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.

I don't think mumsnet is for you. You'd probably fit in better on a forum with 35 pages of people sneering at women

Would you say “it is too much to expect relatives to buy gifts for 6 children instead of 2” if all 6 were your daughters children?.. no you wouldn’t, that’s a ridiculous thing to say. So instead you should say “it is too much to expect relatives to buy gifts for step children”, because what you really mean is, they don’t count, and tbh says everything we need to know about your attitude towards these children that have been in you life for a long time.

Forget the school fees, it's a completely irrelevant temporary issue that wasn’t your decision to make, but if you and your relatives want to treat the step children like they don’t count and are not part of your real family, specifically during family occasions when they are present, then that is your prerogative, but don’t try and come up with justifiable reasons for why you/they are doing it, just crack on.

Step children being made to feel welcome and included as part of your family really has nothing to do with money, and everything to do with peoples attitudes towards them.

I think that most people agree that:

a) you are not being unreasonable by refusing to pay private school fees for your step-grandchildren
b) you are not being unreasonable by not including your step-grandchildren in your will

However, some posters, including myself, are concerned about the vast discrepancies between the lifestyles of your SIL's 4 older children and the 2 children he has with your DD.

The older children live in a workless household with their mother and step-father, aren't doing well at school, hence their father's concerns and receive much smaller/less expensive gifts from everyone. You have said that the step-grandchilden notice the difference.

The younger children are privately educated, have a family that all buy expensive gifts and have riding lessons and holidays paid for by you.

It isn't your responsibility to fix any of this, but you are keeping this thread going by making the same comments over and over again. You keep saying that surely you shouldn't be expected to pay private school fees for 6 children and surely people who treat their step-grandchildren much more equally but don't include them in their will are no better than you.

I don't know what you actually want from this thread any more.

Of course it’s possible to treat them all the same, if you can’t pay for them all to go private, none go private. It’s not a difficult concept.
the OP asked for opinions and that is mine. I would not and could not treat siblings differently regardless of the set up.
I was the stepkid who was clearly shown I was the step kid and it was really hurtful and upsetting.

If your child takes on a parental role for their spouse's children then they are now your family. Bio, step, adopted, whatever - they get treated the same, gifts, holidays, inheritances, why would you treat them differently?

@Jaybail why are you putting it all on OP in this black and white way when it's her DD and SIL that have decided to treat THEIR OWN DC differently.

The SIL in this situation should be advocating for ALL his DC ....... but he isn't

Of course it’s possible to treat them all the same, if you can’t pay for them all to go private, none go private. It’s not a difficult concept.

It is difficult - because there are step siblings at their mother’s home as well. My DD has a friend in a similar sort of set up: she’s the only child of her mum and dad, both of whom have remarried partners with their own children and both of whom have had a child (so a half sibling to my DD’s friend) in their new marriage. So - DD’s friend primarily lives with her mum and stepdad and her half sister and - sometimes - with her stepdad’s two daughters. And then she goes overnight and EOW and a lot of holidays to her dad and stepmum and her half sister from them and her stepmother’s two daughters. So - in DD’s friend’s world, there are six other girls in her wider familial set up, some of whom probably don’t even know each other. Of course things can’t be “the same” when there are so many different parents and grandparents involved. If I understand correctly, in that set up, DD’s friend and her half sister by her dad both go to a private school - which is paid for by her dad. And the others don’t. But everyone seems perfectly happy with the set up and understands why (at her mum’s house, because stepdad isn’t Susie’s dad and Susie’s dad pays for her to go to a different school). Because of course Susie’s dad won’t be funding his ex wife’s new child with her new DH, or his ex wife’s new husband’s two kids.

I grant you - in the situation I described upthread, where a friend married a lady with a 2 year old and they went on to have their own child, but he’s raised both kids as his own and there’s no other “dad” involved, of course it would be really hard for the stepchild not to have the same. But that doesn’t sound like the the situation OP is talking about, which sounds a lot more like my DD’s friend’s family set up. Which can go on ad infinitum across three or four blended family set ups, making it totally impossible for things to be the same for all kids involved. Your child can’t have X because your ex husband’s new wife’s ex husband has two kids who can’t afford it? Starts to get a bit ridiculous and very, very difficult indeed.

