To be annoyed at my parents!

[MarthaFaukas]

I'll try and keep this short.
My partner and I live in London. We have one child and are being crippled by child care costs! We pay £1800 pcm, as well as rent.
We've decided we want to move out of London to see if we can buy a place. Getting a mortgage is another thing entirely but for arguments sake, we need a bigger deposit.

I would never dare ask my parents for money, however, they have previously said they'd help with house deposit or childcare where they can.

Speaking to my mum about money worries today, she says there is "no money." This is what annoys me. There clearly IS money as they go gallivanting off on expensive holidays, sometimes paying £1000 per night on hotel rooms. They often buy designer clothes and bags (also updwards of £1000, a bag strap I had to collect for them cost £400 alone!)
Theyve also previously offered to pay for flights for my sister's wedding (over £3000 for the three of us), which is why we agreed we could come, but now there is "no money" for that either.
AIBU to be annoyed about them saying this?

I'm feeling like I'll have to take on a weekend job. I already work full time in the NHS and home ownership just seems so out of reach. Also feel like I'm playing second fiddle to a bag 🎒

Its the promise of help and not following through that hurts.
I grew up feeling supported and loved by my parents, but as an adult and parent myself, I realised at some point they had stopped having my back. With my parents, its not money but spending time with me and my family. They have a busy life, doing a lot of group activities and seeing their many friends. I am glad they have filled lives. But my family and I seem to slip further and further down their priorities. I know we rank below doing the ironing and my mum hates ironing!
OP It will be hard but you need to stop believing in their hollow offers of money. Whatever the reason, their heart is overshooting in making generous offers to pay and later the head overules it. I find it helps to allow yourself to have no expectations, they disappoint less. I remind myself to focus on loving the family I have, not the family I wish I had.
I like the ideas of making a joke out of it. It will allow you to point out their behaviour subtly. Definitely tell your sister the real reason you can't come to her wedding. She may have clocked their habit too.

YANBU to be annoyed about the flights for your sisters wedding. If they have said they would pay and you’ve told your sister you can attend based on that then it’s really unfair for them to change their mind.

They shouldn’t offer help for childcare / a house deposit if they are not going to provide this but situations do change and things are a lot more expensive now. Maybe they are worried they will need the money in the future. I’d say you are being slightly unreasonable about this.

This. Someone is literally doing most of your parenting and you think it costs too much. Also, don't you think you should've thought about it before having kids ... if you have good jobs and live in London you really should've known better

Perhaps you should have bought a house before having a child !

I don't have any family help at all. Both parents long gone. Ex exempted himself from all childcare responsibilities when ds was about 3 days old, yet I managed to cover full time childcare and a mortgage, and have continued to do so for the last 12 years as a single mum. There are two of you.

It is annoying when people over-promise but expecting anyone to help you is unreasonable. You are grown ups in full time work. It's your parents money, not yours. And their retirement too.

I expect to help my ds but things change. People get tired or aware of their own mortality, of time running out, and priorities change. You need to accept that responsibility for your circumstances lies with you, not with your parents.

They sound flakey. You are both adult's you shouldn't expect help with day to day costs. The childcare costs are crippling. That needs to be taken into consideration when having a baby

Also feel like I'm playing second fiddle to a bag 🎒

you are being dramatic here. A £1000 bag isn’t going to fund a house deposit, plus parents have the right to spend their money how they see fit. I think if you go down the rabbit hole of “this bag” or “that holiday” is more important than you, you’ll just depress yourself. It’s not a productive thought process.

Childcare needs to be subsidized. For all kids, from birth. Like Scandinavia

Besides the point of the thread, I know

Fuck em.

Could you look into working night shifts until the child is old enough for school? That way you make more per hour and your spouse can be there for the child while they sleep.

Your parent's circumstances have changed, obviously, and it is not as easy for them to splurge on you.

Are your parents able to help out in ways that don't cost money?

