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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Expensive activity for one child, can't afford stuff for others

109 replies

Nataleejah · 19/01/2014 12:02

My oldest does go-karting, and it costs an arm and a leg. It feels being very unfair for his brothers, but... Can't really pull a plug on it because he is thriving in there.

OP posts:
HollaAtMeBaby · 20/01/2014 09:07

Ah, I misunderstood your OP then! Sorry.

WaffilyVersatile · 20/01/2014 09:42

I am the oldest of 5 and the middle child used to go to majorettes. We weren't well off as a family and it would have been impossible for our mum to afford for all of us to attend activities so we didn't. My sister ended up competing at a national level and won loads of trophies and we were always there when we could to offer her support. I never resented it for a moment and was just very proud of her!

MellowAutumn · 20/01/2014 09:46

Majorettes is not quite on the financial/time/travel commitments scale as Karting. Or the disparity of spending £10,000 a year on one child and not being able to afford £500 instrument lessons for another.

WaffilyVersatile · 20/01/2014 09:50

It might not be to you but its all relative and for my family it did mean sacrifices being made so that she could do what she loved. To our budget it was a large amount of money!! Sorry if you didn't deem it valid enough to add...

ComposHat · 20/01/2014 10:01

It depends on the household budget mellow

The poster whose sister did majorettes could have swallowed up the entire family's disposable income, whilst 10, 000 may well be mere piss in the pool to some parents.

MrsCakesPremonition · 20/01/2014 10:03

Can you start saving a small amount into a weekly "activities" fund now (maybe £3 per week per child as though they were already doing an activity) so that you've got some extra money available when they get older and start wanting to choose an activity for themselves.

It might not cover the whole cost but it might cushion it a bit.

brokenhearted55a · 20/01/2014 10:16

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

DeWe · 20/01/2014 10:23

Children don't have to do the same activities to be fair. Sometimes one will get oportunities the others (or another) didn't have simply because of something outside your control. In those cases, to me, it's unfair to say that one can't do it because the others didn't have that oportunites. Because in the long run, these sorts of things even out in the end.

The issue here is that it is in your control. You are saying that your second two can do NO activities because of the money (and I suspect time) that are thrown at your ds1. That is where resentment will come.

At present your two younger ones are you enough for it not to matter. But in the next year, you need to be thinking about how your ds1 can cut back in order for you to be able to afford something ds2 wants to do. Equally well when your dc3 comes up to school age, he will need to cut back again.

I know from my family growing up. All our family did a particular sport. Except my dsis who chose not to do it because she didn't enjoy it. Even so, so resented the time and money spent on it because, she felt that she came second best, if she had wanted to do a sport, she wouldn't have had the same time and money put into it, as there wasn't an unlimited pot.

Otoh I was picked from a group to have music lessons. Much as she would have loved to have been picked when it was her turn, she wasn't, and she didn't resent this because it was not something my parents chose to refuse to her.

For what it's worth, we refused a 50% scholarship for dd1's secondary, simply because even if dd2 (and later ds) had got the same scholarship, we couldn't have afforded to send them too. So it seemed unfair to give dd1 something we knew that the others couldn't do. We expained this to dd1, and she understood, and was happy with the decision.

MellowAutumn · 20/01/2014 10:32

I understand that its relative to household budget to a degree - but in extreme poverty there is no wriggle room so yes the kids may really understand one talented sibling being supported - however when the budget is so huge and could possibly be manipulated or reduced to allow the sibling to do something they want to do then I can see real resentment growing as the kids get older and the older child being the 'golden child ' or even seen as potentially the family's meal ticket long term - weather they want to be or not as SO much has been given them in comparison to the other 2 .

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