To not give youngest daughter the same money as her sister

[SlothsRUs]

I have a daughter from a previous relationship who is nearly 30 and is a single mother with two children.

My husband and I supported her through college and we subsidise her with stuff to this day. She does not ask and we do so willingly.

We topped up our middle daughter while she was at university and she never asked us for money but always seemed to have money to go out and on holiday. She is now doing an MA and she claims that she has had a loan for this. I have now found out that in fact her grandmother has been subsidising her at university and has paid for the Masters.

I often struggled to send her money.

I am now tempted not to do the same for my youngest daughter as I very much suspect that she also has this arrangement.

I can’t believe how underhand husband’s family are and how my younger daughters are complicit.

This. You were struggling to send money when she was being supported by her grandmother and presumably didn't actually need your financial support. That is wrong. Especially if your DD2 was aware of your financial struggles.

I do not think that you should simply cut financial support to your youngest. It isn't fair to punish her for your DD2 possibly taking advantage of your generosity. But I do think it's fine to have a frank conversation about her finances, your finances and what financial support she actually needs..

You are being very unreasonable gifting money to a 30 year old whilst not giving your student DD's the same level of support. Your 30 year old should be self sufficient by now. Focus on supporting your student DD's. What their grandparents gift them is really not your business. Leave it to the grandparents to help out if they can. It seems your whole family treats DC differently, you included. You will wreck your relationship with your youngest DD if you offer her no support. She also might become resentful of her eldest siblings who seems to get endless support despite being 30. How embarrassing for the 30 year old to have parents believing they can't take care of themselves at 30 but expecting a student to do so. The 30 year old is clearly your favourite.

I think YABU to ‘go without’ and then feel a bit cross at your daughter for it, especially if it’s what you and your husband agreed. Also if your support is for bare minimum standards and you don’t think holidays should be included, then you need to provide less. But I don’t think you gave specific conditions to the money did you @SlothsRUs but understandably you feel a bit put out that now you’re going without.

i think the issue is your husband not being transparent with the financial agreements. However, you as parents have decided the amount you want to support. Unless the grandparents have discussed with you subsidising living for your children, they are at liberty to provide treat money, which you couldn’t rely on.

i think you need to speak with your husband and see what has been agreed with #3. Then if you pay towards #1 but husband doesn’t, your contribution should be adjusted. First see what you want/need a month and go from there.

doing exactly the same thing for each child isn’t equality because #2 and #3 have more financial support to tap upon. #1 has a dependent and is being mum/dad already. I would help #1 and it isn’t favouritism- it’s adjusting to the circumstances and it’s nuance which some people on this thread seem to struggle with! The grandchild can’t get a job to earn more money to feed itself, however the adult students can go without a night on the raz to save money you know?

There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my kids but if I was doing without to give one of them money and it transpired that they didn’t need it because someone else was giving them money on the sly I’d be beyond furious. But according to MN standards I’d be completely unreasonable.

I havent read all the replies but for the first few pages i think the op is getting a hard time tbh.

I think this boils down to openness and honesty. The op doesn't state she begrudges the middle child anything. She just states that she struggled at times to provide the money to help her through university without knowing that the child had extra help from the grandmother. I would feel the same tbh and would find it borderline decietful from the husband, grandmother and child.

How many families struggle to put a child through university. Budget for everything and have to work as a team to make it through? Often the student has to work part time to bring in extra income. Imagine putting yourself through all that only to find out that the student had a secret income that they hadnt told you about. Not only that neither had your husband or the grandmother.

I wouldnt begrudge the youngest sibling anything, however i would be including grandmothers help in any calculations.

No wonder ur kids go to granny. Ur giving massive favouritism and this doesn’t get forgotten. A 30 year old if she’s not asking doesn’t need it. Give them ALL fairly or give none. Sure ur kids are saying thank for for gran n gramps, well done to them for seeing your unfairness and helping two less important daughters out.

You're amusing:

"We topped up our middle daughter while she was at university and she never asked us for money but always seemed to have money to go out and on holiday."

"I can’t believe how underhand husband’s family are and how my younger daughters are complicit."

NOTHING "underhand" happened and your daughters weren't "compliant" in ANYTHING. You admit to seeing your daughter had money, and yet never questioning it. Why would she or family think you didn't know she had money from someone when your clearly admit you did know? You could have asked her what she needed if money was that tight. Your choice not to is YOUR fault, not anyone else's!

Maybe she wouldn’t have struggled if she wasn’t subsidising her 30 yo daughter and her 2 kids?
Plus don’t forget the middle daughter never asked her for money/help. OP admits that. She also knew the middle daughter had money to spend but she never stopped to ask or wonder why.