Could you take a week or two staying with them for free and could you and your husband have a few afternoons and some nights to yourselves while they babysit?
Just being able to call on them for a no cost holiday could really make it possible for you to work hard for the rest of the year.

financial circumstances change and fluctuate. at certain points in time the financial picture might look rosy with enough to share with family (within reason) and literally one month later the picture can be totally different. retirement with money invested in the stock market (which goes up and down like a yoyo) or the need for roof repair and a new vehicle.
nothing wrong though as an adult discussing it with one or both parents and saying a while back you mentioned helping what's happened that the help is no longer available especially if you frame it from the perspective of planning for your own future.
btw if your parents are not working it's possible to get out of season hotel and last minute flights at greatly reduced prices if you have hours to scour the internet.

Do you have POA over your father's financial affairs?

There clearly IS money as they go gallivanting off on expensive holidays, sometimes paying £1000 per night on hotel rooms. They often buy designer clothes and bags (also updwards of £1000, a bag strap I had to collect for them cost £400 alone!)
Theyve also previously offered to pay for flights for my sister's wedding (over £3000 for the three of us), which is why we agreed we could come, but now there is "no money" for that either.
AIBU to be annoyed about them saying this?

Wow. Just wow.
We take expensive holidays. It’s our right at this point in life. We offer to take our adult children fully funded, as why not? That’s completely different to being obliged to pay for or provide their childcare, or pay for their house deposits.

If one of our kids needed some super expensive operation privately costing hundreds of thousands, we would happily cut back and eat dirt for a few years, never go away, sell off collectibles if we had to etc. Heck, even sell off our house and buy a one bed flat. Anything. But to finance poor planning and bad decisions. No. Want kids, do the hard graft and get suitable housing, and be able to afford them before you have them, or don’t have them. We have clearly outlined our expectations to our kids in this regard.

DH and I both worked full time when our kids were young, working opposite days/shifts to make it doable. I was generally pulling double shifts as well a lot of the time (couldn’t rely on me finishing shifts and coming home per schedule) so that had to be factored in with his work. We’d generally tag team at the door and not see each other awake for weeks at a time (one person would be getting up and sticking kettle on while other walked out the door, or literally tagging each other in/out door). Many years of severe sleep deprivation, although I was already well used to that due to job even before kids. We had a holiday once every 3 years, a shit one suitable for little people that as an adult you chug through just so your kids have a good time. If we couldn’t have toughed out doing this to make it ‘doable’ and so we could get ahead without childcare costs etc we would have opted not to have kids. We are now reaping the benefit of this. If our kids bitched because we didn’t give them cash now rather than going on nice holidays or getting some nice things we wanted when we wanted, I’d really wonder where we went so very wrong.

Excellent first post, OP.

This is a topic that has been very much neglected on this site.

Glad to see you dragging it into the daylight. 🙄

YABU. You made your life choices as an adult. Whatever we get from our parents should be simply a bonus and certainly not an expectation.

YANBU

My parents gave me financial support at a time when I really needed it, when the children were small and we had so many financial pressures with a mortgage we could barely afford & expensive childcare. My mother didn’t even have much spare cash ( they were separated) but was generous with what she could afford. My father gave us money towards a house deposit. Now we help to support our adult children, gifted our daughter a flat deposit for example.

I love expensive holidays but wouldn’t spend 1k a night on a hotel room. That’s taking the piss when you have close family members who can’t afford flights etc. Your parents are being selfish in my opinion and in your shoes I would find it hard not to have secret resentment re the over the top holidays and designer bags while their daughter can’t afford to get on the property ladder.

Try to avoid making plans based on other people’s financial contributions/generosity which generally can change very suddenly. It is disappointing but it’s your parents money to do with what they like, you have no entitlement to it. You need to figure out a plan that works for your family and budget and cut your cloth accordingly.

