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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

About parents' money

431 replies

junpinline · 10/02/2018 11:47

My parents are quite wealthy; they have a large house with no mortgage, fancy holidays a few times a year, spend loads on clothes and meals and cars and socialising. My dad works but Mother doesn't.

Recently they came into a large sum of money and are busy spending it on new furniture, redecorating, cars etc.

I have two sisters and we are all in our twenties. Our parents have never given any of us any money. I bought a house two years ago and saved for years, my parents contributed by buying me a kettle.

I'm currently trying to sell the house and I'm going to be few thousand short for a deposit on new house. I'm struggling hard to save this and my parents know. In the meantime they've just bought another new car and are going abroad next week. They always expect expensive gifts at Christmas etc.

AIBU to be starting to resent them for this?

OP posts:
MammaAgata · 11/02/2018 06:50

Harvey there’s no implication that the OP’s parents shouldn’t spend that money on holidays etc. The OP is simply painting a picture of her parents financial situation. I find threads like this so depressing. Assuming my children were like the OP and worked very hard to get where they were in life then why the fuck can’t their family help them out? My mother sounds like yours OP. Loaded but never helped her children financially. Expects a certain “level” of present on her birthday/Xmas, allows us to pay for every lunch/dinner etc when we go out. She got over £300k recently and then gave my brother who she hasn’t seen for over 10 years £20 at Xmas despite him being destitute and on benefits. She talks about money ALL the time. Obsessed by it in fact. No mortgage, massive house she lives alone in, earns approx £50-£60k a year in pensions and other means. I wouldn’t take £5 off her if it was offered. And sadly one of the many reasons her 3 children are NC with her.

NerrSnerr · 11/02/2018 06:51

compared to the luxuries which her DM is rubbing the OP's nose in

Rubbing her nose in or spending her own money as she see's fit?

It does seem mean that her mum won't help with £1500 it really does depend on whether the OP gives her mum attitude for not working and spending money as that's not on.

tigerbasil · 11/02/2018 06:54

If I was your mum or dad and you said things like that about me / my wife I wouldn't be giving you the money either to be honest. Tough shit if you have that attitude - perhaps that's the reason.

Mummyoflittledragon · 11/02/2018 07:04

NerrSnerr
Just because the mother may be “spending her money as she sees fit”, it doesn’t in any way mean that the way she is choosing to spend her money can’t be distasteful to others.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 11/02/2018 07:07

Oh so it's distasteful to spend your own money on things that you want. You should give it away.

I have never asked either of my parents for money in adulthood nor expected them to give me money in adulthood. I find it really strange that so many people think it's okay.

Pleasebeafleabite · 11/02/2018 07:08

I’ve been watching this thread but I am going to have to hide it now because I’m finding that the resentment of, and sense of entitlement to, other people’s money In some of these posts Is quite sickening really

InspMorse · 11/02/2018 07:10

I couldn't see myself watching DCs struggle financially whilst living it up myself. Why would you do that?

NerrSnerr · 11/02/2018 07:10

My mother has never worked a day in her life but she adores spending my dads money.

If I was a SAHM and brought my children up and this is how much they respected me I wouldn't give them any money either.

Mummyoflittledragon · 11/02/2018 07:14

Harvey
It’s difficult to get meaning over in the written word if one is not incredibly precise. Perhaps you haven’t had parents doing this to you so it’s not an emotive issue for you.

What I meant was the way she is choosing to and rub it in her daughters face is distasteful. How she chooses to spend her money is obviously her own decision.

HarveyKietelRabbit · 11/02/2018 07:16

Mummy - sounds like this thread has touched a nerve for you Flowers

greendale17 · 11/02/2018 07:20

I couldn't see myself watching DCs struggle financially whilst living it up myself. Why would you do that?

^This

MammaAgata · 11/02/2018 07:24

mummy I think you’re right.

Just for context about my post in any case anyone reads it as grabby and entitled... my mother has never helped her children despite having the funds to do so, but will flash money around elsewhere due to her lifelong illness and suffering from ‘what other people will think’ of her. To put in context she retired from her job, bought the whole department of about 30 people a gift each. To the tune of about £25 per person. These were people she didn’t know what well really and she was a mid level manager of about 4 staff, not the CEO of a large organisation. A month or two later she forgot my birthday, panicked and regifted a candle (£5 ish) and allowed me to take her out to dinner and pay despite it being my birthday. I’m not in the slightest bit grabby, would deliberately never ever be in debt to her for even 50p. But occasions like I’ve just explained have happened all my life and it’s very hurtful.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 11/02/2018 07:34

Unless they live in a very cheap part of the country as regards housing, I don't understand those people who say 'just save more'. Housing is relatively so much more expensive than it was a few decades ago. No matter how frugal/broke you are prepared to be, it's so often just not possible to save enough for a deposit or for moving up the ladder, say from a small flat to even a very modest family home.

Dh and I had no help - our parents couldn't have afforded to help anyway - but back then we were able to buy a reasonably nice home without help - as were so many of our generation. Around here, tiny houses we wouldn't even have considered, are now out of reach for so many.
Anyone who,likes to think it's just a case of giving up the lattes and i phone must be either very stupid/ignorant, or wilfully deluding themselves. At least in many parts of the country. Personally I am very thankful that we have been able to help dds.

As for the pp whose dd refuses to work and still demands handouts, that is a rather different matter. You do have to wonder whose fault it is that she's turned out so spoilt, lazy and entitled.

Angrybird345 · 11/02/2018 07:39

It must hurt that they are tight fisted but stop buying expensive presents.

KERALA1 · 11/02/2018 07:43

Yanbu. We don't get financial help but parents don't have excess cash and are lovely and supportive in other ways.

