Is my dad being unreasonable?

[AnimalChaos]

My dad gives all his grandchildren a lump sum on their 25th birthday. The grandchildren are all in their twenties so have either received it already or will receive it very soon.

My sister has 2 children who have both received it. She also has 2 step children, one has just turned 25 and one is 23. She has been their step mum since they were 10 and 8.

My dad did not give her stepchild child the lump sum for his 25th birthday and my sister has fallen out with him over it. She thinks he is unreasonable for not giving her step children the same. My dad’s reasoning is that he wants his money to go to his biological grandchildren.

Would you say my dad being unreasonable? My sister wants me, our brother and all of our children to tell our dad he should give her stepchildren the same lump sum. I’ve said I sympathise but we can’t tell him how to spend his money and it’s a shame to fall out over it.

My brother has 2 children and a stepchild who is 22. He has said it’s up to our dad what he does with his money. He’s been his step dad since he was 13.

I have 2 children and no step children.

I agree with your dad, they aren't his grandkids and he can do what he wants with his money and your sister should not be asking the rest of the family to intervene. Your dad's planned this over years, he may not have enough for the steps, maybe he would have to give everyone less if he did and needs some money back from those already given to afford that.
The steps have their own blood grandparents to inherit from. Will there be an argument with the steps blood grandparent to give to the others? No , no steps included.

It’s the same as my parents leaving money to me, not DH. He was always treated as part of the family but he is not their son. They cared about him and bought him nice birthday and Christmas presents, the same as me, but they wouldn’t have left him any of their savings, as that money was for their children. The step children here are adults and probably don’t consider your Dad to be their grandfather, would they expect money from him ?
It is different with things like Christmas presents for young children, when it would be unkind to leave one out if everyone else has a present. Even kids understand that other children have relatives who are not also theirs though, so this seems to be coming solely from your sister. Your Dad has known his grandchildren all their lives, and he may be fond of their step siblings but it isn’t the same relationship and it’s not wrong of him to want to pass down money solely to his grandchildren. He is probably passing it on now to avoid death duties later in life and 25 is a sensible age to give it. He may have planned this since they were babies.

I think that it’s unfortunate that some of the grandchildren have already received the gift as I would have been tempted to cancel giving the gifts to all of them - your sister’s attitude stinks and he would be better giving the money to a local charity, even if the other ones had to miss out.

Possibly the reason is your dad assumes the stepchildren will get something from their biological mother’s family?

They're somebody else's grandkids, not his.

No good deed goes unpunished eh? Your poor dad.

It is normal , and natural to want the money to go to children you share DNA with. It is unreasonable to expect otherwise- I would not expect any inheritance from my step mother, or my step father- why does yoiur sister think her sept children should be more entitled than the rest of the population?

My dad is well off so I’m sure he has the money but he wants his money to go to the bio kids only.

I think this is the part I struggle with in these scenarios, if I was well off and could easily afford it I'd treat them all the same in this sort of respect, they are all family, saying you only want to do things for people related to you by blood is really not nice for the people who have been part of your 'family' for a long time, but just don't happen to have a bloodline.

I can understand passing down heirlooms etc, but money is just money, what difference does it make to ONLY give it to certain family members and not others, all it will ever do is cause division, I'd be disappointed in my dad if he did something like this, but I wouldn't try and change his mind.

Blood is not what makes a family IMO.

Is there a chance DSis told her stepDC that they would be receiving £75,000 on their birthday, and plans/ideas had been put in place of how StepDC would invest it?

It’s the same as my parents leaving money to me, not DH. He was always treated as part of the family but he is not their son. They cared about him and bought him nice birthday and Christmas presents, the same as me, but they wouldn’t have left him any of their savings

See I don't really agree with you that it is the same, by giving the money to you, the head of your family, they are giving you free reign to share it with your husband and spending it for the benefit of your family if you wish, children, step children, whatever, they are trusting you to pass it on as you see fit (if you wish to obviously), it normally wouldn't be given on the proviso that you only used it on yourself and no one else in your family.

Giving it lower down into the family removes that option, and is usually done to ensure that the person receiving it won't share it out.

This post is almost exactly the same as the other recent one, where the GM wrote her will and skipped the generation for the sole purpose of exclude the step grandkids who from ever receiving any of her money.. this scenario is basically the same just in a slightly different guise.

Would his bio grandchildren receive anything from step grandchildren's grandparents?

No, while it's not blood that makes family, it's also not uncommon to have money inherited/given through blood.

Would his bio grandchildren receive anything from step grandchildren's grandparents?
No

You don't know that to answer it in fairness, the most common scenario is that any lump sum money given would be given to their parents, who would treat their kids (step or bio) equally within the family, or use it for the children's equal benefit, like a family holiday, or a deposit on a house for them all or whatever etc.

So yes, they may receive money from their step grandparents, just not as a direct lump sum.

