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.

As this is anonymous I can admit this.

As a mum of boys I will go out of my way to get on with their future partners, be nice to them and make a big effort whether I like them or not. That would obviously include any children they had so my sons step children.

So I would treat them the same but my motives are to make my sons happy rather than because I would actually want to treat unrelated children the same. I would never want to hurt a child anyway but I would be less keen to take an unrelated child on holiday if I was paying for it. But I would if I could afford it for my son’s sake and I wouldn’t make my feelings clear.

If I was your son in law I'd divorce. Surely this situation is creating tension.

Why? He asked me to pay for his children and I said no. He realised it was not right to ask.

It isn't about asking you or you not agreeing.
It is about the complete inequality of his biological childrens' living circumstances and how he can live with that and justify it to his children seeing the effect it has in them.

Seeing xmas gifts opened up and disappointment on his other kids and worrying about how his kids will resent each other as siblings.

It's about feeling inadequate that he can't provide these things for all his children himself. It puts pressure on him, on his relationship that you're so involved.

I get that and you might even find you really like the step-children. My husband's cousin married someone who had three children who stayed with them sometimes, she was extremely fond of them, still is (they are all almost middle aged now). She had two children from her first marriage and her husband treated them exactly the same as his bio ones. They all loved each other very much and so did the wider family on both sides. It can work but depends on the individuals concerned, and their exes of course.

Yes there is inequality on many levels. His ex wife and her husband do not work.

There are a lot of xmas gifts for the biological GC because DD's friends buy for her two children and not the four SC which I think is understandable due to cost.

Not all inequality can be addressed when there are children who have different parents, grandparents, families and friends.

I don't see how divorce would help here. DD would continue to put her children in private education and the gap would still remain. The ex wife has a further two children and things are not equal there either.

How much do these SC see their father and siblings?

Because if the SIL is an “every other weekend” dad who barely sees his kids, and then also is happy for them to have completely different lives to his new children - that is an absolute ick.

He sees his children every weekend and holidays. I wouldn't call that hardly ever seeing them.

His children have different lives for different reasons. It is impossible to make things equal when children live in different households and some parents work and others do not.

Yet the disparities in this situation appear to be considerably greater than they need to be. The OP’s dd has married someone who already had children, but despite marriage appears to have retained entirely separate finances, enabling her to claim that only she is paying for her children’s private school fees (except now it’s the OP paying), and their Dad is not contributing to that cost at all. Is the money the Dad is saving from not contributing to school fees being ploughed back into his own children’s quality of life and education? Or is he using the excuse that he doesn’t want his ex-wife and her new partner to benefit in any way to justify his own children being left to flounder? Imvho, the situation is obviously and grossly unfair for the step-children, who are for entirely selfish reasons being left out in the financial cold so as not to impact on the quality of life of the new families.

So because DD usually pays for the children's school fees, this means they have separate finances? They have shared finances but DD was left the money to pay for the children's education through an inheritance. Does this mean her children should not benefit from private education because SIL cannot afford to pay for his children to be educated privately?

Does this make it grossly unfair to the step children? How do you control for families leaving biological relations inheritances? Are you saying any inheritance should have been equally shared amongst all children and step children when it was left specifically to the biological children? The person leaving the money to the biological children has the choice.

(Context - My son is step Dad to 4 and bio Dad to 1)

It's hard, we have only 1 blood GC and 4 step GC. The 4 step GC have their own 4 GP's so I really struggle to see why I shouldn't help our GC with big ticket items like saving for Uni, house deposit etc.

I always buy them all bday, easter, Xmas presents, take an interest in their lives etc but why should my GC miss out when the other kids are being treated by their own paternal GP's that are no relation to our GC?

My step GC go abroad with their bio Dad's family so why can't we take our GC abroad for fear of making step GC feel they are missing out? That isn't fair on our GC.

I have a fairly large inheritance. DSC won’t be included in this. I will be leaving everything to my DC only.

If DH suggested I should, I’d leave him. Thankfully he doesn’t think my family are responsible for his children.

I have heard cruel and unkind again and again in the post. Someone even said my money for school fees should go to step GC because they are more in need!