Nobody has actually come up with a solution though. How about suggesting the older 4 get tutored and the father and mother pay the cost?
If someone married into a poorer and more working class family, you can’t suddenly elevate the entire family set up, that is completely unrealistic. But you could suggest some stuff that will benefit them educationally or extracurricularly, but the parents should pay for it equally. You can’t expect the rich grandmother to fund the whole shebangs down to the bio mum on benefits.

My DD is my partner's stepdaughter, he's been in her life since she was 18 months old and his parents have always treated her like their own grandchild, for which I am grateful. Her grandparents on her dad's side are dead so my parents and my partner's parents are the only grandparents she has.
I don't expect her to inherit from them though as she inherited from her dad's parents and will have a house deposit already at 18 while her half brother has nothing.

Nobody has actually come up with a solution though.

Probably because this isn't OPs problem to find a solution for? The parents are the only ones that need to find a solution for the problem of their children falling behind in school.

OPs daughter and husband were happy to pay privately for 2 of their children, while his other 4 were in state schools, OP has only taken over existing payment while her DD is struggling financially.

You can’t expect the rich grandmother to fund the whole shebangs

I wish people would stop using the word 'expect', that has 100% come from OPs saying it over and over a million times, if you read OPs posts in fact, NO ONE is expecting anything, SIL has asked if she would be able to contribute financially for the other 4 to go private, she has said no, he has accepted it with no issue whatsoever.. there is no expectation of anything.

I think it’s hard for anyone to pay for 6 children private school - when neither of the older 4 parents or Grandparents can afford to either.

Fair is difficult in your situation. You are willing to pay for your daughters 2 children and can stretch for this, the parents and grandparents should maybe pool together to support the older 4? As others have said it isn’t for you to resolve.

I am not saying they don't count. DD does not have 6 biological children. Not all family and friends can afford gifts for 6 children. DD can't tell her friends to buy 6 gifts for her children and SC. Some of them are having financial difficulties too. You can't tell people what to do. They have to work within their budgets and constraints. Can you not understand this?

SC are welcome and included.

Plenty of people have stated they would not include step GC in their will.

We understand it. We're wondering what your stance would be if they were all your DDs biological children? Would you expect her uncle or any other relatives to treat them equally?

They are not DD's biological children so there is no point discussing what ifs.

I wouldn't and do not expect anything from the Uncle, relatives or friends. It is their choice what they give or if they give it all. I don't tell them what to do. They can decide for themselves as do DD's friends.

Family dynamics can also be very complicated.

A relative through marriage lost her partner to a sudden heart attack. He hadn't written a will. (Foolish, I know.)

She had one child. (Said child was privately educated, paid for by the relative's work.) She was a high earner, so her partner was a SAHD. (He'd taken early retirement.) They'd been together about 16 yrs by the time he died. The partner had two children who had been educated in the state system. They had left school by the time that the relative's child started at a private nursery.

Although the partner had a good pension, the relative had been generous with her money, paying for improvements to her MIL's house and making money available for the SC, etc: "Whenever [the ex] asked for something, we gave it to her."

To her consternation, the partner's wife went after half the house - which had been paid for in its entirety by the relative (and she literally had all the receipts).
More understandably, she also went after the partner's pension.

The partner had been paying his ex maintenance - she had never worked while they were married and didn't take up employment afterwards.

By the time he died, his two older children had family of her own.

In spite of being told that the house was solely in the relative's name, the ex insisted on going to court to put a claim on it. (As part of the divorce agreement, the ex had what had been the family home, fully paid off.)

My relative had a good relationship with her SC. Nevertheless, she was informed by them - with reference to the house - "We have to support our mother in this."

What I'm trying to say is that when the SC have largely been brought up in another household, you can't expect a SGP, SM and SC to have a close relationship and it might be shortsighted to be too generous.

Thank you for sharing your experiences @WearyAuldWumman and also for your support.

