My whole family is full of money grabbers?

[WatermelonSugarRainbow]

This is a long one, so bear with me please.

A bit of a background

I am one of three siblings, my sister is a single mother and my brother (much younger, single) holds an ok job. My parents and siblings live in a small town whilst I moved to London to study and work (20 years ago). I'm the only one in the family to go to uni and hold a 'professional' job.

Over the years, I've always treated my mum and siblings - I would take my mum shopping (cashmere jumpers, linen dresses, perfumes, new mobile phones and even a laptop). I took her to Barcelona (all paid long weekend) for her 60th birthday. I'd also take my family out for dinners (to the pub or pizza express - nothing too fancy) and pick up the bill etc. knowing that they were not able to afford it but I just wanted to spend time with them/strenghten our bond.

We booked a holiday cottage with my sister and invited my mum (splitting the cost between us) but she backed out on the day we were meant to leave because her 'car broke down and it was very expensive to fix' so I just asked her to join us the next day. She drove the next day and never mentioned the car but I ended up paying for the accommodation, with my mum saying that it was too expensive for my sister because she's a single mum (even though she agreed to the cost previous to that). I must admit my dp was very angry about this whole situation.

Since I've had my dd, my mum stayed with us for the first couple months to help and I'm really grateful for that. When I went back to work, I've put dd at nursery. Meanwhile when my sister had her son, my mum looked after him until he was 3yo (for free).

After having my second, I asked if my mum would help me with childcare and nursery drop offs and pick ups. I suggested she moves in with us until my son is ready to start nursery (at 2 years old). She asked that I pay her for childcare and we agreed that I would pay her £500 a month whilst covering her food, accommodation etc.

Both me and my husband hold well paid jobs and on the face of it, we are doing really well but we are 'self made' and have huge monthly expenses - mortgage on an expensive house (good area/schools etc.), car loan, student loans (about to be paid off) and credit card debt that we used when we were decorating the house, so £500 per month for childcare is not an insignificant amount for us but it's obviously less than nursery and we agreed because we felt that she was the best person to look after dc to give us a piece of mind.

Since she started looking after children (6 months ago) I've purchased her a few things as 'gifts' like a smart watch, taken out a phone contract with a new handset for her (her phone was old), covered her travel expenses, expensive trainers etc. All in all about £450 worth of things. She also requested to have a 2 week break in June to go home and rest, so I took annual leave to cover that.

Fast forward to now, we booked and paid for her to come on holiday in Spain (first in 2 yrs) to help with childcare and she agreed to that. She's asked my brother to join us in the villa. (I agreed that me and my brother split the villa cost for my mum evenly). On day one of holiday, both my dp and ds became ill, that's when she told me she was 'on holiday' and wasn't going to help. On day 4, my brother demanded we give him money back as he would/should not pay for my mum. He accused me of ripping him off, took out a hammer and threatened to damage the villa, I ended up asking him to leave and gave him all his money back for his share (£400) even though it was already half way through the holiday, as I didn't feel safe having him around.

My mum took his side and demanded that I pay her for childcare in June (I haven't yet done so, as she 'took 2 week off' to go back to her house and only came back to catch a flight with us) she then told me she no longer wanted to look after my children and accused me of being ungrateful and 'not generous' with my family when I said I've spent so much money on this holiday paying for everyone.

I was so upset, at my lowest point with both my partner and my son sick, I've had zero sleep (sharing bedroom with dc whilst my mum and brother had separate bedrooms), I was up all night giving him medication, he was so grumpy and tired all day. I could have done with help specially in terms of my daughter - just someone to take her out as I was pretty much stuck indoors with ds because of fever. The fact that she took my brothers side (who acted like a psycho) and I feel like I've been nothing but generous towards her.

I'm disappointed - I've agreed to pay her when she didn't ask anything from my sister. All my life, I never got given anything - she gave my sister and my brother money for a deposit - I never said anything but I feel that she expects me to pay for her everywhere - every dinner, every drink, every Christmas.

For my 40th birthday, she stayed overnight with dc so that my partner and I could go away for one night (first time since having children). She was already staying with us and paid to do so and said that was her 'present to me'.

I think what it is, is that I feel that I've been generous and paid for lots of things from my mum, so her to demand last month's payment whilst on a fully paid holiday is a bit 'much'.

I owe her money (£250), should I just give her money I owe her, or should I 'deduct' all the cost for 'gifts' (£450) plus the cost of holiday villa and flights (£500) - meaning we would be all square?

Am I being unreasonable deducting gifts and holidays?

