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.

He hasn’t “only realised now he can’t afford it” - OP said the family circumstances have changed (a job loss). He knew from the start he was choosing to put the two younger kids in private school (by the sounds of it a priority for his wife and her mother). I agree, he made a terrible call in the first place. He and his wife both did.

This is a good point. I honestly don’t understand why people aren’t getting it.

Why is it monkeys to the stepkids? They have their own numerous family members. They do not need to benefit financially from every single adult in their life.

Why ask in the first place then? This is an “am I being unreasonable thread”. People are telling you you’re being unreasonable. What did you want when you came on here? It’s not an echo chamber.

Depends on lots of things.

I was a step grandchild. The first of any kind of grandchild in the family, at aged 4. My maternal GP’s were dead and there was no contact between my bio dad or his family.

My (step) Gran adored me and never treated me differently, even after my brother and cousins were born. When my mum died, she cared for us all week while my dad worked away.

It was only when I was older that I was told my SD wasn’t actually my dad. When he died when I was 12, my Gran changed her will so that my brother and I inherited his share equally (her other GC didn’t) and it was her daughter who raised me and my brother after that.

My own son has step grandparents he also met aged 4, and it’s very different. That’s fine too. They’re kind to him, give him gifts, etc. but he doesn’t consider them grandparents and I’d never expect him to be included in their will.

You have just made this harder than it needed to be @betnet . Your post was about treating DGC & DSGC the same referring to gifts and holidays then went on about inheritance then school fees finally explaining the situation which is a long way from your original post.

If you had just laid out the facts, you have 2 DGC and a further 4 step GC. DGC have been attending private school but due to job losses DD & SIL can’t afford fees so you’ve stepped up. Now SIL thinks his older children who have never attended private school are missing out and wants you to pay.

That’s all you needed to post, not your goady posts about treating the children the same in every day life as that’s a completely different situation.

Private school isn’t suitable for everyone anyway. My sister went and I would have hated it. I never envied her, I was glad I didn’t go, even though my state school was pretty crap it suited me more than a private would have. All three of us went to different schools (one private, one grammar, one state comp). It was never an issue.

Your sentiment reeks of it. Why am I commenting? Because I don’t think OP is wrong. Obviously.

I said that it is in no way unusual or surprising for distinctions to be made between those related by blood and those that aren’t, and that blood relationships are, and have always been, considered important. You don’t have to agree or disagree with that in order to recognize it as a fact. My stance is that it’s up for each individual to decide for themselves the degree of importance they wish to place on blood relationships. So, for some it will be to do with bloodlines, for others it won’t be.

OP’s daughter and her husband have a blended family, which is not the same thing as a nuclear one. If the SIL wanted a blended family that emulated a nuclear one then it was entirely his responsibility not to have a relationship with someone that wasn’t offering that. That’s on him. His children are not the responsibility of his wife and her family.

You are of course free to make whatever decisions you like regarding your own family set up, same as OP and her daughter are.

OP I think you are getting a really hard time here.

You need your step back and look at each part of this in isolation there is no standard you just treat them the same in all
situations.

Here is my view, as a step child twice over with my experience of inheritance.

Should you be treating them the same in terms of gifts / outings etc if they are all there at the same time. Yes, probably.

If you are out with your own two DGC and buy them an ice cream or take them to the cinema should you need to do the same to make it fair with the SDC. No, probably not.

Is it ok to pay for expensive clubs for your DGC that live full time with your DD but you are paying for only 2 DC. Yes fine.

If one of the DSC was at the same club and could no longer go because of funding, I’d expect your DD to make a decision on pulling them all out or accepting your help and her making a choice to play favourites with her family.

if you want to pay for your 2 DGC to go on holiday that only they are on (with or without DD/SIL), fill your boots.

If you want to only pay for 2 when all 6 are going on holiday that feels a bit unfair.

If DGC are already in private schooling that your DD can no longer afford and you offered to pay for the two of them to stay there when the DSC are not already in private school, great. Your DD should choose to take you up on that offer or not. You shouldn’t need to have to fund the other 4. They aren’t getting it today so it’s not your responsibility to give it to them tomorrow.

if your DSC are also already in private education and they are the only ones to come out, then it seems unfair to only fund 2. It’s still not your responsibility to fund them all and on your DD and SIL as to whether all their children stay in or not. It’s not your decision to make on allowing only 2 to stay even if you are happy to pay for only them. That is on your DD and SIL. If they don’t like you only paying for 2 then they politely say thank you but no thanks and pull out all their kids.

Should you have to pay for 4 extra SDC to start private school when they are not already in it. Absolutely not. If your SIL didn’t want a disparity between his kids he shouldn’t have allowed his other 2 to even start.

Should you include them in your will. Totally and utterly up to you and no one else’s business. Set this up however you want. Tell them whatever you want. At the end of the day they will only find out what you have done once it’s too late for you to care or see the reaction.

in our case our grandparents did not include any of their DSC in their wills. We did however all end up as one blended family getting on well with each other and did share it out. That was our choice though and had we not wanted to it wouldn’t have happened. We’d have all taken our own shares from our respective grandparents.
They did however treat us all the same in terms of gifts / outings / experiences etc.

Only you know what you want to do and are willing to do. If you are not happy with what they want from you then pull your offer of financial support. Save it separately for your DGC for when they are older and can put a deposit down on a house or something. By that point their dad will have no control over it.

and at the end of the day remember you are not making the decision for a disparity on DC, your DD and your SIL are.

