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?

I think if it was me, I'd have liaised with my sister and maybe held back giving my two the extra £30 until post-holiday unless there was some sort of excursion/ ride/ treat I could spend £60 on that benefited all seven children. It was always going to be a bit awkward that two children have significantly more than the others. I'm also not sure children that age need £50 'pocket money'. However, your sister can't insist on this as ultimately this is money gifted to your children by their Grandmother.

It's wild youre getting such a hard time.
My parents do exactly this with Christmas. Myself and my siblings are gifted an amount of money to do as we see fit, this can either go towards the food shop, extra presents, day out, whatever each family unit chooses. Myself with one DD gets more from that money than my brother with his 7 kids...but I'd be pretty miffed off if he was given 7 times the amount simply because he chose to have more children!!

Exactly. Putting the kids first shouldn’t be something random strangers have to suggest.

Perhaps OP doesn’t give a crap what her nieces and nephews feel.

It needed a discussion with your sister. When you take a group of children away its easier if they all have the same amount to spend.( In the same way school groups do)
You could have easily kept money back for your children to spend when they got home.
After all in my world £ 50 for children to spend on a holiday is over the top.

Ah. That's a bit of a drip feed.

Having read the rest of your posts, I want to change my vote. I think you are being massively unreasonable and selfish. You could have anticipated the problem and just doled the money out to your kids in smaller amounts as and when they needed it. You didn't have to make such a performance of it!

Perhaps OPs sister should have given her kids a quick maths lesson 100/5=20. 100/2=50. Then a quick social skills lesson on how it’s not polite to ask people how much money they have (would you ask your friend how much spending money she was taking on holiday? Not asking “how much do you think we would need”, but an interrogative ‘how much are you taking then’), and then a quick lesson on mindfulness and gratitude. And there we go some good life lessons which you won’t get taught at school, but useful nonetheless.

Do your children 'add' this up as they go along? Surly u could say, oh look ur money is goung down now you dont have enough for that today ... and keep change for school summer holiday fun?

Not ridiculous at all to be mindful of everyone’s feelings and plan accordingly.

Thats what you do for your loved ones. I’m getting the feeling OP doesn’t love her sister or nieces and nephews, hence cares not one bit about them.

Communication is everything. You’d think two sisters could chat and agree on an arrangement that would give the kids most fun from their holiday.

And the other kids just sit there without ice cream?

Where was the performance?

She said she gave her kids money. Her sister gave her kids money.

no drip feeding

Great lessons if you’re a cold robot.

It’s a family holiday that should be full of fun. Creating such an imbalance unnecessarily is unkind. Oh look, another life lesson.

I can’t get past giving a 4y/o fifty quid, absolutely insane

£100 is such a small amount of money these days it’s weird to give it to the adults and not just split it directly between the grandchildren.

It’s always going to be an uncomfortable dynamic to go on holiday with a group including multiple children when the means of the group are so different.

You know, I'm in the same position. My mother has 7 grandchildren. I have 1 child. Brother 1 has 4, and brother 2 has 2.
If she gave us each £100 spending money, I absolutely wouldn't just give it all to my daughter, because it's OBVIOUS that's going to cause a problem with the other children.
This isn't about rights and wrongs, it's about caring for your (extended) family and being kind / respectful of everybody's feelings.

Your comment is also ridiculous if that's your assumption about OP

£20 or nothing.

But that's exactly what happened. OP's DM has two (adult) children and she gave them both the same amount. Then, OP, who has two children, gave them both the same amount.

If she'd split her own £100 7 ways, between all the children, her DSis could have chosen to keep hers for herself - or indeed to save it for her own family for another time when it was just them.

I don't really see how much further you can take it, apart from splitting your money between your children equally.

By the sounds of it, OP is financially better off than her DSis - maybe not unconnected with only having two children to pay for. There will come a time (hopefully very far into the future) when both she and her DSis die, after which OP's children will each end up with far, far more from her than their cousins will each get from their own DM. The difference then will likely be tens of thousands or more - not just a few tenners.

There comes a point when parents have to take responsibility for their own families and cut their cloth accordingly - and not just claim "unfair!" when things go somebody else's way, but keep quiet when they go their way.

It doesn't even sound like the cousins have been overly upset about it. Disappointed at first, yes; but when they're told that each of their mums gave her children some spending money, but Auntie Laura only has two children, so they got a bigger share than the 5 of them did from their mum, I'm sure it won't be news to them.

It’s not a drip feed, she said this at the start.

She could have done that, but maybe she didn’t anticipate that either (a) the kids would all talk about how much they had or (b) that her sister would sulk

I'm not sure why you wouldn't think about your niece and nephews feelings in this situation. They could have had £30 to spend on the rest of the summer holidays.

The mum gave both her daughters £100, per family. What each daughter did with it is their business. This isn't Granny's fault, as some people have said.

You lost me at ‘she’s got 5 kids’. Ignore her. She’s an idiot.

I think she’s being ridiculous & you’ve done nothing wrong. I actually think your mum done the right thing too, why should your family have less because you had less kids. Lesson for your kids to not discuss money and another lesson that life is not fair.

How do you know she couldn't afford it?

Because it mentions them being on a strict budget and if she was that bothered and could she’d have made it up to £50’per child but she can’t afford to do that

Where is the imbalance? Both sisters were given £100. They chose, independently of each other, to split the £100 between their offspring.
op could have decided to give her kids £50 spending money anyway, or her kids could have been saving their pocket money for their summer holiday (if they had saved their pocket money, and perhaps birthday money for their holiday would that be acceptable? Or should they have checked their aunt was okay with that first?). Her sister could have decided to give £0 spending money, but buy things as and when needed. I have never discussed how much pocket money I’m giving my kids to my siblings when we holiday, it just doesn’t come up, as we’ve been taught, as have our children, it’s impolite to discuss money.
None of this would have occurred if the kid hadn’t asked. Since they did, then the parent needed to be a grown up and explain. whole thing is a total storm in a tea cup. But good luck to op with her sister in the future if she’s like this over a bit of spending money now.