I don't think people realise just how much the cost of childcare has increased in recent years. My youngest started school this September but he'd spent the previous 3 years in nursery and in that time the cost increased by 50%. There's no way we could have predicted that increase, the government 30 hours barely made a difference and at a time when household bills were going through the roof we really struggled. We're not idiots. We planned and budgeted when we were trying to conceive but it was really bloody tough the last year or two.

I guess they're actually saying "there's no EXTRA money if we want to continue with our current lifestyle" - which of course they're very much entitled to do.

The fact that they've offered to give you money in the past but then change their minds when put on the spot seems very manipulative and mean (assuming they aren't genuinely struggling financially at the moment and genuinely unable to help).

My dad always had form for using money to control. Years ago, DH and I wanted to upsize from our small terrace when I was pg with DC2. We looked at a lovely property a step and a bit up on the ladder (one extra bed and bathroom, slightly bigger garden) but it just wasn't quite affordable. We went over our numbers several times and couldn't make it work. It was so frustrating.

A few days later, I was chatting to my DM on the phone when she casually mentioned (almost in passing!) that they had been to view a nice little place in the village and were thinking of buying it for my younger DB (an expat, he was working abroad then and still is now). The idea was to ensure that golden boy DB would have a foot on the ladder when he eventually moves home (unlikely, but DB is always giving my parents false hopes on that score). The 'little place' they had in mind for DB cost £1m!? DH and I only needed an extra £100K max to make our upgrade affordable.

I was so riled, I blurted out: "well if you're handing out cash for houses, do feel free to send some our way!" DM said, yes, of course (and meant it) and they did give us some money (more than we needed and actually enough to buy a much nicer house than we'd planned) but my dad was quite tiresome throughout and made DH feel embarassed and small, as though he had gone cap in hand begging and it made him less of a man. Many times I regretted accepting the money as a result, but our DC have grown up in a beautiful big house we couldn't have afforded at the time otherwise so it was worth it really.

Bit of a rambly response, just wanted to agree that parents and money can be fraught and I sympathise. I will never put my own DC through this sort of stress and uncertainty.

It’s very difficult. I live in zone 6 and it’s only now after working for 20 odd years I can afford to buy a flat. Or I move out of London and buy a house. I only saved the deposit as I was fortunate to live rent free for 3yrs. Otherwise not a chance I could save a 10% deposit whilst paying £1300 min on rent every month. Your parents are unreasonable offering help then withdrawing. I wouldn’t be spending 3k on wedding flights when you’re in a difficult financial position.

People talk like it's a level playing field between the generations. It's not. The boomer generation, due to its sheer size, afforded its population a lot of benefits that simply do not exist for their children.

My PIL are both on final salary pensions. They shop at Waitrose at least once (sometimes twice!) a day. They are very comfortable. Yes, they worked hard for many years, but no harder than someone working now. The difference is their salaries were higher compared to cost of living (including buying a house) which was much lower. My husband and I will never be able to get a final salary pension, they just don't exist anymore. Our childcare costs are ridiculous and make working almost unaffordable. The only reason we have been able to buy a house is through their generosity.

I am so grateful to them. But our generation is beholden to the whims of generosity of our parents'. It's a precarious place to be, and if you happen to have parents who value a posh handbag over securing their child's financial future, without acknowledging the luck they had in being born then they did, well then yes, I judge them for that. That's a choice they are making and I would say it's a selfish one.

You don't have a right to your parents' money nor judge how they spend it.

I'm planning to spend my money on nice holidays when I retire (as I do now). I've funded my kids' education and they have an ISA pot to put towards their first house. After that, they're on their own and, if they want to afford nicer things, they know they have to pick a career that can fund that type of lifestyle.

You're responsible for your own financial circumstances. Either look for a higher paid career or move to a cheaper area. But stop begrudging your parents for enjoying their money.

What they spend their money on is none of your concern. You come across very entitled.

I think this is a really important point. We wouldn't have so many threads like this if we did have subsidised childcare. That way the difference between having parents and grandparents who give financial help to adult children and grandchildren and not having this sort of support those would not cause so much resentment.