To wonder how parents deal with once child being more successful than the other?

[User5512]

Is it hard to not feel sorry for the “poorer” child?

DC A : Got lucky with their first job at a start up, successful exit after 5 yrs. invested wisely and is now a multi millionaire. Great lifestyle, flexible pay, very high paying jobs (C level) etc

DC B: NHS consultant, stressful job, relatively lower pay, very little flexibility. Married to another NHS doctor.

Parents support DC B a lot (childcare mostly) and DC-A gets quite annoyed as they don’t get as much support. They can afford to pay, but you can’t buy grandparents.

DC-B feels left out when DC-A takes parents on exotic holidays with their family, gives them expensive gifts (cars and watches etc)

Parents feel stuck in the middle !

You say yourself DC-A got lucky . That’s all. Personally, I’d be extremely proud of DC-B , having such a meaningful career that benefits many people.
Not too sure why DC-A wouldn’t pay for his sibling to go on the family holidays too tbh. For me, the benefits of being a multi millionaire would be sharing your wealth with loved ones and donating to worthy causes. I’d actually feel disappointed if one of my dcs was a multi millionaire -paying for holidays for us but not his sibling. Generosity is a positive trait.

What they probably do is get on with it whilst never imaging their niece posting about them on sm cos its sod all to do with her (or him)

Sounds like they've both done really well!
I'd say just make sure you let them know you're proud of them & try to be equal with the grandkids as far as geography allows.

It’s such astonishing behaviour honestly. 5 bed w London house multimillionaire and still want “equal” with your sibling and who possibly earns 90%less in a high stakes high pressure role.

get a grip

The parents should spend equal time with all their grandchildren. 2x doctors earn enough to pay for childcare - if that’s the reason why the grandparents are always there then it’s spurious and it’s no wonder Child A feels mugged off.

Jesus if we're saying that even a Doctor is not successful then my parents must be devastated with me!

The parents need to stop making comparisons and work on having relationships with each child that is meaningful and separate from the other. Family holidays don't need to be exotic to be an important bonding experience so they could go away with each family subject to their different means. Time spent with GC doesn't need to be providing childcare. They could keep equal time to the other DC in a different way.
As far as the siblings themselves are concerned the parents need to close down any talk from them of comparison with each other. Both have done exceptionally well in different ways. One makes huge money, the other saves lives. Apples and oranges.

I’d say DC B is the more successful in my eyes. Maybe they’re not materially better off but they’ve worked hard for a great career where they’re doing a lot of good and from that the can earn a good living and have a comfortable life.

DC A has been lucky from a material perspective. But do they feel satisfied in themselves? There’s more to life and happiness than money.

The doctor is the poorer child?

Hard to relate to this tbh

This sounds a bit like my DH's family, he comes from a long line of business people and both his parents and his siblings have been very successful, DH is the black sheep for 'only' having a high paying corporate job in the public sector... we're very comfortable but not millionaires like the others. Honestly this will sound cheesy but we're just grateful for what we have, yes we have a much smaller house, older car, less glam holidays but equally we have (I think) a nicer lifestyle, none of the stress and extremely hard work of running your own business, more time with the kids when they were little too. I can't pretend I've never been jealous at all of some of the material things their wealth buys them but I genuinely wouldn't trade places - I don't think DHs parents even think about it much TBH (aside from a little bemusement/jokes about where DH's personality came from, the whole family are workaholic entrepreneurs and he's perfectly happy being a 9-5 wage slave), they're very proud of all their kids and just want them all to be happy and healthy. I guess maybe the 'help' they've given has been a little different for each child but that's circumstantial, ironically the others have probably had more financial help than us when they were getting their companies started or needed investment but perhaps we've had a little more practical help, no-one is counting though? We have on occasion reluctantly allowed siblings to comp us for fancy events or holidays for the whole family where we'd never be able to afford it but we repay them in favours of last minute childcare or whatever and it's all in the family anyway, most of the time we just have home cooked dinner together in someone's house or take the kids to the park or other similar things where it really doesn't matter who outearns the other. Surely that's just normal in any family where there's different incomes?

