give it to me straight - am I entitled over inheritance or are my parents selfish

[twoopsie]

To cut a long story short. My parents are very well off,dad is on a final salary pension and mum draws a state pension. They have a 5 bed Edwardian house in the south east, 2 buy to let flats owned outright, and from my dads side they inherited the family farm that is let out to four different people / businesses.

They have an income after tax of 8k a month and spend money stupidly. Dad bought a Mercedes purely to drive to the golf course as the clubs won't fit in the ferrari. 4 exotic holidays a year. Spend more on an extension than my whole house cost.

Anyway good for them but they have told me that they don't intend to leave me anything as they have earnt everything and want me to do the same. Firstly they haven't earnt everything as they inherited , mum has had state pension for more years than she worked and dad got to retire early on a final salary pension. They happy take extras like the free bus pass so the car won't get scratched in town and talk about using the winter fuel allowance to buy wine and claim theyve worked for this and are entitled to them.

Aibu to at least expect them to pass on what they were lucky enough to inherit?

Elephantspoo the OP is not comparing her husbands job to her friends she is comparing it to her fathers pre-retirement! So the reason her husband can't just go and get one of those jobs is because they don't exist anymore.

It tells me that the OP is hard working and motivated, and is shocked by the way her parents are behaving, not some kind of psychopathic oligarch! It also tells me that she is most likely genuinely upset by observing her parents behaviour, and that this is more important to her than money. Otherwise, her thread would have been based on her boasting about how hard she has worked and how much she has achieved, rather than describing her parents' behaviour.

I have never disputed that the family works hard. That was an allegation/speculation posted by others and attributed to me by JohnFarleysRuskin.

But, OPs question is whether she is entitled. None of us are entitled to anything owned by others. Entitlement and greed are destroying the fabric of society, and it is all very well for people to say, "Oh well, those people are not entitled to this, or that, but I'm entitled to this because in my case it is different." Unless you have a legal right under Common Law or a contract with an individual or an organisations, feeling aggrieved that someone will not give you stuff for free, just because they have it and you feel your entitled to is, is greed plain and simple.

Yet, political correctness says we must all say, "There, there, deary. This is bad. It's awful that they wont give you free shit to add to your already self professed pile of wealth." instead of just posting the truth. It is greed. Both she and her parents are greedy souls, and she is on here bitching that they aren't giving her a slice of it, and looking for solidarity among others so that she can justify her bitterness and her resentment.

I don't think there is anything wrong with observing something and forming an opinion on it, and acting accordingly. I mean, where would you draw the line if all forming of opinions were bad?

Neither do I, but the person who is being mentally fucked up by their whole prema donna dance, is OP, who is talking about cutting her parents off and cancelling Christmas rights. She is taking her greed and resentment and inflicting it on her children. "No, Granny and Grandad can't see you anymore, because they're greedy fucks and they won't give us any of your Great Grandad's estate."

We all have the right to view the world as we please, and clearly OP believes she is entitled to judge her parents and take action against them, despite them (as far as we have been told so far) never having harmed, nor indicating that they would harm, her family unit. She feels entitled to punish her Grandparents and her children for what she believes is an entitlement to money.

She harps on about it being the principle, but this is all about money, greed, jealousy, envy, hypocrisy. Clearly someone who has no idea of the basic failings in life, that she prospers quite considerably, but is still able to squeeze a good amount of destructive habits into her life.

elephantspoo I do wonder if you are reading a different thread from me. What I see is that the OP is tired of her parents flaunting their luck and then claiming it to be as a result of hard work.

IMO 'you make your own luck' claims are just arrogant 20/20 hindsight.

I remember talking to a Russian colleague whose mother had been very pleased with her state job with its generous old age pension. Then the world turned, the communist era came to an end and that state pension was worth buttons.

It is very easy with hindsight to think 'how clever I am' when the reality is that you were just lucky. You cant read the future. You make the best of what you have (as the OP is doing) but you really dont know what the future is going to bring.

