If your parents offered to pay for school fees…

[Grosshesselohe]

How do/did your adult siblings feel about this?

I’m talking about a situation where the parents are very comfortable financially and their adult children are employed in good professional jobs - but might struggle to pay school fees without some help.

In this situation, the sibling does not have school age children & does not want to be given the equivalent amount of £ to make things even.

They simply disagree with the parents helping at all and are now insinuating that they are being manipulated in some way.

AIBU to think the sibling should mind their own business?

It does sound like you’ve guilted / manipulated your parents into paying. They certainly didn’t freely offer, as you had earlier implied.

I empathise totally with your sibling, as my younger sibling is similar to you. I also don’t like the language you’ve used about your sibling, like “ranting and raving” and “trying to understand the psychology” - quite manipulative and gaslighting imo.

Really odd of the other sibling. I’d be happy for my sibling re the school fees and would have no hesitation accepting equivalent cash! They got some issues.

i wonder if GP would consider paying off uni student loan of other siblings DC if they have them so there is some contribution to that family despite the sibling refusing it for themself

@Grosshesselohe Sorry, OP is manipulating MN with this thread. So this, on its own is evidence that the GP are being manipulated.

OP, as a parent of 3 kids, you are very dishonest. As soon as I hit adulthood, I understood that anytime I go to my parents 'moaning' about costs of flights to my posh holiday, costs of a posh coat etc etc I was manipulating them to. either gift it to me or offer half or whatever. As a responsible adult with my own salary, I stopped doing that in my 20s. So which part of that do you not understand?

Also, none gives birth to 3 kids WANTING to put them through private schooling didn't have a plan including unexpected rises as in COL crisis. So, your sibling saw you, from day one churning out baby after baby well knowing, you were in no position to support the PE which you clearly covert. Your sibling stopped at one child. Your sibling is right- fund your own kids.

In future, your parents should have found the £1 mil they clearly have, divide it into £500K parts and hand the equal amount to both of you. You would then be free to spend yours as you please. Do parents have £1mil laying around? You have told us on this site how rich/wealthy your parents clearly are.

I also find it distasteful that your partner's parents were not leaned on to even offer half. So you and partner gave birth to one kid after another with eyes firmly fixed on your parents' future help which I find distasteful. Is partner a user?

Also, sibling is worried 'where' the manipulation will stop. Clearly there will be no end.

And if the parents had given their sibling money for any sensible reason (ie not for gambling or something crazy), the sibling with the 3dc would not have considered it any of their business. The whole thing feels so strange.

So even though you are struggling to afford the fees you wouldn’t mind if your sibling was gifted 500k & you received nothing? that’s unlikely

This isn’t correct. Grandparents can pay school fees as a legitimate expense, as long as they pay the school direct I assume. The 7 year inheritance tax rule would be irrelevant.

I’d say 50% of the kids at our school are financed by grandparents, its a tax efficient way of reducing your estate if you’ve sufficient assets to worry about inheritance tax.

I’d be annoyed. This happened to my mum.

My nana and grandpa paid for my cousin to go to private school. But for me and my brother state school was apparently acceptable. And it wasn’t because the local state school for my cousin was bad, it was actually the same school my mum went to.

It as just unfair tbh that one of the grandchildren was favoured more than the others. My mum was really upset abouT it.

Did the sibling stick to one dc in order to afford fees? Did they work f/t to afford them etc? Too many variables.

i can’t believe so many people are fine with a sibling getting hundreds of thousands & them not getting anything 😆

My mother paid for my nephew's education. She didn't pay for either of mine. She's given me help and money and inheritance though, but overall divided equally between my sibling and me. My sibling has definitely benefitted more than I have but I don't really care. I think I'm lucky and afforded my own school fees. Might have felt different if I could not have afforded them though.

Might the sibling have chosen to only have one child as they couldn't afford school fees etc for more? Maybe they'd have made different choices if that sort of money had been offered for their older child(ren). I can see why if that was the case they might feel upset now.

The sibling is being treated like an after thought here, I can see why they are hurt. And I think they are very hurt to have turned down 64k. It didn't occur to the GP to help their other grandchild and now they're only offering money after the fact so that the favouritism gets brushed under the carpet.

No doubt they see this as one of many examples of them showing you more love / care / support.

It's not right to use the fact that they only had one child against them, like you are doing. Maybe part of the reason for that was because they couldn't afford private school for 2 kids.

I can see the siblings point of view. Money now, for them, when they are past the point of needing it is not at all equivalent to money (or the potential offer of money) when they were making decisions many years ago about how many children to have, what holidays to go on or not to go on, what job to take etc etc.

Say they get £200k now. It won’t buy them the ability to take their 12 year old to Disneyland, or wherever, if that child is 22, will it?

Now obviously, times change and what grandparents can afford changes, and it is also possible they have been ‘lucky’ with that in other ways, such as their only child having undivided attention of younger grandparents.

