To think many parents are subsidised by their parents at Christmas?

[EveryoneIsIll]

As I get older, it seems a lot of friends are getting financial help with everything from school trips to clubs or tutors, through to holidays and days out (in some cases so the grandparents can have time with their grandkids but sometimes not). Christmas also - whether that’s buying the turkey, the big ticket gifts or whatever.

It’s not my experience so it can leave me wondering if this is most people’s experiences, only it’s just not spoken about?

Just to reiterate. This post isn’t solely about Christmas. I am talking about the everyday things parents have to afford. This week it’s a school trip. But it’s also things like expensive musical instruments and holidays. And those people I know who must be subsidised aren’t in need. I wondered how far spread this was.

Mine wants me to subsidise him. 😂

None here, we have done it all ourselves and if we couldn't, we didn't do it.

There is loads of it around I’d say. My sister’s in-laws pay for her kids private school feels and by the sounds of it that is not uncommon.

Childcare will be a massive one. Grandparents doing a day a week is probably saving families around £4k a year in nursery fees. That alone is a huge discrepancy among people with similar incomes. Even doing a week with older children during school holidays could easily be saving someone £4-500.

We do the same, I also love treating them to the Panto, Christmas events and things thought the year. We don’t always go with them but we love hearing about how much fun they’ve had. We never had financial support from our parents and always said we’d do things differently. Any financial support is given by us unconditionally and we really enjoy having the DGC to give their parents time as a couple, something else we never had.

If I have the money I'll be treating my dc throughout their life. Dh and I get no help from our parents but we both agree our dc will get as much help as we can offer them. It's just something that is individual to particular families surely.

Yes yes yes! My life is much easier now I’m a property owner and it will be easier in the future; it’s a long-term financial benefit that also allows me to work part-time and live the life I do. I have lots of friends in shitty houseshares that they’ve long outgrown, or renting tiny flats with awful landlords, or who just feel precarious renting, and I’d hate to just breezily pretend my position is just “hard work and savings” or “oh, just a big mortgage” when it’s down to privilege and luck.

We pay for everything for our family. Christmas. Holidays. Big treats. We even paid for most of our own wedding.

My DF decided about fifteen years ago that DH and I weren't in any obvious need of subsidising.

We often help out with various expenses, regarding our DD and her family. They can sometimes find things a bit tight. Our parents were not very well off, so it didn't happen for us so much.
We are now in a fairly comfortable position, where we are able to help and are glad to be able to do so, if it makes their life easier in the current economic situation.

Haven't rtft, but why should they be transparent about it? Other people's finances are not really any of your business!

Some people have access to more money than others for a variety of reasons - surely it doesn't make any difference to anyone else what those reasons are? It sounds almost as though you think it's somehow cheating the system. It's just down to luck, as are a lot of things in life.

I voted YABU as it’s not my experience.

I would also think that the majority of MN would also vote YABU as many seem to think that once your child turns 16 they are a full grown adult and should stand on their own 2 feet (I’ve lost count of how many times posters have told OPs to kick their teenage child out).

However, I do actually think that many people and many posters on MN (who tend to have higher incomes than the average), do have or have had many more handouts from their parents than they like to admit but maybe not specifically for Christmas.

Also when my child is an adult and I can afford to help out then I absolutely will, I don’t think there’s any shame in it.

PILs are very generous. My DPs are not. I will be generous with mine when the time comes!

Well I have a very un MN type family that basically sees children across the generations as 'ours' rather than exclusively belonging to their parents. None of us is particularly wealthy, so it's often been a case of from each according to their means to each according to their needs at any given time; with grandparents chipping in when they could, financially or practically, and the parent generation funding things for them in return. This was our way when I had young children and its how I treat my grandchildren now. If they need something it doesn't matter who pays for it, whoever is there or who can best afford it.

Nope, not in my family, in fact rather the other way around. I don’t mind most of the time.

No. I wish.