Everyone can stop with the passive aggressive comments about NIC / Tax etc because that is absolutely not how it works. Let’s just start with the fact she’d need to register as a childminder for any of that chat to be legal…

OP, so many people are being controversial. Your DM is not treating you equally. Your brother is toxic and your sister is spoilt. Stop paying for things. Now.

A child minder.

If the op wants to treat her like an employee then she wouldn't be a childminder at all. She'd be a nanny, with no obligation to register with ofsted and the op would be her employer.

I think both sides have behaved awfully.

Asking your mum to move in and do childcare? 😮

Extricate yourself from all this. Don’t mix family and business and stop spending money on them if it only makes you resentful.

It’s hardly passive aggressive. Women ‘out of the workforce’ risk not qualifying for the full state pension if they don’t have enough years of NI payments. If OP’s mum is providing childcare at a bargain basement rate, the least OP could do is ensure she has sufficient NI contributions to qualify for the basic pension. What’s passive aggressive about pointing that out?!

That is one messed up situation. Pay your mum whatever you owe and find another childminder and stop with all the holidays and other treats. That will probably make up the difference for whatever your childminders will cist.

I have a family like this. When you get back from holiday -

1. find childcare for your children and don’t use your mum anymore.
2. Stop buying presents and meals out for your family. They don’t appreciate it. Presents (if you get them) should be a Boots 3 for 2 job.
3. Do not mention anything about your life that could be inferred to mean you have money (e.g. nice holiday, expensive day out, shopping trip, etc)

I bet when you turn of the financial tap of treats and presents they will show there true colours and things will get really nasty.

Glad to hear that you've taken on board these opinions.

Just what I was thinking!

My late DP used to be a payroll manager for a company that did payroll for people's domestic staff. Some of the live-in nannies were on over £30k+ and a car pa, and that was a fair few years ago.

I don’t think it’s wise to use family for childcare on a permanent full time basis.
i dont think I know any one who pays grandparents. But your mum has uprooted her life to live with you.
It does sound like they have expected you to pay at times but you need to step back from doing this. To be honest if I was on holiday I wouldn’t expect my parents to help with the childcare as they are my children.
I would only expect them to care for them when I am at work.
If you get a live in nanny it’s going to cost you considerably more. I guess you can look at au pairs but often young and inexperienced or could yourself and your husband juggle some childcare and make some changes and cut backs.
For me when my children were small I chose to reduce my hours but once they got older I increased them again.
Life isn’t easy and you can’t have it all.

You need to pay your mum the NMW for childcare plus her pension contributions and employer NI as she is an employee. Are you doing that?

I just love comments like this. 😂

It's a bit confusing....you owe her £250 but you want to deduct £900 from that? But you think that will make you all square, but surely she will be £650 in deficit?
Anyway as pp's have said you can't deduct gifts but if her share of the holiday worked out at £500, you paid for her initially on the understanding she would be effectively working (helping with childcare) during it, but she then refused to help when needed and said she considered it to be a holiday, then I think it's fine to say "Well I won't pay you the £250 because you owe me £500 for your holiday. Really you owe me £250 but I'll cancel it out. Now please move out of my house today, you can go and stay with the psycho that threatens to smash up villas with young, ill children in them"

And then go low contact with your whole family for a bit.

Give her the £250, cancel the phone and never give them a penny from now on.

You mum invited your brother to a holiday, so when you split the his and dm villa 50/50, you paid for your mum and he paid for himself, what is his problem?

By accepting your offer of £500 p/m, your dm confused you into thinking this was something she was doing 'out of the kindness of her heart' and to 'spend time with the gc', ' helping out my dc' etc. and I bet that is what she tells everyone. You reciprocated by gifts and holidays and spending. Bet she a had more relaxed working environment too. When infact, she very much was after a transactional work relationship.

You dm came in 6 months ago (after maternity leave?), and you DS is going to nursery when they turn 2. Does your nursery do sibling discount? You can then get an au pair type/childminder to look after them for the evening care bit if you are not home till quite late. Use the money you save on gifts, together with the £500 you pay your mum and tighten the belt while pay off that loan that's about to end. Time flies, you'll be out of this situation soon.

For holidays, use play/childminding club. Alternatively, instead of paying all those travel costs for your mum, the hotel can recommend a local to babysit when you and dh want to go out etc. Both probably cheaper than taking your mum, who will then invite other family members.

I think some posters are missing the point. It seems to me to be more about fairness between siblings than OP's childcare arrangements. I make a good amount more than my brothers but my parents are adamant about treating us financially fairly. Like practically to the dollar. I really appreciate this now, especially since I have a close friend who has the completely opposite situation. Her mother gives one brother in particular A LOT more. It's justified by him "needing it more". This really hurts her. Parents mean well, but in the end it just creates jealousy between siblings and feelings that one is loved more than the other. That being said, we can't control our parents and what they give us, so I think putting up loving boundaries is really the only option. Take care OP!

