In-laws talking to 6 year old about inheritance

[SpanishFork]

Last summer my FiL’s very elderly uncle died; I had met him a handful of times. My husband and his brothers and cousins would often drive down to see him in his house where he lived independently. Husband’s aunt got a call from a neighbour to say he had died.

So yesterday my nearly 7 year old comes home babbling about saving plans etc. It turns out she is a beneficiary of his will and my husband knew this but didn’t tell me as I
have a ten year old from a previous marriage. She has no relationship whatsoever with her father’s family.

My husband who supports my eldest without question says I am always weird about stuff like this. He says his parents and one of his siblings have got every right to talk openly about money and this openness is what helps educate children about money.

There is no way I would have spoken to my youngest about this especially as my eldest won’t have such a good start.

I am so angry that my in-laws have done this. My husband says my daughter would have found out anyway through cousins etc.

I have to agree, while it's good to encourage financial knowledge, to me that means allowing a child count their coins to get an ice cream. Talking actual figures with a 6 yr old seems wrong. They are subtle as a brick, dont be surprised if they have gone boasting to everyone in school and possibly promised to buy Nintendo switches or whatever for the whole class. It could have been phrased differently, a kind man left you money so when you are grown up you can go travelling or buy a car. I'd be angry too OP. Unfortunately there isn't much you can do about it

But who's Bonney Wetherby?

I'm torn on this one op. I agree that it wasn't really your ILs place to tell youngest about her inheritance. The decision about when to talk about this should have been left to you and her dad
He should definitely have told you about this ...even if it does stress you a bit regarding your oldest child. Your youngest is your child too and you should have had the same access to this information as he has.
I'm torn though about the idea of leaving your eldest to discover this big discrepancy of financial options until university age or older ....just when young people are starting out and such an amount would make a massive difference to university debt/house deposits ect.
I think I would be make Ng my eldest child aware, with explanations of why, in childhood when the concept of such a difference wouldn't be understood so starkly. So that by the time these sorts of sums really matter she will have 'always know'. It will still be hard for her to see the difference of opportunity between her and her sister but, to my mind, not as it coming as a big surprise/shock right at the time when such differences really matter. 💐

Hang on, I think everyone is piling on the OP here a bit. She states she’s not upset that only her youngest has inherited. She never expected her eldest too. However I think the OP has a husband issue, she should 100% have been told before the child. I also think the grandparents should have checked before discussing it with the granddaughter.

As a side note, I think the in-laws sound incredibly tight and a bit materialistically cruel. I don’t mean with regards to inheritances, but in regards to not buying the older child a birthday present and making it quite obvious she gets an inferior Christmas present. It sounds like they aren’t short of money and that’s just mean. She might not be their grandchild, however their son has decided to bring her in to the family and they should embrace that.

Oh and they also sound incredibly obsessed with photoshoots 😂.

Yes, I wouldn't want to discover this as an adult if I were the OP's eldest. It's best that she knows now.

Are we entirely certain DH had nothing to do with this subject being broached? If he's in favour of DC2 being told about it now, and he has reason to suspect OP is going to be pissed off, a fait accompli is quite convenient.

I would be very angry that my in laws had told my 7 year old that she will have a lot of money coming to her. In effect, they have told her that she will be much richer than her sister.

The in laws are extremely thoughtless. Putting it mildly.

@SpanishFork - I hope your husband invests the money well in a child stocks & shares ISA. It could grow to £200k+ by the time you're daughter is an adult. You should be thrilled for your youngest daughter, but I can see why this is might cause resentment for your eldest - especially if she already feels like an outsider with your husband's family.

Are your eldest daughter's paternal grandparents in a position to do something similar for her?

If not, I'm not sure what you can realistically do to even things up. You can't just save and invest for your eldest daughter, because that might cause far worse long-term resentment towards you from your youngest. If you have and invest for both, your youngest is still going to end up with far more than your eldest - but at least your eldest would have something to soften the blow.

Do you work?

No idea. I didn't care enough to Google it. Have you?

I think it is meant to say:

remember those who say that if you don’t know how to be with money, you will be without money whether your salary was £100k or £50k per annum.

Shows a complete lack of respect for his wife though. I definitely think the OP has a DH problem.