If the OP is tired of the way her parents behave by flaunting their wealth - gloating about the holidays they go on or the money they fritter on cars then I dont blame her for not wanting to spend more time than is absolutely necessary with them.

Offspring do not owe their parents anything for having raised them (as any teenager will tell you, they didnt ask to be born!).

Once offspring are adults then the relationship between offspring and parents is very much a two way street as PP have said. The period when offspring as adults would benefit from help from their parents is often very short (help with the first step on the property ladder, help with childcare).

Once that stage is gone IME the parents can then find that they are the ones who need help in some way. Just how willing should the OP be to help her parents in the future when their attitude has been very much a 'stuff you' one?

The OP's parents may yet find that they will reap what they have sowed.

elephantpoo, you're being incredibly aggressive and condemning of the OP, who is just expressing disappointment that her parents won't help her as they were helped before.

She also doesn't sound bitter or resentful to me.

Are you reading some situation of your own into this? Because your reaction has been way too angry for the words the OP has actually typed, it seems like it's a personal affront to you.

But, OPs question is whether she is entitled. None of us are entitled to anything owned by others. Entitlement and greed are destroying the fabric of society, and it is all very well for people to say, "Oh well, those people are not entitled to this, or that, but I'm entitled to this because in my case it is different." Unless you have a legal right under Common Law or a contract with an individual or an organisations, feeling aggrieved that someone will not give you stuff for free, just because they have it and you feel your entitled to is, is greed plain and simple.

Well, to disagree (because this is a discussion, with differing views), we are actually entitled by law to many things. One of them is to be raised by our parents: if people choose to have a child and fail to raise them, various sanctions will be applied by the State. So I think expecting someone to feel gratitude or respect towards their parents solely for doing that is misapplied.

We are also entitled to be paid for our labour (work). This generation has seen additional entitlement to pensions and retirement age removed from them and replaced by less favourable ones. So we can quantifiably argue that the previous generation did have an advantage which placed them in a more favourable position.

I also think you are extrapolating: I have not seen that the OP is going to bar her parents from seeing her children; rather that she isn't going to cook and provide for them this Christmas because they don't reciprocate.

I also think that rather than coming across as obsessed by entitlement, the OP is rather disgusted by the obvious flaunting of wealth and wasting of money by her parents, and feels uncomfortable around it, and quite possibly doesn't want her children to see that.

I think theres a fundamental difference in understanding elephantspoo that the actions of parents can affect how their adult children relate to them.

TheChandler - I did not say we were not entitled to be raised by parents, remunerated for work etc. In fact I explicitly said we are entitled to what is afforded us by law.

I also did not say we should offer gratitude for being brought up, but I do believe a parent deserves a measure of respect for what she does for her children. Especially when said parent is claimed to have raised said child into a position in life with a level of comfort many people in this country do not enjoy.

Watching OP bang on about how daddy drives a Ferrari and it is so unfair that they won't be leaving her money for her children's university fees and houses, is so far out of most peoples' reality that it is like something that should be in the pages of OK.

We are all able to judge our parents, the way they brought us up, the way they lead their lives once, and the freedoms they enjoy once we have left the fold and are no longer the centre of their world, and I'm sure some of us get jealous, resentful that they are free and past their child rearing years, and no longer carry the family burdens we now carry. But that's part of growing up. Be mature about it and stop the petulant spoilt teenager routine.

My parents do a lot of things that worry me. Admittedly spending money on a Ferrari isn't one of them. They are comfortable, happy, independent and enjoying life. Why the F should we all be happy for them?

TheChandler - In regard to your observations of economic change, we are comparing apples with oranges here. It is no different to my father comparing his home with the ease with which one could be bought by his father for £40. But he wasn't bitter about it.

We live in a world that some parents failed to prepare their children for. I get that. But to translate that into a gimme gimme attitude towards one's parent's is just greed. But then I suppose some of us are brought up that way.

