to think grandparents do not have to treat their step grandchildren exactly the same way as their blood grandchildren?

[betnet]

Firstly, I am not advocating for step children to be treated badly in anyway.

But I think it is fine if grandparents do not give gifts or gifts to the same value to the stepchildren as to their grandchildren. If there was a divorce the stepchildren would generally not be seen anymore anyway.

People generally would not expect grandparents to give their non related stepchildren an inheritance. Those who advocate for stepchildren to be treated exactly equally, do you think they should inherit from non related grandparents?

I am talking about stepchildren in this instance where ones DD or DS has married a partner who has children from an ex partner.

Same for family holidays. Often grandparents will pay for a family holiday and want their grandchildren to join them. They should not have to pay for the step grandchildren also.

Stepchildren can end up with four sets of grandparents.

There’s a difference between buying them the same Xmas presents or leaving inheritance when you’re dead. But you don’t know how much you’re going to have left and school fees per year for 2 kids can be about £40k+

None of us know how often his father has his children and I shocked this question wasn't asked.

So he decided to have six children and cannot afford the life he wants for them all so expects his second wives mother to bail him out. Nah

He and their mother along with his parents and hers should be trying to figure this out if they wish to not you.

I think the ages are relevant. My DC did prep and then state school. Loads of people do that. I have one at Oxford and one working in Westminster.
If they all live together then this is setting the children up for issues.
Your daughter needs to accept they can't afford private school at this point.
You've got a grabby sil OP.

OP, carry on as you are. The SIL should step up if he wants his DC to be educated privately. School fees are incredibly high and to ask/expect someone who isn’t a blood relative to pay for 4 lots is ridiculous.

I’d be telling SIL he needs to figure out how he can afford 4 X c£20k a year if private ed matters that much to him. He might think you’re unfair, I think he a grifter chancing his luck!

It’s not gonna be a problem for long as care home fees will take care of any inheritance

They have their own 2 sets of grandparents! They aren’t children who don’t have a relationship with their mother and mother’s family.

Well, that's certainly the case for me. My husband's daughter made it clear that my DH would have been in a care home were it not for me, and her own mother fully expects to have to go into care.

When her mother was between partners, I volunteered to take her for a hospital procedure because there was no sign of the kids stepping up. (The daughter could easily have managed - she was retired before she 50. Yes, she did have a very good wage.)

At least I have no illusions.

OP I'm with you also.

My parents are divorced and I would never in a million years expect my step grandparents to treat me the same way financially as their biological grandchildren.

I had four sets of grandparents growing up ( two biological and two step) and so got more presents for birthdays and Christmas etc than my half siblings. However, my half siblings got more financial support with university etc. No bitterness from me, it is what it is and I'd rather them get the financial support than no one as they never could have afforded to pay for us all. My own grandparents were there to help me out if needed.

You are not being unreasonable.

Was her husband (the children’s father), not paying too? If it was just your dd then I don’t see why you have to pay for the other four because he can’t provide for them.

Not all kids have to go to the same school. My sister (bio) went to private, I went to state.

Never in a month of Sundays would a group of people in Real Life (ie not on MN) expect someone to pay school fees for their step grand children.

But MN is not Real Life, and the minute you mention step children, common sense tends to fly out the window ......

And brace yourself for the next round of summer holiday threads "my parents are taking me and my kids abroad, but my boyfriend has 4 kids from 3 previous relationships and thinks they should be included" Does anyone remember the Alton Towers/step cousins thread?? Seasonal joy!!

the same people hating on for only paying YOUR GC private school tuition because it’s not fair to steps ….

probably also support VAT on tuition because it’s “wrong” to educate privately.

Grandma - do what you want for your GC, let that dad guy look after his own kids who never would even consider private ly educating if you were not paying for your GC.

He’s grabby.

The two youngest children have a mother who wanted and could afford for them to be privately educated. Now she cannot continue to pay the fees so her own mother, the OP, is willing to help. It might be that only temporary help is needed, until OP’s daughter’s financial situation improves. It doesn’t appear that school fees were on the father’s radar for any of his children.

He could have expected the mother or the grandparents of his older children to fund school fees if he wanted them to have a private education, but could not fund it himself.

I give presents of a similar value to my older step grandchildren as I do to the younger full grandchildren. I think it would be awful to manufacture a situation where I was obviously favouring the two youngest over the others, and they would certainly be able to tell. It's not their fault their dad buggered off and his parents won't have anything to do with them, and anyway it's the paternal grandparents' loss as they're lovely children.

Grandma - do what you want for your GC, let that dad guy look after his own kids who never would even consider private ly educating if you were not paying for your GC.
He’s grabby.

Yep. And he needs a vasectomy

I don't think you should have to pay 6 x school fees. But you should have posted your ACTUAL dilemma in the OP rather than some generic, vague question which is impossible to give a black-or-white response to given all the variables involves in blended family relationships.

It depends on the situation. If the step-grandchildren are mostly with their bio-parents or (in the case of older teens or adults) rarely around, and the grandparents scarcely know them, then no, I don't think that the grandparents need to treat them the same as those whom they have a lot to do with. On the other hand, if the stepchildren are a big part of the family, I don't think the grandparents should discriminate against them because they're not genetically related. Just as with an adopted child or donor child.

As regards an inheritance, some of it depends on whether the child is already set to inherit from bio parents. Often the simplest is just to leave the money to your children and let them decide.

Yes, I don’t know why OP couldn’t have been more specific with living arrangements etc. Now all she’s getting are posters saying she's wrong to not be funding all six kids private schooling.

Some posters seem to be muddling up paying for school fees with should I ignore sgc at Christmas.

Yep

In terms of inheritance, there was a massive disparity of wealth between my ex-husband’s family (his own divorced parents, his grandparents) and my own, but in each case what was left upon one’s death went first to their surviving spouse, and then to their adult children. In no case was anything left in a will to any grandchild.

This again proves that every situation is nuanced. If you are treating the step grandchildren as if they were your own grandchildren because they don’t have a relationship with their father and paternal grandparents then that is wonderful.

but compared to the OP’s situation it would appear that both sets of the children have 2 parents and 2 sets of grandparents. The only thing that is uniting them is that 2 of the 4 parents are married. Otherwise the families are essentially independent units barring the time the step children come and stay at their dad’s.