I am refusing to take away my children's holiday money because my sistsrs kids are jealous. AIBU?

[dramaticlifestyle]

We are on a family holiday right now. Me, my husband, my daughter (8 years old), my son (4 years old). My parents. My sister, her husband, and their 5 children.

My mum, bless her, really wanted to give everybody a bit of money to spend on holiday. She was able to spare £200 pounds which is absolutely lovely of her. My mum decided to split the money in half, she gave me £100 and my sister £100. I told my mum that I don't need the money because me and my husband already have enough holiday spending money. But ahe insisted, so I decided to give the money to my kids. £50 for my daughter, £50 for my son. That's their money to spend how they want.

My sister did the same thing as me and she gave all the money to her children, but because she has 5 children they get £20 each. We've been here for a few days and the kids have started asking each other about money, my daughter was asked how much money she has, she said she has £45 (She already spent £5). That has caused my sisters kids to start complaining to their mum and dad about the fact they only got £20 whilst my son and my daughter got £50.

My sister has since spoken to me and asked if I can take some of my children's money away because my sister can't afford to give each of her kids £30 because my sister and her husband already have a set budget for this holiday. I said that I'm sorry her kids feel jealous, however I am not going to take away my kids money because that isn't fair to my kids. I split the money fairly, my children shouldn't have to have their money taken away just because their cousins are jealous. I said I will make sure my kids aren't intentionally trying to make their cousins upset, but I will not take away some of their money. My mum also does not have more money to spare because she also has a holiday budget.

Right now we are sitting by the pool and my sister has decided to sit far away from the rest of us. Clearly trying to indicate she is upset.

AIBU?

Resilience is a 365 day thing.

Still ignoring the children who can't help being one of five and only see that their grandmother is favouring their cousins more.

But grandma didn’t give the money to the kids. She gave £100 each to the two families as a contribution towards spending money. Had OP and her sister decided to just put it into a spending pot, the kids wouldn’t have had access to it at all.

I honestly can't believe how blinkered people are being about this. It seems like they want the sister "punished" for having five kids, when actually the ones losing out are her children. The OP's kids wouldn't even notice if they had got £20 rather than £50.

But she didn’t. She gave an equal amount of spending money to each family and it was OP and her sisters’ decision to split it between their kids. That’s what the children need to know and the conversation needs to be shut down by the adults.

But it shouldn't be the responsibility of a 4 year old to spend "£20" on an inflatable, that's putting more on him/her than their brain has currently developed to understand. Some 4 yr olds couldn't even count to 20 accurately, or with any real understanding. That's what parents are for!

OP, your Mum giving money 'equally' when the difference in numbers of children is so big was not the right way to do it. £20 to each kid and the remainder spent on a group treat would have been a much nicer way to go and your intransigence now isn't helping. I have to say, in the circs, I feel for your sister.

I'd probably say to my kids, have £20 for this holiday so you can all do the same things as your cousins and save £30 for the rest of the holidays or their next holiday. Is this what your sister is proposing?

TBH I have always nailed detail like this down before any holiday with family or friends.

OP's fault for not thinking that her sister might also split £100 between her children and then each set of children would receive an unequal amount.

I'm interested to know what the 4-year old is spending £50 on!

How so ? GM didn’t give the kids the money. She split it equally as spending money for each family.

It was kind of your mum give give some holiday spending money but as the adult didn't want a share it would have been fairer to share the money equally between the 7 children ,surely?

I don’t think your mums to blame at all, £100 per family is fair! It’s not your fault you only have two children and your sister has 5, that’s just life unfortunately and it’s not always “fair”. I think you’ve done the right thing.

You are unreasonable to have used the word jealous to your sister about her children. It’s quite a loaded (and nasty) thing for an adult to say about children who are no doubt struggling with big emotions, disappointment and trying to understand the world around them. Upset would have been a far better, more neutral way of putting it. It doesn’t sound as though you like your sister or her children much.

Is she often an interfering, jealous idiot? Imagine thinking that just because she can't afford things for her kids yours should be equally poor 😆

Maybe avoid future holidays with her, she sounds a bit mental.

