Help me be fair to my children

[Singlemum90]

So I have just got word that one of my children will be receiving £30,000 in a compensation claim (something I initiated due to an injury-not long term affecting thankfully!But nonetheless he was injured) which is fabulous news for getting started when he is older. Obviously he won't receive this until he's 18 and I can only hope that if we continue with teaching good financial awareness he will not blow this and could end up with no university fees or he could use it as a house deposit etc. So I'm very happy for him and very pleased we went for the claim.

As well as this I have been saving in a little stocks and shares ISA for him since he was younger. It has been a real goal for me to get all of my children to £5k in their ISA by the time they are 18. This would be for a 1st car or top up to student loans etc. It's not millions but if I can help them I want to.

Here's where the AIBU is, my husband thinks we should be stopping putting money into my son's ISA and upping the contributions into the other children's ISAs as obviously my son will have much more than them at the same age. I think the claim is irrelevant as I want to be fair to each child from us. It is unfortunate my son had an accident so he is entitled to that money. But I do understand that him having potentially £35k plus interest when they have £5k may create resentment.

We could even this out a little by putting more in the others and stopping his. He currently is on about £2.5k in his ISA at age 11. This will go up a small amount hopefully by 18 even by not touching it. I am worried about being fair to each child as a parent, my husband thinks we need to look at the bigger picture for them, that the son with the claim won't need what we can give him as much as his siblings will.

So what is fair? We are not rich by any means so unfortunately could never just hand £30k to the others 😂

If your Son isn't left with a life long injury. I would save for the other children. It makes sense to do it that way.

30k is enough. Plus the child won't be losing out it just means things will balance out for the other kids.

Yeah this is a possibility too. Depends on personality I would never of done that but then again I was sensible even at 16 and still have good money management.

It’s not the child who got compensations fault that his siblings will have less, he shouldn’t be penalised

We have had a big debate about how this will work in future years. I come from a family where we were given equally like this, even though we have achieved massively different lifestyles. My husband's family are given according to perceived need. He isn't resentful, neither am I. I'm not sure how we will approach when the children are adults, thankfully we have a long time to figure that out. But we will continue to discuss!

This took a bit of an insane turn. I agree that the fair thing to do is to continue to contribute to all children equally, however it’s not some universal standard that you have to be able to afford to give all of your children big lump sums at 18 or you can’t afford to have them. Giving children a “proper start in life” kind of definitionally refers to the actual start of their lives, when they are actually children. If you can afford to give your children any amount as a lump sum you are doing more than a significant percentage of people. My husband’s family had a top 20% household income when growing up and he received no such lump sum (I’m not counting paying for driving lessons as he couldn’t have decided to use those funds towards anything else). My family probably had a bottom 5% household income and I also received no lump sum from my parents, though I have been very fortunate to receive £12,000 from my grandmother which paid for my whole house deposit this year. I hope to be able to do the same for my children when I have them, but I think it’s going a bit far to say or imply someone has had too many children because they can’t afford to fund their entire young adult lives.

What if one of your other children won the lottery on their 18th birthday? Would you then take theirmoney back to share between the other children?

Keep doing what you have done.

Thank you. I received no lump sum at 18, neither did my husband- nor any of my friends that I'm aware of. I actually received nothing from my parents past 18 when I moved out, I had assumed that was more normal than not. I paid my own driving lessons at 17 with a part time job etc. I took student loans and worked through university. I was broke but was fine. We saved for our own house deposit. I do appreciate times have changed and things are more expensive and should my children all go to university we will likely have to help and that is fine, but to say that I can't afford to give my children a proper start in life because I'm not handing them more significant wads of cash seems insane to me. I genuinely thought it was brilliant that each of my kids should be able to buy themselves a little run around car at 18 without having had to save for it!

Continuing saving the same amount for both would mean they’re being treated equally by their parents.

The compensation he has received is entirely separate.

You need to keep the compensation totally separate to anything you are saving for them

It would be the same if you had premium bonds for them and one won more than the other, and what if one buys or is given a scratchcard/lottery ticket on their 18th birthday and wins a big sum? They need to learn that, as parents, you treat them fairly but that life overall isn't always fair!

On a more serious note, just because your child isn't suffering from the effects of their injury now - they could face consequences later (e.g. broken bone more likely to lead to arthritis etc) so it might be that they get a financial boost when younger but are hit later when they have to reduce hours/stop working early due to complications

You son had an actual injury which was shit for him which is why he got the money.

