How do you share your money with your grown up children and their children?

[Northernblondegirl]

My husband and I have been blessed with five children. They are now in their thirties. When it comes to finances, we have tried to treat them fairly, paying for the activities they liked to do and buying them cars when they were 18. Three of our children got married and we gave them some money towards the cost. The other two said they didn’t want to get married. When they reached 30, we gave them their ‘wedding money’ to spend as they wished. If they ever do get married, they will pay for the wedding themselves.
I thought that when we have grandchildren we would treat them as additional individuals, but a conversation with a friend has caused me to reconsider. My friend doesn’t have children whereas her brother has two. Her parents have bought the children many gifts over the years and even paid for their schooling. My friend feels very bitter that her parents’ money has been spent on her brothers’ family and she hasn’t received anything comparable.
So, my question is, what is normal? My sister and I both have the same number of children so we received the same amount from our parents, but if she’d had 3 and I’d had 5 maybe she would feel resentful that more had come to my line of the family. If we want to help out one of children with money towards baby equipment, should I give the other children money for something too? They may have children in the future. Do people without children feel resentful to their parents for spending money on birthday and Christmas presents for their brothers’ or sisters’ children? My husband and I are comfortably off, but not rich, and will need to keep some money for our retirement.

Your money. Your choice.

Ignore your bitter friend. That is all I can think of to usefully say.

I don't have grandkids yet but when I do I expect I will consider each of them as an individual person, not extensions of their parents. If either of my kids is jealous of their nieces and nephews I will be disappointed that I've raised someone with this selfish trait and give them short shrift.
On the other hand I haven't got 'private education money' more just birthday and Christmas present and 'batch of driving lessons money' and given self driving cars will be a thing, maybe there won't be enough money to be bitter about.

Your grandchildren are complete individuals, not extensions of their parents. It's entirely normal for grandparents to give gifts to their grandchildren.

I have two brothers, one has children one does not. My childless brother loves his nieces, buys them presents, is interested in what they do. My parents are very generous people and my brother is the same.

My MIL and FIL treated DGC as an extension of their parents. So for example say they spent £100 on each of their five DC at Christmas then the sibling with no DC would receive £100 of gifts and the sibling with three DC would receive gifts to the the £100 budget for their family of five. So the DC, their partner and the three DGC would be given a £20 gift each.
I never gave it any thought, it seemed fair to me but I wasn’t emotionally invested as it was my in laws.

My parents never worried about making everything exactly equal and neither do I. We were helped according to need, so for example DSis went to uni and I didn't so she had some assistance with that and I didn't.

Ds2 went to uni and I helped with that, but DS1 didn't. Ds1 learned to drive at 17yo and had help with lessons and a first car. DS2 still has no interest in learning, so when he does get round to it, more adult and in good employment, he'll probably fund it himself.

DSis's son needed some medical care which DPs offered to pay for, thankfully I haven't needed that, it would be really weird to think they should even it up, but generally, it's swings and roundabouts.

if I have two hundred pounds and two children- one with one child herself
then I split the money £100 each family

so one daughter has £100 gift and the other daughter has £50 gift and her child has £50 gift

It will not always be the same though and at different times different children needs are different

Individuals
DD is married with a child- so 3 in family
DS is not
4 people all get the same amount (well they dont as DDs car insurance is on a family plan and DS doesnt have one but in theory )

Son in law gets the same as DD, DS and DGC.
I won't be paying school fees but we intend to give all our assets except 1 small flat away on 75th birthday and just live on pension income from then. That will be a 50/50 split DS and DD.

Your dgc are separate people. Your first thought is fair.

I'd keep your income for retirement and expect independence of dc. Unless you're loaded normal spending on dc is towards the odd nice holiday that you come on and benefit too.

From the end of higher education its typical for people to be independent apart from receiving a sum towards house deposit or wedding, maybe a generous new baby gift.

In death I'd divide equally between your dc but maybe make separate smaller bequests to dgc.

I have two children one with children one without. In our will we have divided whatever we leave 50/50 but now while we are alive we treat them all as individuals.i wouldn't say child X has to have less financial support from us because they have children that doesn't make sense to me and is unfair.