That sounds like sharing finances when it suits you and not when it doesn’t, which is precisely the point I was making. The end result is, the adults are OK and it’s the children who suffer. Dad shares finances primarily to benefit his new family; step-mum shares finances to the extent it benefits her biological family and also has her own pot to further benefit her own biological family; and the step-children come bottom of the pecking order, after the biological children of the new partners, wherever they go and wherever they live.

And in any event, on the basis the school fees were being paid from an inheritance which has now run out, then the private education either has to stop, or the OP has to take it on forever, because there is no way for her dd to take responsibility back without the truth being revealed that Dad, who, the OP says, shares finances with her dd, is actually contributing towards the expense of school fees for two of his children by reducing what he is able to pass on to his other children.

Inheritances should be shared with one's spouse? It is often ring fenced in divorce situations. How is this sharing finances when it suits you? The money was left to DD, not her husband. Just like any inheritance left the to SC will belong to them.

The SC have parents, grandparents and a huge extended family.

So if you were left money, you wouldn't use it to benefit your family? Only you would have a say in its use, because if you divorced it would be yours?

It is up to the person who was left the money. It is their choice entirely. People make different decisions. It is not about judging anyone.

The way you questioned that came across in a very judgemental way.

Any money either of us receives from anywhere is discussed between us as to the best use for it. Only if there's nothing the family needs or no way for it to benefit us all would any money be considered "mine" or "his". That's just part of being a family.

That is upto you if you want to do it like that. You can still be part of a family and choose not to share the money. Families work in different ways.

It is sharing finances when it suits you, unless the inheritance was a trust for the express and sole purpose of school fees for the dd’s biological children. And I go back to my point that you are now on the hook forever, or it is time to admit that your dd and her dh’s spend are directly benefiting their joint biological children at the expense of your dd’s step-children, because the excuse of an “inheritance” is no more, now that your dd’s money has run out.

People can share finances and keep money to themselves too. There is not only one model for handling finances in marriage.

Why am I on the hook forever? DD can organise her finances and joint finances however she wishes. As can her DH.

If I spend on my GC, is that at the expense of my step GC? Like I have said many times I do not have the funds to spend equally on 6 children for everything. Of course I will prioritise my GC just like step GC's grandparents prioritise them.

Yes, your dd and her dh’s can be as selfish as they like. It becomes obvious how selfish they are if they start paying for the school fees - you are a most convenient excuse, just like the “inheritance” was, for the obvious unfairness in the different treatment of the dh’s children. Somehow, miraculously, what’s his is hers and what’s hers is his, except when it comes to anything where it is inconvenient to say that. Then, suddenly, instead of sharing finances like you earlier claimed they do, the step-children are now only his, and their joint biological children are more hers than his, so she gets to decide on education and pay school fees without having to acknowledge this has an impact on resources available for his other children. So, as I said earlier - everyone is shafting the step-children, because nobody has prioritised them - not their biological parents and nobody else, either. The poor step-children are just washed around between the two homes and everybody is arguing that it’s somebody else who should take more responsibility for them.

If your daughter inherited money intended for her kids school, why do you have to pay?

This is the point though - if they were all hers the situation wouldn’t have arisen because she wouldn’t have been able to afford to privately educate 6 so they wouldn’t have been in private school in the first place. So this is a silly thing to ask OP.

Also, it’s double the number of actual children her daughter has/double the number of actual grandchildren she has which is relevant and makes a huge different.

If you have 7 grandchildren and treat number 8 (who is step) differently, that is just unkind. But to spread your resources over 2 x more the number of step grandchildren than actual grandchildren would hugely dilute the help you’re able to give them.

1 step of 8 total, or even 1 step of 3/4 total is very different to 4 step and only 2 biological. It would make a huge difference to the lives of the biological grandchildren, and not in a positive way, to equally spread those resources.

On a non financial level it would also isolate the children from their maternal home and maternal wider family to be privately educated yet live half their time in a home where both parents were on benefits. That wouldn’t be in their best interests either, it would create an even bigger gulf between their two lives/worlds/whatever you want to call it.