If you stop putting in for him then he hasn't had any compensation has he? He has just subsidised topping up his siblings pots.

I am certainly of the opinion that parents should provide support to their children into adulthood, entirely dependent on what they can actually reasonably afford to give. I think it’s extremely wrong to force your children into independence, financial or otherwise, at eighteen. That doesn’t mean I think you shouldn’t have as many children as you want and can provide for in childhood because there’s some arbitrary amount of cash you need to be able to afford to give to each child - just that it’s wrong to watch your children struggle when you have more than enough to help them in the bank.

I think it’s great that you’re putting away money for your children when they’re young and allowing those pots potentially decades to grow depending on what they choose to use the money for - and I also think you’re doing better than most people. One of the biggest ways I intend on giving my children a leg up is to raise them knowing that my house is their home for as long as they would benefit from being here, and that there’s no need to rush into renting just because they have a job. If I only end up having one child I would be completely happy for them to raise their own family in my house as well.

Interesting situation. As there is no long term problem with the injury Id prioritize the other kids savings accounts.

This sums it up well. I would give to them equally. If your husband won't bend, you could give him some but less.

Life isn't fair. Much as everyone wants to try to have their kids treated equally you can't make it happen. And it's better to educate them in that rather than try to pretend otherwise.

What you can do is confirm to them that although life doesn't treat them equally, you will. So they will all get the same treatment from you no matter what.

But if one turns out to be super brainy and earns a fortune, or another marries a billionaire, or another wins the lottery, that is not something you can control or compensate for. So best not to try to pretend that you can.

Nobody seems to have taken into account here that by the time son matures the £30k will probably nearly be £40k because of interest.

2 of my dc received a small compensation from a car accident, it went from £1200 to £2000 in 6 years.

My poor youngest child missed out on child trust funds and wasn’t in the car during the accident so he’s the only one of the 4 not getting anything at 18. So we have spoken to our older children at length about making this fair for him and he will probably get 2 grand just so it’s even. No we didn’t start anything for him as a baby-money was too tight.

If you want to be fair, then from parents to dcs all should continue to receive the same amount as each other. That is fairness.
The compensation is completely separate. It is compensating him for the injury he suffered. If you reduce the amount you give him, that’s very unfair, he gets penalised by his parents for having an injury and being compensated for it. The other children won’t have as much money as him - because the other children have not had to suffer the same injury.

Also, it might help if you try to not see his compensation money as a windfall! Because that sounds like a lucky thing. It’s to compensate him for the fact he received an injury. If the others are miffed about it, it can be explained that he was injured and that was horrible. They were not injured so they are the lucky ones!

Give them all the same. It’s the only way to avoid any resentment being directed at you.

£30k is quite a lot and I wonder if it was that much for good reason - there could be some long term implications eg trauma from the event, perhaps more likely to get arthritis or poor mobility in older age, or even health anxiety as a result of the injury? I'm which case he may well need that money for treatment, time off work etc

35k correctly invested should be 50-100k in 20 years.
This is his money and shouldn't be shared.
Equally, it can be perceived to put other sibling at a disadvantage.

If I were you.. unless you and your husband are making out your own ISA contributions each tax year (thats 40k in savings per year).. you shpuld not add to JISAs, you should fill those first.

This means
A. You can control what the cash is used for (eg. Uni fees vs. Designer trainers and a piss up in ibiza)
B. You dont need to decide who gets what right now. You have a pot you can draw down on according to fairness and need.

This
stop seeing his compensation as a windfall

I agree with your DH. I'd be very uncomfortable with such disparity in the money my DC get on their start to adulthood unless the accident meant that the DC wouldn't have the same earning power as his siblings.

Yes but when people read that the only takeaway is the 50-100K value and don't realise that inflation will take a massive chunk out of that.

The value in 20 years time won't be worth that much more than 30K is now if the 30K is placed in safe investments.

Amazed at some of these responses. Your child was injured, he gets his compensation. There's no reason why you shouldn't continue to save for all of your children in their own separate accounts.
You're literally adding insult to injury if you go with your DH's plan.

i would take the 30k and split it equally and continue to save the same for both. Yes life’s not fair and their outcomes can be different in life but until they’re 18 they’re equal and share equally