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.

There's a whole back story with previous OP posts (linked on first pages) where she does exactly this. This context is framing our replies.

My post is not about my MiL subsidising my daughter at university and paying for an MA; it is about the lying by omission. I know they are adults and don’t have to tell me things but I feel betrayed.

I would never expect in-laws to include stepchild in will or pay for education but I would expect a tenner to be given to her as a child, in their house rather than pulling her sister aside to surreptitiously give her money for her and their other ‘real’ granddaughter!

I would expect them not to leave her out of a sleepover with children of the same age as her so the younger biological cousins could ‘bond’.

I would expect a cousin, who is the same age as her and who has known her longer than his biological cousins to invite her when the non-step equivalent of her and my grandchildren are invited.

My eldest daughter is not feckless - how can anybody that to someone about their daughter- even a stranger on the Internet? She was let down badly by a man and while vulnerable was treated cruelly by another. She has a degree, she works, she has professional qualifications, she is doing her best. I subside her because she is my daughter. She could manage but there is a cost of living crisis.

I treat my grandsons just as MiL treats her grandchildren but I am open and transparent about it.

Again it’s not the money, it’s the lack of transparency.

For what it is worth I am still going to give youngest daughter money, this thread has convinced me of that.

You should treat your children equally.
It’s up to the grandparents if they want to support their grandkids, and i can see why they’ve kept it secret if you react like this.

You have written a list of your expectations. Many on here will agree with you. Many on here, and IRL will not. I don't actually have any of your experiences, but as an outsider it seems that blending can't be forced and that some people are resentful of such expectations.

Will you change your mentality and attitude though? Because every single time you post, you back down, admit you’re not reasonable and fix the latest fire , but then you pop again a year later with the same issue, just different circumstances.

Your daughter is not a kid anymore. You need to let this resentment and expectations go. It will never happen. Get over it and accept it, or your relationship with your younger daughters will deteriorate again , if not worse.

I wouldn’t in a million years have treated your eldest like that as a grandparent.
But you need to leave that to one side. You have no control over their actions and as you have seen, periodically kicking off has just resulted in everyone excluding you from the conversation - not behaviour change
The only thing that matters is all your children feel equally valued by YOU. Are treated equally by YOU. It is the only thing that you can control. If I were dd2 or 3, I’d feel incredibly hurt that my mum seemed to consider my elder sister being happy, funded from a limited budget and generally place more importance on her needs than my own. I wouldn’t be able to conclude anything other than you didn’t love me as much

it’s great you’ve decided against your earlier plan as a first step.

She didn’t need to struggle at all - she was lied to by both her daughter and husband.

The issue here is the lying, especially by the one person she should be able to trust absolutely. I would really struggle to get past a spouse who freely lied to me even if it wasn’t causing me financial hardship.

I treat all of my children the same.

Really!?

I would start to ask myself what it was about me that made my own two younger children lie about this. I strongly suspect it's that they knew how you would react.

I suspect they were encouraged to lie by omission by their grandparents who have form for it. What kind of arsehole gives one child £40 in secret and instructs them to keep quiet about it while giving the other nothing?

I completely disagree with this.

Sometimes one child simply has more need of support (financial or practical) at key point in their lives. Restricting that help and giving unneeded help to the others just to be superficially fair is a parenting cop out.

Roll the years forward it may well be one of the younger DDs needing more help and support whilst the eldest is coining it further up her professional ladder. Should they restrict the help given to the younger children unless they can give the same to the now better off older daughter?

Grandparents should not be giving significant sums of money to young and young adult children without discussion with parents. Its a well trodden path to family division and strife and it displays a lack of consideration for the longer term wellbeing of all the children.

As for the DH lying - that would be the big problem for me out of all this. The OP didn’t marry her iLs, she married someone she thought she could trust and has now found he lies for convenience and money.

@SlothsRUs they lied because if you and how they knew you would react to it. And that is all there is to it

when I was in my 20s I had a flatmate who I lied to about going on holiday with another friend because I knew what her reaction would be - she was controlling of me and it only stopped when I met DH and our friendship ended. I feel weird about lying now but I know at the time I was so stressed about how she would react to me making a decision I had every right to make so I lied.

She lied because she doesn’t trust you absolutely- she doesn’t trust that you would be able to see things from her perspective and put her needs there

I'd be happy they were helping. I'd be unhappy that they were keeping ot a secret from you.

A person who isn't related to the other child?
A person who likes, but doesn't love the other child?
A person who owes OP and her eldest nothing?

It's all well and good judging the in-laws and calling them names, but even OP admits they were nice to her. They just didn't love her like their actual grandchildren. That is not a crime.

