Gifts for grandchildren - different amount for each family

[SweetSally]

Hi all,

My husband and I are a bit confused about a situation that has occurred in our family. My parents in law have 3 grandchildren in total.
One girl below 1y old
Two boys below 2y old

What we believe to be a bit confusing is - one child gets £100 and the other two kids get £50 each. Basically the brother and the sister have £50 each and the child without siblings receives double this amount because he has no siblings.

Everyone is on very good terms so this is very confusing for me and I am not sure what to make out of it. Are they being reasonable?

(To avoid drip feeding - 2 of the children are mine, and SIL has 1 boy). Please don't get me wrong, we are not jealous of her and we are financially comfortable and we appreciate the grandparents generosity... However, my side of the family doesn't operate like this and I am slightly confused why are the grandchildren being treated differently?

Last Christmas (before DD was born) each grandson received £50. Now, the child without a sibling is being topped up another £50.

Please share your comments (let's keep it civilized and avoiding turning this into a nasty threat)

I feel quite bad now after reading this thread. I usually do something similar. I have one brother with 2 children and one brother with 7. I usually give a little more per child to the family with only 2 children just to make it a little more even; though the brother with the larger family still (on a per family basis, if not per child) still comes out better.
I have checked with family and was led to believe that this was OK and that Christmas money could be spent individually or pooled together with siblings.
I fear now that I may have been an unreasonable thoughtless aunt all this time. I was not aware people put that much competitiveness into it.

I think it’s fine. For example my relative has one child and they give presents to both me and my brother for Christmas. Because there are two of us, they are having to spend more. Therefore we would give the only child more back. E.g say if relative gave me £40 and brother £40. We wouldn’t give the child the same amount of money (£40) as that’s not fair. We might give him £60/80 instead....

I don’t like being told what to do either OP

They can't win can they? They either give equally to each child's family and the gc are disgruntled, or they give equally to the gc and the children are disgruntled.
Since your new arrival she has doubled the amount given to the dn rather than halving the amount given to your dc. As a family you are still £50 up so I think you are being very graspy

They either give equally to each child's family and the gc are disgruntled, or they give equally to the gc and the children are disgruntled.

I think that's ridiculous though. Dh has 2 sisters, both of whom are older than him. He wasn't disgruntled when his parents were giving £150 per grandchild to his nephews & niece before our children were born. He wasn't disgruntled when we only had one child despite the fact that his sisters both had 2 because who expects their parents to give a gift to a baby which doesn't exist?

Our inlaws give cash and a present to the value of roughly £50 to each grandchild and I think that's the fairest way to do it personally. The current system described in the OP is unfair to the grandchildren.

Leggylinda you sound like a lovely aunt and I really wouldn't change what you are doing at all.

As an only DC I always felt a bit jealous of my cousins who had siblings to play with. I loved being together with them at Christmas- I didn't notice who had more presents or what they were, as a child what was important was having other DCs as company.

The ILs are trying to be fair here and it seems there is more than one interpretation of fair. If I was the IL and my gift recipient commented on the amount spent on them in relation to someone else, well then I'd stop giving altogether. I do agree though that specifying amount for each gift for each person sounds like a pain.

Obviously it's not fair the kids aren't extensions of their parents and it's weird to give like that. That said I doubt it's malicious so I wouldn't make a big deal of it.

'families' shouldn't be treat the same but relations should.

example:
grandchildren each get £50
children each get £100
D/SIL each get £20
and so on (substituting any amount your comfortable with) so:
DS1, DIL + 2 DGC = £220
DD1 + 3 DGC = £250
DD2, SIL + 1 DGC = £170
DS2, no IL/GC = £100
each family received a different amount but each person received a fair and equal amount to those in the same relationship to the giver.

If someone is giving a gift they can give whatever amount they want, even if that means giving DS a different amount from another DS or DD and same with grandchildren

@JaJoJe

Appreciate that’s your opinion but unless it’s you giving the gift that doesn’t count for anything.

FWIW I don’t think it’s fair if sibling A has 7 kids and sibling B has just 1, for them all get the same share of the grandparents £400 Christmas budget.
It’s sibling A’s choice to keep having children and diluting the grandparents Christmas fund. They may want to get nice/special items but are instead reduced to cheaper bits/money in a card.

I know several families where grandparents have set aside large and generous sums (£10-£20k) upon the birth of a first grandchild with the provision that it ‘be split between any further siblings’ - putting how much they get into their parents hands.

Wouldn’t bother me now and didn’t bother me as a kid, when my cousins got more, they were all younger than me

I just can’t believe all the people on here if they have more than one child, making sure each child’s present price are the same down to the penny!!!

I don’t spend the same on my nephew or niece , I buy them things I think they will like

I think that is right. I would do that too.
When they have a sibling they would get £50 too.

Worldsonfire... well favoritism is not tolerated in my family, so we never deal with that.

choosing to have only one or two children doesn't mean they get special treatment in life.

You honestly sound like you're talking from the point of view of a spoilt entitled child (there stealing my parents love/attention/money off me its not fair - people grow out of that by about 10) and not a position of a loving parent/grandparent.

I couldn't imagine treating my kids or grand kids differently just because they made different life choices, a no matter if one child gives me an only grand child and the other gives me 20 ALL my grandchildren are completely equal.

I have one DSis with three kids, a DB with two and a DSis with none. I spend the same amount on my siblings and their kids as for me presents are about my relationships with each of them, not seeing each as a family group that must receive the same amount of money.

@JaJoJe

😂 I don’t have grand children .... and I’m far from spoilt but unlike some I don’t believe my opinion and mine alone is correct!

You can give all your grandchildren the exact same and that’s fine- it’s yours to give. But to say categorically that someone else is wrong because they don’t want to do the same as you- well that’s rather small minded and petty xx 😬

Correct @WorldsOnFire