Last year she kicked off because the girls’ cousin didn’t invite her eldest (and her two kids) to his wedding, to the point she went through her husband’s phone to find the groom’s number and rang him to give him a bollocking. Two years ago she posted about a fraught relationship with her two youngest girls. Now her first instinct is to be petty and spiteful and wants to punish the youngest for something she hasn’t even done yet. She created this situation .

Underhand? For subsidising a university course that may help them progress in their lives and climb the career ladder when they are able to afford it comfortably? Take a look at yourself OP! They aren't giving them money to go and get drunk, they are giving it for a very good cause.
Are you one of those who thinks that if you want higher education you should be working 5 part time jobs starting age 12 getting 2 hours sleep a night and living off spaghetti hoops to pay for it all yourself because it's 'character building' by any chance?

She’s struggling because she’s paying for food shopping for an independant 30 year old who has a degree already, a job, and children.

If she lets the eldest stand on her own two feet she can support the younger two fairly.

Underhand because it wasn’t transparent. The use of the money is irrelevant.

Your posting history shows that these issues have been going on for years and yet here you still are, battling with your husband and in laws.

It's very obvious the eldest DC is OP's favourite golden child. Whatever decisions she makes even if poor ones OP will carry on funding her even over 30 but refuse her student DD's support. All she is doing is building a rift between the sisters. Next OP will feel if the grandparents leave money to their grandchildren in their will she will have to leave everything to her eldest DC instead of splitting things equally between her 3 DC.

Because OP kicks off or stops them doing things as soon as she thinks they’re getting something her eldest doesn’t.

So you're complaining about your DD's grandmother helping her, when you won't, while helping your elder DD substantially?

Sounds like your two younger DDs have realised who's their mother's favourite.

OP is looking basically at evening things out. The younger two daughters have had really substantial help from their grandparents - and it must have been substantial if they didn't need to get a loan. The oldest one didn't get anything ike that. And she's complaining because they kept quiet about it whilst, in the middle daughter's case, accepting yet more money from OP and her husband. Yes, that is potentially unfair on the youngest, but if you can't understand why OP feels frustrated about being lied to by omission, you are closing your eyes to reality.

I don't understand your difficulty. Your DH's family have supported your 2 younger DDs and this has enabled you to support your eldest DD, who is their step-grand-daughter. Seems entirely reasonable to me. I suspect the secrecy is because of your likely reaction - and it looks like they were entirely correct. There is no reason your DH's family should give support to your DD who is not their relative, but by helping with your other 2 they have, in fact, tacitly helped your own DD because you can help her as the younger 2 need less.

Where is the evidence for that? On this one occasion OP wants to even things up for her daughters. What is the evidence that she habitually kicks off or stops her daughters doing anything?

Transparency needed. Secret gifts are just bizarre.

You support your eldest & she is 30. It sounds like you support your grand child. Why are you annoyed your middle DD has support? It seems you can’t afford to support all three equally. You are being really mean to cut off youngest & you sound really jealous. You are lucky middle DD won’t have huge loans to pay off. They must know you will kick off hence keeping it quiet.

What is your issue here? You clearly give your eldest a lot more than the rest of them. You are funding her lifestyle because you are purchasing groceries. Is there a reason she can’t buy these?

Your youngest two are now getting financial support from their grandparents. Your youngest two are adults and don’t need to tell you this. It’s obvious why they chose to hide this. The fact that the grandparents are helping is enabling you to help your eldest. So what’s the issue?

The only issue I actually see is how clearly unequal you treat your children!

Ideally the grandparents should have been transparent about the money they were giving the younger daughters. However, it seems there’s a history there which made them feel being secretive was the only way. I don’t think that withdrawing support from your youngest is the best way forward op, but I would ask the grandparents to be more open about the level of their financial support moving forward.

Why is it so difficult to work out? OP gave more money to her middle child in the belief that she only had a student loan, which is never generous. She intended to do the same for her youngest. It now turns out that actually middle child was being quite generously subsidised by her grandparents and OP was never told. This hasn't meant that she could give support to her oldest, because she didn't know about the subsidies to the others and was therefore trying to find money for them as well - and, in the case of the middle child, she was happily accepting that extra money from her parents.

It really is extraordinary how people on MN will make stuff up and twist facts in order to pile on to an OP.

Are you finding any opinions on here helpful @SlothsRUs ? Pretty harsh and judgemental some of them.

Hopefully you can have an open conversation with your dds about the help they're receiving at uni from Grandparents. I can appreciate it was really difficult they treated your eldest differently growing up, but that's past now. The main thing your DH is good with her. Neither of you can control what his parents do.

Your youngest dd may be resentful if she doesn't get the same as older sister?

I can see how difficult it would be to have your eldest sidelined but it's not something you could have controlled.

Ive read your other threads OP and you are emotionally abusive towards your younger daughters. Kindly, you need therapy before they both go NC