This is so sad

But it seems like they lied to you because of the situation and expectations you created.

I have a mum who was OTT and dramatic about certain things when growing up and there were times when we 'lied to her by omission' simply because we knew her reaction would be unhelpful and cause unnecessary drama.

Moreover your second child is 20 she is old enough to navigate a relationship with her family without disclosing everything to you.

And your post was not simply about them lying about the financial support as you literally had no reason to bring your older child into it. You could have simply said 'i have been to struggling to support DD by been lied to and she is getting x money from family.' Literally your oldest child would have been absolutely irrelevant if it was just about the lying.

You are cross that your two younger children have been treated differently than your eldest child, so your solution is for you to also treat your own children differently 🤯 absolutely bonkers.

Your job as a Mum is to always treat your children equally, to make them all feel equally loved by you.

@Internaut read the back story:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4942082-younger-children-turning-on-me?postsby=SlothsRUs

It's really tiresome endlessly hearing women bitch about the fact they had a plan to marry into a whole family and expect them all to play along with their fantasy.

You married a man, not a whole family.

You are now on Mumsnet wanting justification to punish your youngest daughter for daring to have relatives who love her, because her relatives didn't pretend your daughter who isn't related to them is exactly the same as the one who is.

I completely agree with this. We have four kids and have always given each what they need at the time they need it. They know this is how we operate because we’re entirely open about it and they’ve all benefited at different times.

Also to add - it’s not unreasonable that you are a little disappointed in your middle child. You were struggling financially yourself in order to send her money, not knowing that she was receiving substantial amounts of money in secret from her Grandparents.

However on the flip side, she potentially didn’t know that you were going without, in order to help her.

The OP expects people who are not related to her child, who won't let her call them Grandma and Grandad, who have consistently demonstrated they do not regard her as part of their family and aren't interested in being anything beyond polite, to treat her eldest the same as their grandchildren.

This is flogging a horse so dead it's practically a fossil.

They have been upfront and consistent for over 20 years. They do not and will not see her child from a previous relationship as part of their family. The aunts and cousins feel.the same.

Instead of accepting that's how the relationship is, she's penalised her younger two for having grandparents who love them.

It ok for a grandparent to give holiday spends to their grandchildren. It's pretty common. But because the OP wouldn't allow it if she knew, all this has to happen when she's not looking.

It's her track record that has led to subterfuge. He DH is a wet lettuce for not confronting her about this.

(Personally I'd have given the step grandchild something too, but that's moot as I don't actually have a step grandchild. )

I think it needs to think about the future.

She is subsidising her eldest which makes it difficult for her to support her youngest through university.

Are you going to subsidise all of of them when they are working?

Are you gonna sub all the grandkids equally?

By subsidising your eldest now you are making her reliant on your cash. Unless you feel you can do the same for all 3 when they each have kids you need to think how you will manage this in future.

It's no use saying- you only have enough to help one. Which is what it seems you're saying now.

You helped helped 2 through university but now you're paying you are struggling to help the youngest.

How you gonna help all 3 when they are each out of uni?

How you gonna sub each of the grandkids equally?

And what excuse will you use to justify why it's the eldest who needs the help and not one of the others???

why would your in laws give money to a granddaughter thats not theirs? does your eldest's paternal grandparents give money to your other kids?

also she 30..not a child

I suspect that even if the GP's had treated your eldest like a granddaughter, you would still have favoured her. I think you have deep rooted insecurity and guilt about her not having involved paternal family of her own to the extent that in any interaction with outsiders with your daughters you will have been watching for signs of disadvantage to your eldest like a hawk. Even the way you describe your eldest as being treated 'badly by a man whilst vulnerable' and then treated cruely by another man....isn't this just life?! Unfortunately shit happens and we just get on with it.

I think you just need to chill out and calm down when it comes to your eldest. I'd bet that when it comes to her everything is completely and utterly blown out of proportion.

god Knows where that is - also is it part time- currently the minimum cost for a 1 year full time masters is £10.5k and upwards. The one I'm, starting next near is 11.5k thats before living expenses - I'm doing it part time and continuing to work otherwise i wouldnt be able to.

Student finance covers 12k - either for the course costs or living expenses - your pick....
the rest you have to cover yourself. i've been waiting 7 years to do mine as I've had to save up the money to cover the remainder of the course costs - books, fuel and parking. i'm still working but less hours and have had to move into a shithole of a shared appartment with 4 other people, and one bathroom to be able to afford everything.

A masters now - if you want to do it full time, and not wokring will cost you to the tune of 20k.