The in-laws do seem tight though and just generally a bit mean and strange. I don’t mean with regards to the inheritance, I understand why only the youngest daughter was named. But a child has been brought into the family by their son, the child of their daughter in-law, yet they don’t give her a birthday present and make it obvious at Christmas that her present is lesser than her sister. The child must have been very small when brought into the family, so it’s not like they were a teenager or something, you’d expect them to have grown fond of them. I also think it’s extremely weird that they’ve given two of their children additional money to upgrade their houses, yet won’t give any to OP’s husband because they are so worried that their step-grandchild might benefit 60 years down the line. Also the way the cousins etc insist on referring to her as the youngest daughters half sister, who does that?!

I cannot believe these comments. Discussing figures with a 6-year-old child is incredibly inappropriate. You can teach a young child the value of money and how best to manage it without providing a figure as large as the inheritance. This will become playground gossip.

It is also reasonable that OP is concerned how her eldest daughter will feel. “You are to blame as you made the decision to have a second child with a different father” is a disgusting sentiment. At this age, these young girls should not be worrying about their differing circumstances. The eldest child will be more aware of what this means for her than the younger child, and it will heighten any difficult feelings she may have as a result of her own father’s absence. OP wants to protect her children, and I agree. Let them be children.

If your six year old can understand compound interest, your ten year old can understand that they have different blood relatives and this is the result of choices you made. You - not the ten year old or the six year old or your husband's dead uncle.

You think it inappropriate. Plenty of others consider it completely normal, and actually an important thing to do.

How is recognizing that this is what OP chose a disgusting sentiment? Op did choose to marry and have another child with a man whose family have significant financial resources, who will offer her youngest more than her eldest will ever get from her own paternal family. She knew they didn’t, and wouldn’t, consider her eldest a grandchild, and that they would not treat her as one. She knew her husband saw no issue with this. How exactly is that anyone else’s fault?

Twenty quid in a birthday card or similar would hardly be a significant ask, I agree. It's what I would do in ILs situation, and doesn't involve expecting them to treat DD1 as their own grandchild.

However... the people pointing out that OP knew about this going in are right. This is a family who have been very clear about their feelings. OP has a ridiculous attitude to this bequest, of course it wouldn't be better to wait until their 20s, and there's no evidence that there's any way she could've learned about this situation without having a problem with it. It's not the way I would've shared such important information if I were DH, but OP is equally to blame for the lack of sensible communication channels about this stuff.

Do you think it would be better that they discovered at 18 than 1 had loads of money and one had none? I think it is better to always know, at 6 it doesn’t really mean much, but it won’t be a nasty surprise when it becomes important at 18.

I did and I couldn't find anyone with that name! But now I'm wondering if it was autocorrect.

I don't understand your issue at all. She can now (with your guidance) start thinking about how best to use that money to improve her life when she inherits it. What if your ILs died tomorrow? Then she'd know how much she'd inherited and she still wouldn't be in her 20s.

@SpanishFork OP in the nicest possible way, you have issues. Might we suggest you seek counselling?

you are angry:

• becaise only your DH was not gifted money to go on property ladder predicable because the house would also house your 10 yo who is not related to ils who are the rightful owner of the money.
• now uncle clearly by passed a generation and no money has gone to DH (but straight to dh’s child) and therefore becomes YOUR family of 4’s money.

on practical note, start saving for 10 yo so she gets something from you. You can tell her not to worry about sis as she will have her own provision.

i was not wrong that the compound convo pissed you off as no interest can be creamed off.

and what will you inherit from your family? Where is your family in all this? The other family is fine and they have their boundaries!

I'm surprised anyone thinks that the OP's daughter, who is nearly seven, is too young to be told about an inheritance. My great-great-aunt left our family £70K in her will, and our parents told us. My sister was eight at the time. It would never have entered my head that she was too young to be told. Children know money exists, it's not a taboo subject.

I’m aware that my parents want to leave everything to me and my brother equally so I asked them that they leave my share to my children as I don’t need it.

I agree. Crazy telling a 6 year old this information and the child won’t have access to the money for years. Surely they should have discussed this with both your history and your self.

I agree with you @SpanishFork . Inappropriate to give that info to a 6 year old. Imagine she will tell her friends in school that she got 77 k - her friends will tell their parents etc. You don't say that to a young child! We save for our sons (13 and 16) and they don't know it. We don't want them to know before we give it to them and we will give it to them when they really need it.

When your youngest is 18, she’ll still have a sibling with different prospects 🤷🏻‍♀️
That’s what happens when you blend families.

It is very interesting to read as myself and my DP thought we wouldn’t be telling our children how much they’d be getting from us. We don’t want them to know because we want them to work hard for their money and be independent.

there’s a risk that when you tell the children they might get lazy as there’s inheritance coming.