pointing out that it’s an awful lot easier to spend money than to earn or save it!

Both my DGC go to school with children across the spectrum of wealth. They have never shown any particular knowledge of what the wealthier ones do or where they holiday, they only bring it
up in conversation if there is some relevance to something else.

As PPs have posted conversations about wealth and financial matters are necessary, I think with quite young children. I do have these conversations with my DGC in order for them to understand the world we live in which, has great disparities of income, distribution and inequalities.

I also speak to them about aspiration, in that if they want the things they see others with and society tells them they have to have (as children they live within the means of the family
of course, but that won’t always be the case), they can work towards achieving their dreams, OP your DS, and his list places he wants to travel to.

Look at MN, so many threads about income, wealth, distribution, the cost of living etc.
These are conversations we must have with our children continually in order for them to have informed values and opinions about the way the world works.

BIL is very wealthy. He and his wife are very high earners and senior enough to get lots of annual leave. My kids never minded that much, I was sahm for a while and they understood our lives were different, cousins had full time nannies and there were so many differences they stopped comparing. We were the same as neighbours and friends, cousins were the exception and they knew that.

My friend on a v low income involved her DS in finances from a very young age. He was able to budget and I remember him about 7 in a play centre sayjng he'd love a juice but they were very expensive and he'd wait til he got home, he knew the cost of the aldi juice by comparison. He didn't nag at his Mum because he knew where every penny went.

We have a similar situation, albeit the “wealth gap” is narrower than the one you describe. I have two things that I fall back on, one being that we’re lucky because we have everything we need and quite a lot of what we want (this is slowly landing as DC1 at 10 is starting to understand that some of his classmates are less privileged - a couple of years ago “everybody else” was more privileged than him, for example”.

The other thing I do is to point out ways in which we are lucky - so we’re not having an exotic holiday in February half term like his cousin but we do live near enough to London to go on days out there on a regular basis, which is something DC1 really enjoys. I definitely think focusing on blessings is the way to go.

Stop showing them the photos of these exotic holidays. Then they won't get jealous.

Not wishing to be too Pollyanna-ish, but I think a staycation can be just as much fun. It's an attitude of mind and DC can pick up on the attitudes of the grownups around them. If they are ooh-ing and ahh-ing at pictures of foreign holidays, this can give DC the idea that these are things to be especially coveted.

Maintaining a small carbon footprint means you are doing your bit for the planet too.

My GC, who are cousins of course, are in a similar situation. It is not a problem. The children whose parents earn less simply tell it like it is. It is only a problem if YOU feel bad about it, or jealous. The children will take their lead from you.

When I was small my family did not have money and we did not jet off to Spain. As people were doing then. We went to a caravan. It was explained to me that money was tight.
I did not care one bit.
That was shattered when money was found for my sibling to go abroad with the school for a week. The deep unfairness of it stayed with me.
So don’t worry.

I think it helps if you are transparent about money on a day to day basis too. For example, do they know that you have to pay for electricity and heating.? Do they get pocket money and do you talk about saving it for something in particular etc? A more rounded understanding about money in general can help kids grasp the concept of it being finite and there’s choices to be made.

I was the poor cousin. I knew I was the poor cousin from a very early age. I just accepted it as one of those things about life. I had other advantages vs the cousins (their dad was horrible, I did better at school, I had glamorous older sisters, dad and mum were both In The War etc)

The only thing of theirs I really envied were their huge sets of Caran d’Ache crayons with their names printed on every pencil. Boy, did I lust after those.

Just be honest with them.

I think tone deaf of your sister to post such pictures on family groups/facebook/etc.

Granny needs to stop this

I don't think there's anything wrong with granny showing him pictures and talking about where cousins have been etc. You can't shelter your children from the differences between different families in terms of income and things you can afford.

There's no point pretending. 8 is old enough to understand this. There will always be someone richer than you. We are relatively well off but still not "rich rich" and my daughter understands this. It's not a bad thing. It's just the reality of life.