I think the posters saying that kids just have to accept that some families are better off than others aren't applying it to a family holiday situation. My children have things their cousins don't have and when we see them I'm sure they'll mention holidays, gadgets and clubs that the cousins don't have and I wouldn't tell them not to mention these things because that's just life. However if we were actually spending a week's holiday with them I would try and keep things as equal as possible for that time period.

We've done the same with friends, if you're out at the park and you'd normally buy your DC an ice cream but you're with a friend who has said no, you would be UR to let your child sit in front of them eating an ice cream while the other just watches. Similar principle.

I don’t get how some of you function as extended families and can see why a lot of kids just say fuck it when they grow older.

EBSH because I don’t get how the money wasn’t split between the kids equally to begin with. If it was given as spending money on a family holiday with the kids around that was the obvious thing to do. Instead, this unfair split has been created, because it IS unfair, and of course everyone is eager to tell the other kids to suck it up with LiFe iS uNFaIr.

Dont rven understand why the gran split the money 50/50 anyway.
She should have just given each kid a 20 and saved herself 60 quid overall

I'm not sure why you thought that giving that amount to an 8 year old or a 4 year old was a good idea tbh. What does a 4 year old need with £50 especially. It's not your fault that you're better off than your sister but it would have been better if you'd just used the money as intended.

This may be your last extended family holiday, OP

And this is it. You lots issue is that she has five kids and so you want to see the parents punished vicariously through the children.

Every. Single. Time. It’s a topic about a woman with more than three kids, this forum gets like this.

I can tell you what we did when we went away with family/friends who had children.

We agreed up front on amounts of pocket money per child, bed times, etc with some variation for age of child. Excess from DGP would still be used for the benefit of the children, sometimes a bit kept for a treat the week after the holiday, sometimes used within the holiday with a top up from parents or for an activity one child wanted to do but not seen as pocket money.

The key thing was the the cousins and friends within the holiday all knew they had roughly similar and all sent postcards to grandparents thanking them for the pocket money etc. The relationship between the cousins is worth more than bickering over ice cream.

People are ignoring the context. Every day there will be children with more or less whatever our income and in every day life they are told “well X’s mum has more money /less money/whatever” in the fully approved MN model. This is not every day its a holiday with a bunch of children all together.

As I said upthread - I go on holiday for a holiday. I wanted my children to enjoy their time with their cousins/friends and do so on equal terms. I did not want to spend time explaining to child A that they couldn’t have an ice cream like B because cousin B had more pocket money due to less siblings whilst I was a feckless mother of four.

Same! The amount of people blaming her on this thread for not just dividing the money equally between her grandchildren is equally annoying! She DIDN'T WANT to give the money to her grandkids, if she had she would have done so. She wanted to treat her daughters and (presuming) son's in law as well.

If anything OP is more at fault than her mum (although not than the sister, who is being ridiculously petty and childish). Presuming she knew her mum would also give money to her DSis (and why wouldn't she?), you don't have to be psychic to see that best case scenario = DSIS also divided it between her kids and her kids would get significantly less. Worst case DSIS kept the money to treat her and her DP or get some ice creams throughout the holiday and her kids got nothing while their younger cousins wander around the resort with £50!

Not to mention giving a 4 YEAR OLD £50, on a holiday where there is only tat and sweets to buy, is ridiculous.

She should have discussed with her sister, and then given each of the kids £20 and then spend the remaining £60 on a few drinks for her and her partner, or just put it towards random ice creams or activities throughout the holiday.

So what if she "already had enough holiday money?" Just either treat herself (£60 is only a few cocktails, she could even buy a round for the mum, sister and BIL as well), or save the money she was going to spend and spend it on something else when they go home! I can't imagine she's so rich that she can't find anything to put £60 towards!

Your sister is being ridiculous. Not your fault your sister doesn't have the money to give her kids

Exactly this. If the Mums had kept the money and spent it on ice creams etc. then the sister’s money would have run out first anyway. They both decided to give the children autonomy over their spending money but sister decided OP gave her children more/too much. Tough. Would that have been different if the money hadn't originated from Granny ?

I do agree the children should be taught not to share some information with others.

Granny didn't intend for the money to go directly to grandchildren or she would have just done that.

I would be asking my children to share with their cousins. Teach them some decency.

OP's sisters fault for not thinking her sister (OP) might also split £100 between her children