I didn't mean it was impossible to treat them all the same, I meant it's impossible to make sure to keep them all in the same. The SGC will get things that OPs GC won't. In those circumstances it is expected that the children will understand that they don't have that relationship with that person.

I do believe a person choosing to marry someone with kids has the obligation to ensure all kids are treated the same, I don't think that extends to Grandparents.

Because they are different, same as a MIL is different to a mother, and sister to a distant cousin. ‘Family’ does not mean ‘the same’.

Also, OP’s DD hasn’t taken on parental responsibility for them.

I do see a what OP’s point is - for all the talk of ‘there’s no difference’, it’s very clear that there is a difference for many, if not the majority, when it comes down to sharing family assets.

There’s been threads on here about stepchildren shocked and devastated because after a life of genuinely believing they were seen by their stepparent as theirs, they’ve found out they weren’t included in the will. Then the stepparent, having done everything ‘right’, is called every sort of arsehole, and the stepchild has to deal with the emotional fallout when it would arguably have been better for everyone involved to be honest from the start, rather than staging an elaborate production of ‘we’re exactly like a nuclear family’.

There’s also been threads about the biological children of the second family being resentful of their elder half siblings and/or shared parent for denying them opportunities and relationships in order to protect the feelings of their first child/children. When those children finally get to stage where they have autonomy and the parent no longer can control them/their relationships, the parent is then shocked and horrified upon realizing that their younger children have totally rejected what they tried to instill, and at just how damaged the relationships between them all is.

’Treat them all the same’ is not some recipe for a guaranteed happily ever after it’s presented as.

Are the satep-granchildren expected to treat op the same as they do their actual grandparent?

I'll be honest I have no experience of step children whatsoever so speaking from a place of ignorance. However it seems to me you try to treat them all the same as far as possible and at all costs try to avoid being cruel or unkind unnecessarily. The younger the child the more important to be kind to them whoever their parents. I also think this is even more important if the children are living side by side full time in the same home.
However, the truth of the matter is that every child has 2 parents and 4 grandparents (only) who help provide for that child to the best of their ability / desires. Some families can afford little for their children, some a lot. It is not the primary responsibility for those not related to a child to provide for that child and as the OP says most of us recognise this when it comes to matters of inheritance. The situation is blurred when children, through no fault of their own, have less than their half siblings and it does feel (because it is) unfair.
I don't think the OP is wrong to pay for schooling for her two GC but not the step children. Even if she could pay for 6 I would say she has no moral responsibility to do so. If the parents find it too intolerable, they are welcome to reject the offer and send them to state too, same with the horse riding. (Which honestly I might consider if I were the SIL)

People keep mentioning being cruel and unkind. Obviously no child whether a SC or not should be treated cruelly or unkindly,

However differences do exist. Not every family member or friend will be as generous to SC as they are to the biological children. It is great if absolutely everyone is board but this is not usually the case,

Decisions have to be made. Like other posters have mentioned, children do understand that they have different grandparents and relations so one child may receive more than another. This is much harder for younger children naturally of course but easier for slightly older children.

My GC have received an inheritance. That is for them not for the their half siblings. Yes it may hurt their siblings but I don't see how that can be avoided.

My oldest son married someone with 3 children, who became my SGC. They then had a child of their own, this was my first biological grandchild.
I so wanted to spoil/treat the new grandchild but didn’t because I couldn’t afford to do the same for the step grandchildren. I obviously bought gifts but paid the same amount on each child, although I wanted to spend more on the baby, but logically I knew I couldn’t because the step grandchildren didn’t deserve to be treated less favourably, in terms of treats and gift giving.
On the day of the wedding, the 8 yr old step granddaughter asked if I was her grandma now. When I said I was, she said ‘oh good, I’ve always wanted two grandmas’. All those children are grown up now, and when money was tight, the whole family might have a board game and a box of nice biscuits as a present. No way could I have given the youngest a bigger present and his siblings a token gift.
Step children never ask to be a step child and deserve to be treated with as much respect as possible and hopefully love too.

Lovely, heartwarming post, mygrandchildrenrock.