Wonder if its cultural. Know several English families where the boomer generation have more money than they know what to do with and their kids in their thirties and forties struggling to get on housing ladder. Our Jewish friends the money goes where it's needed - granny buys grand kids a flat in their twenties etc. Sets them up for life much smarter and tax efficient.

Tinkerbec · 11/02/2018 07:44

I was brought up to think families share.

I would give my parents and my sister my last penny and not ask for it back.

Currently my bil is out of work my parents are giving them 1k a month to help them out.

None of us are bitter about this. It’s just what we do.

So op yes I get it but also do get that its up to people to choose how to spend their money. Its not about the money though it’s about the thought, caring, family , closeness and genorisity.

Mummyoflittledragon · 11/02/2018 07:51

Harvey
Thanks Smile. It has. My mother has actually been very generous in more recent years and did help me with a house deposit. So I’m not complaining about her wealth in comparison to mine even when I was in my 20’s. Neither saying that I am in any way entitled to her money as I am not.

I recognise the attitude op is trying to explain. And she’s doing it rather clumsily imo. My mother is a narcissist and defines me and who I am just as ops mother is defining her. My mother has a long list of perceived slights against her, and each time I see her, she picks and uses a few of them as a stick to beat me under the sentencing rules of the life sentence she has imposed upon me.

For example she still goes on now about how expensive I was as a student - almost thirty years ago. Even though at the time she was able to show off her diamond ring with 3 stones of more than a carrot each and speak excitedly over her lastest several thousand pound holiday when at the same time I had had to put food back on the shelf in the supermarket. As a student, I did not have excess money, lived very frugally in a very basic house share with no central heating and hot water on an immersion heater, which was common at the time. I was at university the first year student loans were made available to top up grants and I took out a loan in my first year. In 1989, I had about £40 a week to live on, which wasn’t enough as it just about paid my weekly rent and meagre food bill. I worked to supplement my money in subsequent years as most students do these days.

Of course my mother was entitled to have the ring and great holidays. I’m glad she had a great time. What I deeply and strongly object to her was and still is is making me feel like a failure, burden, inadequate and an embarrassment. For my mother has always used money as a weapon. She did so throughout my childhood and the giving and withdrawal of money was the only form of affection I received from her. Perhaps ops mother isn’t as unkind to her as my mother has been to me. But the attitude is there. Personally I would take a loving, caring mother over any amount of money.

MammaAgata · 11/02/2018 08:05

mummy your mum sounds scarily like mine... a recent classic was going on a first class flight to Australia (which incidentally she didn’t enjoy) then coming back and coming to our house for Xmas and saying she couldn’t afford to buy us a gift as she had spent so much on the holiday. But yup, everyone is entitled to spend their own money as they wish. I get that, but it’s the constant hammering it home that her own children are worthless to her that hurts. I don’t need or want a gift off her. Never have wanted or expected anything. But it’s the points that are made that really rub it in that I’ve never fathomed out.

DarthNigel · 11/02/2018 08:05

I understand where you are coming from op...of course it their money and they can do what they want with it.But it's bloody hurtful when you are struggling-or working hard and not quite being able to make it- and know they could easily help but instead all you hear from them is 'we're just booking our third holiday of the year' and 'I wonder if we should upgrade our car'

TheFishInThePot · 11/02/2018 08:05

Your parents do sound very materialistic OP, I would hate that 'guess how much it was' game.
Don't buy them expensive presents any more, to be honest your DM does sound a bit hollow or immature to me, not because they are enjoying their money, but because they need to demonstrate it to you.
I don't think YABU at all to resent watching the DM show, while they are aware you have financial stuff going on. It would only need a little self awareness on her part to rein it in.

Mummyoflittledragon · 11/02/2018 08:17

First class. Tragically uncomfortable, I’m sure. Travelling mostly in my Ryan Air private jet I couldn’t say. Very magnanimous of me to let all the hoi polloi tag along for the ride Wink.

The common theme, I think is knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.

olliegarchy99 · 11/02/2018 08:18

I do find the OP's parents attitude unforgiveable - apologies not read the full thread.
15 or so years ago I 'gave' my son £45k I could spare at the time (call it an early inheritance) so he was helped to buy a semi when he got married. I have never asked for it to be repaid.
Fast forward to today - I have an income of circa £12k pa (skint OAP) but house paid off, enough to live on, and a family who is there if I need help. I am quite content.
This is not just what non-English families do as a pp suggested - it is what loving familes of any cultural background do.

Jessie2445 · 11/02/2018 08:26

Geezus, some of these replies...

Thankfully, the majority of parents would help their kids out ( if they can afford it). That’s what loving families do. I wouldn’t think twice to help my parents out and I know they feel the same way about me. Why would you want to sit back and watch someone you love struggle and be in a bad state of worry when you could help them?

The bottomline here, your parents can comfortably afford to lend you that money. You weren’t asking for frivolous reasons. So I think it’s pretty pathetic they have said no.

It doesn’t sound like a close family. Your mother is more for herself.

TealStar · 11/02/2018 08:55

YANBU op, I’m already starting to think about how we’re going to save some money towards a deposit for the dds in ten years time or so; they’ll need all the help they can get. We won’t be inordinately wealthy ourselves (we have a lot of equity so will be relying on that but our pensions are pretty woeful) but I’d still love to help the dds.

Etymology23 · 11/02/2018 08:57

I think the thing is here, that no one can “expect” cash from their parents, but if everyone in a family does the same thing then everyone’s lives are easier. E.g my grandparents saved up for me to help me with my deposit (I saved the other half): I’m now in a position to save up so I’ll be able to help my kids/grandchildren when they need it. I can do the saving now, for them in the future. That means I have twenty years of earning to do that saving, whereas the next generation can’t save until they are adults with jobs etc. Then they can save for the future and their next generation.