At the same time, however, we live in a world with far more opportunity, far fewer restrictions, far cheaper business startup costs, far freer education, and far greater potential for growth and innovation than at any time in the past few hundred years.

Now I do get that one can be single-minded and miffed that Hubby can't go and work for the council. But Hubby lives in a different world, and mummy and daddy don't get to reap the benefits of that world any longer. Clearly, as they are cashing in their chips. They never lived or were permitted to flourish in a world where everything was virtually free, barrier free, open for competing with anyone anywhere on the planet for commerce.

And what no-one has considered if one is planning on using the, 'they had it better so we are entitled' defence, is that they had it done to them in one way or another by the previous generation, and we are doing it to our children as we speak.

Right now as I type this, we are spending money in order to dig our children deeper and deeper into debt. 20 years from now we will likely live in a country were healthcare is paid for by the person using it, where educational debt is never extinguished, where minimum wage means living in a single room on noodles. Every day we are spending our children's inheritance, and instead of enjoying the wealth, opportunity and freedoms we have today, we choose on this thread to focus on the material wealth of two OAPs who have done alright for themselves, and who's wealthy daughter is bitter that she can't have even more money.

I just don't get these value systems.

Maybe entitled is the wrong word as no one is 'entitled' to inheritance

However if I were in the same position I would be upset at them selling a property that has been in the family for generations. Fair enough them spending their savings and income but to sell off a property purely so you don't get left with anything is shocking. They appear to be doing this on purpose even though they don't require the funds to continue with their lifestyle.

What is your relationship like with them normally?

I am in my 50's and my parents helped me financially when I was younger as their argument was, 'that's when you need it the most'. Not with huge amounts but when I was left in dire straits by my first husband, they would pay for my supermarket shopping etc. I would point out that I wasn't sat around doing nothing, I worked 10 hours plus each working day and I had a 5 year old child

Now I am ok financially so we now help our boys when we can. We chose not to buy them a car each, but instead have worked damned hard to put them both through university without them having to get a job or a loan, in fact we only did this on the basis that they didn't get a loan or a job, their job during this time was to achieve as good a degree as they possibly could. They did very well and are working damned hard in their chosen careers,

My parents say, you pay it forward, their parents helped them, they helped me etc etc

I encourage my parents to live life to the full but I would be devastated if they disposed of capital assets purely so it would not be left to me ... In my opinion that's now how family's should work

I don't think the money is the heart of the problem, it's the lack of care and consideration of the children and grandchildren. While none of my grandparents owned property or had much in the bank they cared about us all and would have helped as much as they could, and did in the ways they were able before they died. My parents are the same in wanting to help, supporting us and knowing we could come to them in a crisis. I'd be really hurt if they were deliberately and (it sounds) vindictively pissing their wealth up the wall so I don't get anything. Although I do think it's a bit different if they had been generous with their money in life to set you up with top class private education and uni, a deposit for a house and first car. I understand why wealthy celebs or business people say they won't leave their money to their kids, they've already probably set the, up for life with education, connections and possibly inherit the business - doesn't seem the case here.

My in laws are baby boomers and fit into the description very well, they benefitted from disproportionate growth in property prices, final salary pension from the public sector and from relatively cheaper private education and free university education. They too find it strange that we can't afford to buy a bigger house and pay out for repairs etc. Despite being awful when we told them we were having our first child - DH was 30 and I was only a bit younger - they had recognised the need to help their children and not only passed a large proportion of their inheritance to DH and SIL (to help buy property) but have made provision in trusts for inheritance when they pass.

We don't expect anything off them or my parents, it is not part of any plan and we carry on as if it won't happen - it may not if care costs are incurred and this is likely, I certainly won't be volunteering to look after the in laws to avoid spending it (I haven't got on with them since pregnancy no.1 and have health problems myself). But it is right that by the time we inherit at all we won't need it the way it would be useful now, hopefully anyway, it should be the grandkids they have in mind by that time.