My mother has always hosted us on Christmas Eve (sausage and chips kind of food) and bought Christmas PJs for everyone.

Don't think that counts as financial help from her or dad while he was still alive, so no - my parents don't subsidise my Christmas. If we can't afford something it doesn't happen, luckily I don't have entitled brats so it's not a problem.

My parents and my DHs parents have provided exactly £0 worth of help.

I ask for nothing, if we can’t afford it we don’t have it. I have a really good relationship with my parents, they brought up me and my brothers to be self sufficient. I’m torn about parents that subsidise their grown children on the one hand if they want to help them out, can afford to do it and their children need the assistance (or not) why not. But there’s the other side where the parents feel obligated or the parent is looking to retain some control over their child’s life or there’s an expectation that the school uniform will be paid for - those scenarios sit very uncomfortably with me.
Regarding Christmas dinner I could never charge anyone for a meal. Why would you invite family only to charge them for the privilege,

Mine don't really "subsidise" our Christmas but they do host Christmas dinner so buy all the food, which is a saving for us. We have an agreement that if either party wants to change that arrangement (whether they want to go abroad for Christmas and have peace and quiet, or we want a family Christmas in our own house, etc) there's no hard feelings, but for the moment it works for everyone. Their house is much much bigger than ours so much easier to accomodate everyone.

In terms of general financial help, they gave us some money when we bought our house and are taking us on holiday next year (it was originally meant to be a honeymoon but got delayed by Covid and then my dad's health issues) but don't subsidise day to day things like nursery fees or car payments.

@CheckedPJ Absolutely. I like your point about security in case it all goes wrong. Not having that informs work ethic in some cases I’d imagine.

My FIL always bought the turkey from the butchers bless him

I’m puzzled why you feel people need to be open and transparent about this. As you said, it is YOU who is sitting there wondering how people can afford trips. Financial situations are generally private.

It is very easy to tell your DC that everyone has a different financial situation and can afford different things. It is a lesson that should be taught early on whichever end of the scale you are on.

It is very common where we are for grandparents to contribute financially or pay school fees - they see it as a tax efficient way for inheritance and like others have said, they want to see their children and grandchildren making use of the money. We don’t have grandparents paying fees for us but they are very generous with their time for childcare (especially when we were in nursery years) and we thank them by taking them on holiday or with other gifts.

@CarefreeMe Interesting you use the word ‘shame’. That’s got me thinking. The replies here are varied but do not reflect the split in voting.

My parents help me/my kids out a bit, not just at Christmas, but with things like school uniform, shoes etc. They buy big ticket Christmas and birthday presents for my kids, usually as well as me buying them expensive presents too. This year we've gone halves on some presents, mainly because the kids are asking for more expensive tech stuff as they get older (mobile phones, gaming PC's). When we get together they pay for all of us for things like family days out, meals out etc. We all go camping together in the summer and they pay the camp site fees.

Now they help me out quite a bit with child care, that's probably the most significant thing. They live 300 miles away, but recently bought a 2nd home near to me (put it in my sister's name, helping her get on the property ladder, because she's 40 and would never have done it herself). So now they can come up here more often to spend more time with their grand kids.

For context though - my parents are boomers who both had decent white collar jobs with very generous final salary pensions. They both took VR and early retirement in their early to mid 50's. And they were always very prudent with money (as kids, we never almost never went on foreign holidays, just camping, and they always drove old bangers, we rarely ate out etc). So now they're retired, but with pension/investment income pushing them into higher rate tax brackets - they basically have more money coming in than they know what to do with! Neither of my siblings have kids (and it's looking less likely that they will as they are 40's now), so mine are the only grand kids. So I'm aware that if they had more grand children then their attention would be split.

I can afford to provide for my kids by myself, my parents buy stuff for us just because they can. So the way I see it, they're making up for what I (possibly) missed out on growing up because my parents brought us up quite frugally at that time. We don't strictly need their help, and I don't ask for it, but it's nice to have.