I think the grandchildren all deserve the same amount of attention and time from grandparents. MIL has her favourite and helps her favourite with constant free childcare as a result the rest of her grandchildren of a similar age barely see her and when they do she only talks about the child she does see all the time. We are not rich so it's a different dynamic but all our kids deserve the same from grandparents.

As others have said:

• both are pretty successful
• two doctors (at least one of whom is a consultant) are not hard up. My friend is a consultant and her DH is in middle management they have 2 kids and bought a 1.3m house 4 bed in a desirable zone 5 location entirely self funded.

A is jealous of the relationships and time together not the free childcare.

Your aunt and uncle should be encouraging family cohesiveness.
E.g. if they take Bs kids out for the day they should invite As too so they can have fun together.
They should try and do days out together and get togethers with all 6 adults and kids.
If A is offering to take the parents on a fancy schmancy holiday they should say yes and encourage A to invite B. B can maybe pay what they would usually spend on a holiday and a parents and A split the excess. (Presumably everyone in the equation is reasonably well off so it's a fair suggestion. As context I am probably more in Bs camp but even as the "poor relation" 😂 I would happily kick in a 1k or so, so my sibling could come join us on holiday)

If it's your aunt, uncle and cousins then it's got fuck all to do with you.
Or are you jealous all of them?
I doubt they would appreciate being posted about on Mumsnet.

I am DC-B in my family. I know my parents are more proud of my brother (and generally prefer his company) and that’s how it is. But neither set of grandchildren would ever guess this was the case as they’re treated entirely equally - my parents probably do spend more time with my kids, but that’s because I invite them to more stuff with us whereas my brother is too busy and important to bother (we’re both too far away from our parents for them to be much use in terms of childcare).

I can see why DC-A feels aggrieved here - it’s not really about DC-B being given more support, it’s about the relationship between grandparents and grandchildren.

If my sibling was a multi millionaire I'd expect some to be flung in my direction! 😅 I'd certainly be looking after mine if I was extremely wealthy.

I don't think the poorer sibling can be that hard up on a dual doctor income though, can they? If rich sibling envies the time then maybe they should pay for povvo's half term child care so you can visit them instead.

It's hard to feel too sorry for anyone in these circs to be honest but I can only assume the siblings don't particularly like each other.

I was the more successful one growing up. My parents dealt with this by making a huge fanfare of my sister's slightest achievement while all but ignoring mine.

It all evened out in the end. Nowadays they are too old and frail to have more than a vague idea of what we are each doing - we have to remind them where we work and so on.

Both sound r pretty successful to me!

NHS consultants are hardly at the bottom of the pay scale despite their protestations to the contrary.

Sounds like a pointless argument really, both of them seem be successful in their chosen fields

Echo all of this.

And i'd be immeasurably proud of a child who was adr

Two-doctor households may well need a lot of antisocial hours childcare (obviously depends on what type of doctor you are - dermatologist less so than an A&E consultant). So unless you have a 24/7 live in nanny (which no, is not affordable on two NHS salaries), you’ll need family help.

Doctors really shouldn’t marry other doctors, if they have any foresight!

Is this a wind up?

I think the childcare issue is tricky. DcA probably are upset that DCB children get more time with their grandparents. I'd be annoyed at this and is probably one of the main sources of resentment.

So you have one set of grandchildren more than the other set. Of course that will cause jealousy

Your aunt and uncle should be encouraging family cohesiveness.

I agree with this and it would be nice if they could spend more equal time with their grandchildren-it doesn’t need to be exactly the same if DC-B genuinely needs more free childcare, but not a massive disparity either.

Re. DC-A giving DC-B money or paying for holidays. I don’t think that they need to do this unless they want to. . If DC-B were in dire financial straits, yes, help them out. But they don’t need to take them on extended family holidays.

One of my friends is DC-B to her older brother. He’s made a few nice gestures, including one holiday, but it’s occasional. My friend certainly doesn’t expect it.

Both DC have done well I would be proud of both of them if I was the parent.