So no, no one is entitled to inherit and I don't agree with law dictating this as in other countries mentioned. But I do think you are entitled to feel hurt and want to pull away from your parents, it does feel like a rejection. Do you have siblings to talk to? But don't let this get to you now, it sounds like it is a long way off and plenty may happen before that. Losing one parent may change the perspective of the one left behind for example. Just plan your life regardless, it sounds like you are doing well without any help and are probably very fortunate in other ways.

elephantspoo this may be a silly question, but you know the OP was using the mumsnet version of the word entitled, as opposed to the real meaning? Lots of your posts seem to be addressing whether she is actually entitled to anything in the proper sense, which she obviously isn't, but that wasn't the question.

glad someone else pointed out df was father not friend, hence the reason dh couldn't choose to do the same as him was because time had passed and opportunities closed.

funnily enough, your post that we are now spending our kids inheritance is the whole point- what you say we are doing to the future generations has already been done to the youth of today by the baby boomers. Not intentionally, not directly, not personally, not deliberately, no one is blaming them, but the fact is that their generous final salary pensions and astronomical house price rises were unsustainable and unjustifiable and unfunded, hence the rewriting of all the public sector pension schemes to fill "black holes" for the benefit of the pensioners at the cost of the current and future workforce. And i really loved what one pp said- spending the kids' mortgage, wrt equity gains on houses. The only criticism has been that those that benefitted from this imbalance do not recognise their good fortune, do not appreciate the indirect effect on the baby's from the boom and future generations. And while they may not have deliberately, intentionally, directly or personally have contributed to this, the two OAPs in question ARE directly, deliberately, even vindictively, personally reducing the OP and her children's lot, with their very hurtful stated intention of spunking the lot, pissing it all up the wall on fast cars and exotic holidays, without a thought for the next generation beyond "fuck you".

In 20 years time I would hope that our generation have the grace to acknowledge our own comparative level of fortune, and try to improve the lot of less fortunate generations as best we can, rather than greedily wasting it all just because we can.

funnily enough, your post that we are now spending our kids inheritance is the whole point- what you say we are doing to the future generations has already been done to the youth of today by the baby boomers

But that is how the world works in a capitalist system. Every generation throughout history has always passed all it's debts and unfounded liabilities onto its children. The fact that 99% of people don't understand the system they live in, don't care to learn, but are happy to perpetuate the status quo is the whole problem.

And you can't compare one generation to the next, just as you can't compare your marriage to your neighbours. It's asinine to do so. It serves no purpose other than to create jealousy, envy, bitterness, resentment etc.

Nor can we improve the future for our children by teaching them resentment, greed, jealousy, etc. Why choose a course of action predetermined to harm both your relationship with your parents, and have knock on negative effects on your children? I can't get my head around why anyone would do that unless driven by some malevolent desire.

In 20 years time I would hope that our generation have the grace to acknowledge our own comparative level of fortune, and try to improve the lot of less fortunate generations as best we can, rather than greedily wasting it all just because we can.

If there is one certainty in life, it is that we will never learn from history. We have never learned from the mistakes in our past, and we never will. It is the human condition, and that is why history repeats inself.

And you can't compare one generation to the next, just as you can't compare your marriage to your neighbours. It's asinine to do so. It serves no purpose other than to create jealousy, envy, bitterness, resentment etc.

Of course you can - just because you don't personally like it, doesn't mean it isn't a useful tool.

And yes, again, we do learn from history - why do you think the EU was set up?

I don't expect anything from my parents - would rather they spent it while alive and fit to enjoy it. If you asked my dcs they'd tell you that dh and I are going to sell the house and travel the world when we retire and we will. We have put aside money to help the dcs if we think it's appropriate but they don't know, we don't want them to think that Bank of Mum&Dad is going to be their ticket out of hard work, so they'll only discover their generous inheritance when we're dead or they are 30 years old.
I can see why you are disappointed but expecting them to pass an inheritance is maybe why they have decided not to....tell you at least.

