Aibu in thinking the average British person would be too selfish to send money abroad to family if they needed it.

[icedbunlover]

Just read a thread in money matters where the op met more vitriol over her Dp sending money abroad than rtb on a council flat.

Surely its a choice on what people, even those on low incomes spend their money on, if you want to forego drink or sky tv or nicer food or Netflix to help your family abroad, why the questioning? Why the disbelief?

So am I unreasonable to think the average British/English person would not help continually in this way as too selfish and that it's a cultural difference, i.e the eastern Europeans, African, Asians and Afro Caribbeans etc, who do so every month without a background glance, do so because it's normal in their cultures?

yabu

an starting a TAT

and - why not just say that on the thread

and generalising massively

I worked with a Singaporean girl who was expected to finance her little brother through college. She was put under absurd pressure by her family who had no clue how expensive is renting a room in the UK. It was completely unreasonable and jeopardised her mental health.
On the other hand I have a sister who paid voluntarily for her nephew’s final year at private school because his father was made redundant. So I don’t think are rules, but there are different cultural pressures.

It's different because English people abroad aren't usually leaving behind family in more need of money, or to whom the money would make a vast difference.

Economic migrants tend not to be English. Sending money back to the UK would be like throwing it down the drain.

This is interesting to me as my parents have decided to retire to their holiday home in France. There's been lots of articles in the English paper about "terrible" English children who don't pay for the care home fees of their elderly parents who have retired to France then needed care. But the culture there assumes grandparents will do a lot of childcare, that property (particularly farm land) will just be given to adult children (ok, sons) on retirement. It's generally a lot more entwined than our generations.

If you've received help, they you are more likely to help out. If family are going to be expected to fund your lifestyle, then you also have to have the expectation they will have opinions and a say in what that lifestyle is.

In the UK we have free education up to 18, heavily subsidised beyond that. We have free healthcare and a benefits system if all goes wrong- if a family member has chosen to move away from that for a "better life", then most people wouldn't think they should have to fund that choice.

Lazy generalisation. People tend to send money home when there is a big economic differential between earning/buying power between places.
DH sends money home to those members of his family unable to support themselves (little state support). However, a good wage in his home country is a couple of hundred pounds a month so £1000 once in a while makes a huge difference.
You’d need to send 5x as much to the UK to start to have a similar effect.

I’m with phosphorus. Norwegians don’t tend to send money home either!

So no, I don't plan to fund care homes for my parents, they can sell their house to pay for it if they don't want to move back. I didn't get a say in their choice to leave, so I don't think I should have an obligation to fund it.

I don't think sending money home is necessarily a good thing. Having worked with many people from cultures where this is the norm, I came to believe that it put far too much pressure on the person who migrated, and in many cases made them resent the family 'left behind'.

I remember one person who was taking home around £1k a month being expected to send £800 back to his family. It meant he couldn't run a car, go out with his mates, or spend any 'fun money' on himself. He missed out on so much, and ended up giving up and returning home because he was so unhappy.

People in the U.K. have access to benefits, free health care etc which many other countries don’t offer their citizens. I have lived in a country which has no unemployment benefit, no universal credit, no social housing and no free healthcare. Wages are also very low. It is normal there for families to help each other financially when they can.
The money isn’t for luxuries, it’s for the basics that people in more affluent societies take for granted and expect the State to provide. In the U.K. the Welfare State put an end (mostly) to families having to support each other financially, so it’s something that most people have never had to do.
If it were necessary, I’m sure most British people would do it too.

With today's society I often wonder why families don't pool their resources and live together, so no child care fees and no care home fee's.

I had a friend whose dad used to send large amounts of money back home. He enjoyed the kudos it brought him, and it showed his relatives back home that he was doing very well in the UK.

But her parents were divorced and he never paid anything towards her and her brother. He was happy to see his own children grow up with next to nothing so that he could play the big man back home.

Because living with relatives is hellish and if it can be avoided, most people will do so.
It also puts too much strain on women, who end up becomming unpaid carers at both ends - to grandchildren and then to the elderly.

I did ask if I was being unreasonable as I was going by the responses on the other thread. So I'm prepared to be told that I am.

Ghostylivesheets, There was no point weighing in on that thread, as it was about having a child and I wanted to ask specifically, whether the opinions coming across on sending money abroad to family, were a general thing or not.

I am probably being unreasonable but many threads mention immediate family as not including parents or siblings and when people mention paying or helping their family in other ways, it's now tends towards the unusual and not the norm.

So I am generalising but I seem to be noticing a trend towards only the more nuclear family being considered the true family, a trend towards a selfishness within the UK and I'm commenting on that.

I think I could be described as an 'Average British Person'. We do send money abroad (to DH's side of our family who live in India). My parents wouldn't expect or accept this help in the same way even if they did need it. That doesn't make me selfish because I wouldn't offer my parents. It's just a totally different culture on my 'British' side of the family so we don't give my parents money, no.

YABU
You can have an opinion but to generalise is wrong.
Just like the OP in the other thread could make her own decisions about her money, so can the rest of us and it doesn't make anyone a bad person whether or not we send money abroad.

My ex is British and he helped his mum to pay towards her mortgage on her place in Ireland with our joint life savings. Not a fortune, something to the tune of £80K.
It was a coincidence that he petitioned for divorce the very next week, of course.

I'm white British, I don't have family abroad but my Mum is on a low income. I have given her several thousand in recent years and I know my brother has also given her money. We do have a good welfare system in this country which is why it's probably less common, but some people fall through the cracks.

Sorry, white isn't really relevant, I phrased that badly, just meant parents are both of British origin.

My family don’t live abroad but we help pay my mum’s mortgage (she lives round the corner). She’s on a low income and currently mortgaged until she’s 70 so we overpay for her so it will be paid sooner.
My best friend’s DH sends money back to his family in Romania. He doesn’t pay a single penny towards his wife and children here (doesn’t contribute towards rent/bills/food), as he says he needs to send it all home. She pays for everything.

Im happy to be wrong craxmum and need a usernamegenerator.

YABU to talk about British people, or people from anywhere all being selfish.

Is it the 1950s? Should be ashamed of yourself really.

It's okay uncle gavin, I got the email about you being mugged in Barcelona and am sending money out to you by western union. Auntie Gladys said you'd only popped into Maidstone, but you wouldn't have emailed about the mugging in that case, would you?

Firstly, hope you're aware that people of Eastern European/African/Asian heritage etc can also be British 'British' is so much more than a nationality involving shared cultural heritage - it's an internationally recognised legal category. The people you are praising may very well be British citizens, which weakens your argument somewhat...

Secondly, UK has a student finance system which is propped up by the expectation that where judged possible parents will subsidise their student kids' living costs until age 21, and nevertheless British families are selfish with money?

Then finally the situation whereby Brits (those of your exclusive description) would find more lucrative work out of the UK leaving behind destitute family who could not survive in this country without regular handouts from children etc is just so rare that such a culture hasn't had a chance to develop and so we don't hear of it. It doesn't mean that when these situations do arise families are not more than happy to step up and help, it's just not widely reported because it's not really a social phenomenon but rather involves individual cases.

Is that there thread where the op couldn't remember what country she lived in?

Yes that's the thread, AlisoncHaynes.

And yes I asked a general Aibu to get a response to see if the views on that thread were the norm or not.

Most seemed to view the sending of money abroad as unreasonable even though the op mentioned repeatedly that the money was not for luxuries but to keep the family abroad alive.