Things like this are always going to cause issues within a family, and IMO it's not always because people are "grabby", it's because they would 100% treat their combined children equally, so it is hard to watch other people treat them different. OPs sis hasn't got a leg to stand on but I can understand why it would sting to see some of the kids being set up for life, and the others basically left to fend for themselves, as a parent and step parent I'd feel incredibly guilty if that happened and secretly quite annoyed that it was passed off as a 'lovely thing' to do for my family.

I think you're wrong about the grandparent relationships in the family. OP's sister's father has exactly the same relationship to the step children as OP's sister's husband's parents (the step children's bio gp). The step children's maternal grandparents are irrelevant in this scenario, in the same way as OP's sister's children's paternal gp are not mentioned.

The same kind of thing occurred with me. My mother in law died last year, and my Mrs inherited a sum of money that was paid into an account of hers. It didn’t cross my mind that I should get anything. Why would it?

Yes, it's quite extreme, isn't it? It's not really like buying a round at the pub or treating everybody from the ice cream van and deliberately excluding non-blood family members!

The no wasn't part of the sentence that you quoted. So you've taken it out of context and replied on that.

Would his bio grandchildren receive anything from step grandchildren's grandparents?

No, while it's not blood that makes family, it's also not uncommon to have money inherited/given through blood.

Apologies, I read it like you were answering your own question.

What did you mean with the 'no' then?

Quite. It's not really a scenario where Grabby Gabby wheedles a bit and you say "Ah, go on then, but don't spend it all at once." And she won't cut dad off as then she gets no inheritance. As other have said I would be interested to know if she would agree to hand £150k out of her eventual share via a new will.

Your sister is another person who doesn’t understand that it’s up to parents and step-parents to treat children equally in every way, it’s not the responsibility of grand parents to equalise everything.

That's a big amount of money and I actually think it's really cheeky to expect him to do that for children that aren't his biological family.

(And this is coming from someone who is a step child myself, as per my previous post!)

If your sister makes a big deal of this, then the kids will also see it as some kind of slight, and it will impact the relationship with their step-family.

My mum never made a big deal out of the fact that my half siblings were given big sums of money from their grandparents that I didn't get.

She would just say "Well, they are his biological grandkids and you aren't" and that actually helped me frame it in my own mind and I just brushed it off. Which was the healthy thing to do, because there would have been no changing their minds anyway!

If my mum had kicked off and said it was unfair, they should treat you the same etc., then it would have impacted how I saw the whole thing too and caused unnecessary negative feelings.

Your sister is going to create a massive fuss over something that is not going to change. She needs to stop.

There is nothing stopping them from keeping in touch doesn't mean they will keep in touch and even if they did it will never be the same as how much time he spends with his biological grandchildren which is the whole point

Even while they are married let's assume the kids spend their time 50:50 with OP's sister and her DH and their other parent. That already means they will not spend as much time or have the same relationship with the step grandparents and as I said do you think OPs sister also insisting that the other set of grandparents must split their inheritance and gifts equally with her other kids who are not DH's children??? Do you really think there a scenario where all set of grandparents and step grandparents all agree to split their inheritance really among biological and step grandchildren?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/stepparenting/5574302-step-daughter-issues?page=1

Look at this thread about step parenting issues and I've seen a lot of such threads on mumsnet, do you really think there a scenario where OP's parents are expected to split any inheritance equally with the step daughter? Do you think OPs parents will even have a close relationship with this child? We demand step parents must stick to boundaries and not parent step children yet when it's time for money we demand equality.

Let's be realistic here. Because you get married to someone with children doesn't mean you get to dictate what other people do. Yes you expect that they treat the kids kindly etc but you do not get to demand that inheritance and major gifts must be shared equally. There a big difference between taking the kids out for a trip, christmas birthday presents etc and then inheritance.

And the funny thing is OPs sisters DH is probably not insisting that his parents share their inheritance equally with his step children but OPs sister has cut of her family for his kids. At least her kids are old enough to maintain a relationship with their grandpa irrespective of what their mother does or says.

Poor sod - I bet he regrets giving the money away

They are their step-parent's child (with caveats on how old when the adults got together). The (step)parents chose to blend their family.

Grandparents have no say in that - you can't force them to. Batshit

I was going to post similarly. I'd bet my month's pension that the step kids have been told for some time that they'll be getting this money. And it's a hell of a lot of money so I imagine they had plans for it. And now their mum is in the shit because it's not forthcoming.

£150k is a hell of a lot of money to give to kids you've only known for ten years (if I recall correctly) however otherwise inclusive he's been.

ETA I was mistaken. Since they were 10. So 15 years. But I doubt that he saw as much of them as he did his grandkids, if they were only 50:50 with his daughter.

We demand step parents must stick to boundaries and not parent step children yet when it's time for money we demand equality.

Indeed.