I have two kids, one sister none, one sister a disabled child. I'm a widow and neither of my sisters have partners. My parents divided their estate equally between us. That seemed fairest. My childless sister had told me she will leave anything she has to our disabled niece, which I am totally on board with.
To be honest weighing up what ones children gets in terms of gifts from grandparents etc is odd, unless one child gets a much bigger gift than the next.

My mother has 3 children. 2 of the children have 2 children each. One child has no children. Downsized (VERY large pension so money not an issue for future care costs, etc). Had £500k 'spare'. Gave £100k to each child and £50k to each grandchild (via their parents). Her money, her choice.

Years later it turns out the child without children has been feeling resentful that he didn't receive 'the same' as his siblings (even though he did).

Money drives wedges between people and it's impossible to please everyone. Do what you want with your money.

I have three DC and my brother is child free. My parents have left their money split evenly between me and my brother in their will, and have also helped us both out financially over the years to the same extent. However, now that my DC are teens, they have given them each a sum of money towards uni fees (or something else if they choose not to go to uni) and this isn't being replicated for my brother. So I guess it's somewhere in between.

Well my brother might be the type of person to say you had 3 kids and I only had 2 (he actually later had a very late in life baby and now we are 3 a piece), but I’ve deliberately raised my kids not to be resentful of what their siblings have. I genuinely think at this point (can’t speak for the future) that they don’t begrudge anything. I doubt my eldest (now 30) will have any children, he’s a gay male who said he’s being celibate for the rest of his life (and he’s stuck to this for 7-8yrs now) whereas I’d say DS2 might be first to make me a grandparent as id say he’s most likely to want kids (he’s 19) and youngest only just 16 next month and I’m hoping she’s a long way off kids. But I will treat them all as individuals. Already I intend to help my eldest out more financially as his dad isn’t in his life, whereas ds2 and dd’s father is paying for their Uni education and deposit / contribution towards a home. So chances are I’ll have to help ds1 much more financially.

We've got 5DD's. It's impossible to be completely "fair" between them all. They've all had help from us at different times with different things, one is extremely highly educated with 3 degrees and has had a lot of financial support during her lengthy education, one is disabled and has learning disabilities so has very simple tastes and needs and we treat her all the time to clothes, mini breaks etc. but will never be able to spend on her the amounts we have spent on the other four. Two have married and we have paid for big weddings in full for them, another is a single Mum so helping her is pretty much ongoing e.g. this year we're covering her winter fuel bills. Three have had help with house deposits. We are a large and close family and all DD's agree that they know we have done everything we can to help them all have a better life than they might have done without financial help from us. We will leave each grandchild irrespective of parentage a sum of money in our wills and the remainder will be split equally between all our children with a trust for our disabled child. We're all happy with that and DH and I have done our very best by all our children with the resources we have and consider ourselves very lucky that we've been able to do so.

My parents have always treated me almost equally to my siblings (one sister needed more help than me and the other). I couldn't have children but have nieces and nephews. I don't begrudge the money or experiences that have been given to them. I know that if I had children my parents would treat them equally. A small consolation of not having children of my own is that my nieces and nephews get to experience things we couldn't afford when we were children.

My friend feels very bitter that her parents’ money has been spent on her brothers’ family and she hasn’t received anything comparable.

She's a dreadful person. Fancy resenting GPs for treating their GC. Only a really awful person resents that.

DGC are separate and should be treated as such.

"Grandchildren are complete individuals, not extensions of their parents" is a great approach. And it applies even when everyone has children, as well as when someone doesn't.

For example - I have two children; my brother has one. My father gives all of his three grandchildren a "pocket money" of £30 a month each. (Very nice of him). It would seem very unfair I think if my nephew got £60 just because he's an only child...and then even more unfair if my brother had another child and suddenly his pocket money halved!

I would expect a parent to treat their children equally - and I would expect a grandparent to treat their grandchildren equally. I would not expect people to start making all sorts of adjustments to compensate for how many children they do or don't have.