You don’t feel loved enough. That’s hard but you need to separate and build your unit as your family can’t give you what you need.

It’s about all of it. You can’t complain about lack of fairness within a family and then use your mother as a FT nanny on less than the minimum wage.

None of this is okay. I indicates the whole family has poor boundaries and poor judgment including the OP.

I totally agree with this. It's not about the money but the feeling of having to earn her mother's time and attention by taking care of her financially.

I don't believe she intended to exploit her mother as some pps have suggested but felt obliged to pay for the childcare that her sister got for free. It's quite unequal treatment and must sting. Also the DM didn't have a gun to her head when she agreed to move in, there was something she wanted in the arrangement too.

I think everyone is missing the point that OP’s sister got the same level of childcare for free whilst OP had to pay her for the same privilege. Furthermore, it sounded like OP’s mum was content about OP’s brother being threatening with a friggin hammer!!! OP’s mum is acting and being an absolute shambles of a mother and grandmother for allowing this sort of silly business from occurring in the 1st place

Providing childcare for your sisters child in the same town is very different to DM having to uproot herself to live with you and provide full time childcare - and as PPs have said, you'd be pushed to find a full time nanny for £500.
The holidays aren;t working - learn from it and don't do them in future, and don;t buy expensive gifts if you resent it and add up every penny.

There is so so much going on here. Some entitlement around childcare, a feeling of unfairness. Assumptions on your families part about your wealth, entitlement to gifts and possibly some jealousy from them. Being scared about your brother’s behaviour. You need to simplifying - pay for your own childcare, stop expecting it from your mum - it’s painful but she clearly isn’t doing this out of love / duty - way too many strings attached. Stop paying for her holidays and taking extended family. It doesn’t matter who is right or wrong in all this, but it screams of you all needing space. Sorry, some of this must be painful.

I don't think it's your family who have been grabby.

Just to clarify, my mother was the one suggesting £500 and I agreed to it. I was trying to treat her like family, sorting things out for her - gp appointments, medication, pharmacy pick ups, help with pension applications etc. She was not 'formally employed', it was an informal arrangement so I wouldn't compare it to a living in nanny.

What hurts me, is that we went on holiday - paid for a bigger villa, flights, bigger taxi to accommodate a bigger group and in the end it was just me and dp picking up the bill. We didn't even get a single evening to go out for a meal (after dc are in bed). My mum on the other hand went on boats trips with my brother. We spent a considerable amount of money for everyone to have fun and got accused of ripping people up.

Don't make the same mistake again.

Family are too familiar with your financial situation and they've placed you as the saviour, the cash cow, money tree.

You need to completely change this part of your relationship, they most likely will love you just as much while realising how much you all rely on what the other brings to the table.

I do think there are faults on both sides here. You paid for your mum to come in the holiday on the understanding that she would provide childcare - so a working holiday. I don’t understand then why your brother was paying for half your mums costs?

how on earth did it escalate to him making greats with a hammer?

I think you resent paying your mum for childcare. You think she should do it for free. So one minute you are generous, but then you are stingy (£500 a month for childcare is a steal). You are angry that your mum cared for your niece for free. I suspect your mum did this in her own home?

I think you need to stop trying to get cheap childcare for your mum (because that is what it is).

you need to stop the family holidays.

you need to stop flashing the cash and picking up the tab. One minute you are very generous, the next resentful.

I think you need to take money out of the equation in your family relationships. Stop paying for their meals or gifts and dont do family holidays. I am early 60s though and no way would I want to do full time childcare for two children whether you paid me £500 or not. I help my DD and her husband out with childcare for one day a week and two days in school holidays without charging her. I am happy to do that as I like having regular contact with my grandchildren so don't really see it as doing my DD a favour although of course I am happy to help her out anyway. Sounds like your mum doesn't really want to help you so forcing the issue will damage your relationship if it is not damaged already.

If you have been constantly forking out for things for them maybe they think you are richer than you are. Regardless I would give your mum the money you owe her and sort out proper childcare and she can go home and you can move to a more normal relationship where you are not paying her or splashing out on gifts or holidays for her and make it clear you wont be doing that in future. If they give you grief about that then at least you know they only see you as a provider of treats for them and reduce contact to maybe the odd visit.

I think yanbu but the waters are muddied by the childcare expectations and payments. It all sounds very transactional.

I think quit any paid for services and offer any great that you feel ok to pay for. Don’t suggest holidays with complex payment arrangements etc as it causes issues.