But, the way you have portrayed it means that the sibling may well be feeling ‘oh, you notice now how expensive things are and offer to help when you are nudged into it, shame it is too late for me’

Grandparents can pay school fees as a legitimate expense, as long as they pay the school direct I assume. The 7 year inheritance tax rule would be irrelevant.

Only if they’re paying it from income. If they’re drawing down capital - which seems highly likely - the seven year inheritance tax rule applies.

Also it’s crazy to put 3 dc into private school & not know if you can afford it! Did they go to a state primary?

Sounds like the sibling has been cast as the capable one, which usually happens at a young age. It's always been assumed that they would be fine standing on their own two feet and no help given, because they don't "need" it. They've made every decision in life on the assumption that they wouldn't be given any additional help, because they're expected to be the capable one and get on with it and no help has ever been offered. That made well have included the number of children they had.

Then the sibling (always less capable, always "needing" more help?) comes along and has three children - but when they can't afford fees, mum and dad step in to help them, again.
That's the dynamic I picked up on potentially too.

It's likely that the sibling hasn't been airing their finances with their parents and have made their financial and family planning decisions with their education choices in mind, which probably will have meant sacrifices in different areas of their lives.

Then their sibling has multiple children, makes a song and dance about the cost of fees, everything is so expensive, cost of living, how awful to unsettle the children and magically the grandparents have "volunteered".

I very much doubt your sibling ranted and raved, they probably asked the why do you always favour @Grosshesselohe over me. Your parent’s response is to try and appease them using money. Quite rightly your sibling refused as it’s insulting.

If your parents really want to treat your sibling fairly then going forward they need to consider why did they not offer to help your sibling but are now helping you? In part it will be because your sibling is self sufficient so unlike you doesn’t need to hint/manipulate your parents. Perhaps they need to think about the life cycle and where they are and are not prepared to help out. For example paying off student loans, deposits for first house, wedding etc.

I would say paying off your niece/nephews student loans but not your DCs future student loans may be one way of addressing the unfairness.

I do get why the sibling is not too happy. I think ultimately, I would consider how much you value the relationship with the sibling.

Private education is overrated and I object to it for other reasons. It wouldn't be worth it for me but I that is me.

There are plenty of excellent stats schools out there and any child which is is putting the effort in, will do well there and in life. You don't need a private education fid that.

Surely if the sibling is being offered 64k now they could keep it for future saving for DC? I dont see why they would turn it down . yes it is annoying but seems odd to turn down cash!

Question I'd ask you is what happens if something happens to parents? Based on the fact the grandkids are secondary age and one just finished uni they must be in their 70s. What if they suddenly within next few years need care? Will what they're paying fall within the allowed gift amount of will they be after you and them for asset deprivation? If they're no longer able to pay fees what will happen when you have to move your kids out of a school they're settled in at probably a very critical time for their education into a state school without their friends etc? It's a big risk accepting help you can't back up if anything happens irregardless of how sibling feels.

My parents paid our only child's school fees and also paid off my single sister's mortgage.
Everyone was happy.

My parents' friend is paying for private education for two of his grandchildren (older son's DC) and not the other two (younger son's DC). He definitely views his younger son as more capable and someone who just gets on with things while the other son needs more support. This situation on this thread is better, as the grandparents have offered to give the monetary equivalent to their other child. But I can totally see why the sibling is pissed off that it wasn't offered when their child was school age, and I think the OP was very cheeky to have hinted about school fees to her parents and now be acting all innocent when her sibling accuses her of being manipulative.

Just to clarify, as this post has attracted a lot of responses - the worry about rising cost of fees was being discussed. The aim wasn't to guilt-trip DGPs into offering to pay - they have offered many times in the past and made the same offer to sibling, but both siblings always rejected any help.

This time, sibling with 3dc agreed that they had been considering their options and had thought about asking for her. Parents said, look - please let us pay, it would make us happy if you would accept help and we’d feel much better knowing you aren’t struggling etc. We’d also love to do something for sibling.

They are very generous. It’s hard to prove that the intent wasn’t manipulative but there was no need to drop hints - a straightforward request would have been fine.

They’ve offered to help both siblings many time. Both have only accepted help towards house deposits (equal value) and some other smaller gifts.

Coming across as entitled is what worries me.

When I say that I want to understand the sibling’s motivations, it’s just that they don’t really discuss how they feel about it, just say things like, “it’s pathetic to accept help.”

Reading some of these responses is helpful.

FIL pays 1 term per child each school year.
BIL has 3 kids at private school
We have 1 at private school and 1 under school age but will attend private school
SIL has no children

I've no idea what SIL's opinion is on the subject as I've never discussed it with her

I can see why the other sibling feels that it is manipulating. You have 3 children that you can’t afford to educate privately yet you have decided to anyway. Now you’re feeling the pinch the grandparents have stepped in as they clearly don’t want any of the 3 children to have to stop their education. The sibling will feel that they are being emotionally manipulated as they wouldn’t want to see their grandchildren have to move schools so they feel obliged to pay. You need to see things from other people’s perspective and should not have put yourself in a position where you’ve made a financial choice you can’t see through.