Me and my sister had both of our children within months of each other. My sister was younger than me, ended up being a single mum and wasn’t very well off, so we used to pay for her children to do the same hobbies as our children as the they liked being together and my sister wouldn’t have been able to afford it otherwise. Her children stopped doing the hobbies at about 13 as they lost interest. All of the children are now young adults either at uni or working.
My sister has gone on to have 2 children with a new partner who are 3 and 4. She wants them to do the same hobbies as the older children did but can’t afford it. She sent a text today and asked us to pay like we did for her other children. I feel like there is an expectation we do it and my mum has said that we can’t really not do it for the younger children when we did it for the older ones. We can afford it but I feel angry at the expectation. My mum can’t afford to pay as I would tell her to.
We did it for the older ones because it meant our children could do the hobbies with their cousins. If our children weren’t doing it, we wouldn’t have paid. I can understand the argument of doing the same for all of them in a way but there are years between them and the situation isn’t the same.
Are we being unreasonable if we say we are not paying? My sister and partner both work but in low paid jobs. My sister has always struggled financially but I can’t help think having another 2 children was irresponsible if they can’t pay for what they want for them. It’s very obvious that we are better off due to what we have but I feel they look at us and think we should pay just because we are better off. My husband think she’s cheeky but doesn’t care if we pay or not.