The majority of people that have voted on her question have told her she’s not unreasonable. Not sure why she needs to place greater importance on the opinions of those that believe that she is.

Besides, people aren’t actually required to agree they’re being unreasonable even if it’s the case that 99% of people think they are. Sometimes people just want to discuss 🤷🏻‍♀️

This makes sense in the aspect of school fees a large sum of money but I was thinking more about things like Easter eggs and Christmas presents etc little things like that.

My observation both on here and in RL is that the "be fair, treat them all the same" normally goes one way.

So #1 goes on annual foreign holidays with grandparents, leaving half siblings #2 and #3 (who don't have grandparents around) at home with mum, who can't afford a holiday.
After a few years of this, Mum has saved up enough to take the younger two camping for a weekend in April when #1 is away with grandparents. "Can't leave #1 out, it's not fair." That sort of thing.

I suspect it's often the parents who put the ideas of unfair etc in the heads, which really isn't fair.

And children do have different opportunities due to birth order/circumstance etc.
I mean, my dd1 and dd2 both spent time with grandparents from age 4/5yo. Ds didn't because grandparents were older and not able to cope with such a lively young one when he was that age. They could still cope with the older ones because they did much more for themselves.
Dd1 didn't get to do gym which the other two did, because at the age she'd have loved to do it, we didn't have a car and two buses and 20 minute walk once a week for a 45 minute lesson wasn't worth it.
DD2 missed out on a trip the other two did because over the age she was the right age to go, the place closed for refurbishments for two years.
DD1 got things new which dd2 then had the hand-downs.
One of ds' birthdays his presents had been given to the older ones when younger - we just wrapped them up again.
DD1 got to do a cooking holiday club, which the other two would have loved, but at the point dd2 wanted to do it, we had just had a huge car bill and couldn't afford it.
Dd1's godmother buys just for her; Dd2's buy for all of them; ds' don't do presents.
etc.
And now they're older, they sometimes comment on something like the above that they felt a bit hard done by. But they accept that things were different for each of them, and the comments are generally jokey. On the odd one where they have felt really aggrieved then I've talked through, and explained the different in circumstances and they've gone away happy.
If the child isn't pushed to feel it's unfair, then they'll accept that things are different most of the time.

My sentiment doesn’t. I’m saying it’s nasty to treat children differently because they’re not blood related. That goes for step-children/grandchildren, adopted children and others. You don’t like that I’ve called you out on your bloodlines BS, and that’s just fine.

Of course it’s up to each person to decide everything about their lives and families - as long as it’s legal. But alas, people still post on an AIBU and we all come here to tell them yes or no. I’ve said yes, you’ve said no. It’s strange of you to point out that we can all make our own decisions on a board that is literally asking for people’s opinions on those decisions.

SIL is weak and has made poor decisions. As I’ve said, I’m absolutely not on his side.

I agree a lot depends on family circumstances. I’m very glad my step-grandmother treated me and my siblings like one of her own grandchildren as she was the only grandmother I knew (biological ones both died before I was born). She married my Grandpa when my Dad was already an adult so she didn’t play a motherly role in his life and didn’t have to take an interest in his children but I’m so glad she did.

Sometimes people do discuss - you’re right there. I’ve seen lots of good discussions on here where OPs have taken on board some comments, queried others, developed their understanding etc. This is not the case here. OP has been fighting every disagreeing comment since the start. It started with a barrage about inheritance and went on from there. She hasn’t come to discuss and I think you know that 😉

The little things they are treated the same. The GC get more expensive gifts.

My stepdaughter (who was treated the same as my own adult daughters, except that we didn't see her very often for geographical reasons) married a man with a young daughter. When it came to birthday and Christmas presents we treated her the same as our own granddaughter. However my stepdaughter died 6 years ago and her husband has now moved on and into a new relationship. Our stepgranddaughter has moved to a different part of the country with her mother and we don't see or hear from her at all. She is now 17, we won't be buying her a birthday present this year. We have never been able to buy either of them big extravagant presents anyway and I don't think she thought much of them - we certainly never received any thanks or acknowledgement that they had been received.

So? OP can take or discard whatever she wants from the thread. Like I said, posting in AIBU doesn’t mean she has to change her mind, or respond in a way that is to your liking.

OP you don't have to justify the fact that you pay more for your biological grandchildren than your stepgrandchildren. I would be the same. If I died I would want my grandchildren to inherit, not somebody who is not related to me. The same with school fees. The SGC have other grandparents I assume. Are they contributing to your GC's school fees and leaving them something in their will?

I’ve never been under the impression that you needed to like my opinion, or any opinion that differs from your own. You don’t like it? Oh well. Feel free to ‘call me out’ to your heart’s content.

Strange? I answered your question as to my stance, then corrected your misunderstanding (deliberate or otherwise) as to what that is.

Why say she came her to discuss then?
of course she’s free to do whatever she wants. As I’m free to disagree with her and point out that you’re being selective.
Or are only people who agree with you allowed to do things? We’ve wandered off topic now and are mostly just discussing the merits of a discussion. So probably best to say goodnight now.

The SGC grandparents are not contributing to the GC school fees and neither are they included in their will. Only their own four GC. This is fine and I have no problem with that.

I’m not speaking specifically about this family. I’m speaking to all those who are saying SC should always be treated the same by gp

Because she’s doing just that? Just not in a way to your liking.

Of course you’re free to disagree, same as I’m free to respond to, and disagree with, you.

OP, has your child asked you to take on another four sets of tuition?