Now here's a question.

What happens if the OP's parents do manage to squander their inheritance? Is the OP supposed to bring out the fatted calf for her prodigal parents?

This is not beyond the realms of possibility, profligate spending, a couple of bad investment decisions and suddenly a lot of wealth is gone.

Of course you can - just because you don't personally like it, doesn't mean it isn't a useful tool.

Well, if you're going to compare one generation to the next, at the very least compare the entire gamut of facilitating factors that form their productive life. Don't just cherry pick those changes that show your generation to be worse off and neglect to mention those that make your richer, more productive, freer and give greater opportunity.

And yes, again, we do learn from history - why do you think the EU was set up?

This is probably not the forum (certainly not the thread) for geopolitics, but that is one big can of worms you are opening if you contend the EU for the good of future generations. I really don't think the actual histopy of the EU is something MN really wants to explore.

This is probably not the forum (certainly not the thread) for geopolitics, but that is one big can of worms you are opening if you contend the EU for the good of future generations. I really don't think the actual histopy of the EU is something MN really wants to explore.

I'm don't really consider myself bound by the strangely precise and somewhat unorthodox rules of mumsnet political thought, but I am fully aware of the history of the EU, having studied it at Masters level, and it might be something you wish to look into in a little more depth and balance before making misleading comments.

For instance, I read on here in another thread that apparently the "baby boomers" were responsible for the Equal Pay Act 1970. No, that would have been Jacques Delors, Jean Monnet, Robert Schumann et al, who made anti-discrimination measures conditional to membership. The EU is why we have anti-discrimination laws in the UK.

The main reason the then ECSC was set up was to create a trading block to assist with poor post-war trading conditions, as well as to try and achieve conciliation to make war in Europe less likely in the future. Eventually this evolved into the internal market we have now. But of course under your rules ElephantsPoo since we are not allowed to discuss and compare former generations in favour of some semi-educated left wing newspaper view of history, we are not allowed to mention such things.

ps I see no further point in engaging on this thread. The question has been answered. The OP is not being U, since her motives are more about a distaste for flashy wasting of money and not about greed. I don't see it as a foundation for the expounding of left wing views.

If I was them I would want to give it to my children more than anywhere else. Are they trying to make a point? Sorry but isn't it natural to want the best/security for your family regardless of whether you earned or inherited it...?

Hang on a minute, I'm left wing, I share absolutely none of the opinions expressed by elephantspoo on this thread!

In fact, that's kind of why i asked above if s/he had a similar personal situation, as s/he is very vehement about this but said vehemence does not stem from any orthodox political or religous viewpoint (that I can detect).

And I've never been described as left wing before, so that's a first. Me thinks Chandler doesn't know left from right.

BoulevardOfBrokenSleep - No, my parents are comfortable, debt free, but not rich. Certainly they'll never be Ferrari owning farm fritterers, or whatever the diminutive was. Just your average OAPs.

They may have a little nest egg stashed away somewhere, and I certainly would not begrudge them any joy or pleasure they may find in old age, even if it meant departing this earth with zip. Let's face it, the government will take what they can from their estate to pay for care if/when they see fit, and before then they face a decade or so being hounded by every life insurance provider, funeral planning business, and equity release company that can find them and try to squeeze cash from them in their befuddled old age.

So I say let the old garner as much pleasure and joy they can find before they push up daisies. Robbing them of what enjoyment they have left in their life is just callous and spiteful.

My DC are entitled... to exactly half each of what's left of our estate.

And we will give them as much as we can afford to before we die, so we can see them and theirs enjoy it. It's natural to us to want to share our fortune with our loved ones.

So from that point of view it looks like the parents ABU, but this is a long thread and I've not read it all