Blended family - what's fair for DC?

[Justforthispineapple]

DP and I have a blended family with three dependent DC. Two DC have had a parent die and 1 DC is the biological child of both of us. We both parent all the DC together and have parental responsibility for all three DC.

As a result of their parent dying, two DC get a pension until they are 18 which we save for them in their own bank accounts. They don't know about the money yet (as they are primary school age). They will get quite different amounts of money from each other (due to being different ages when their parent died) but the amount will eventually be around £20000-£25000.

Should we save money for the other DC to even things up monetarily? Obviously, there is no "fair". It's not fair that 2 DC lost their parent. I'm just interested in outside opinions to check if one option seems better than the others:

We could leave things as they are, or if we add any money to savings make sure we always split it equally in thirds.

We could save some extra money for biological DC, maybe aiming for about £10000 by the time they are 18. We could do this in their own savings account, or just plan to give it to them as an adult, if they seem unlikely to blow it all on heroin/gambling/Pokemon cards. (I'm a bit nervous about the money 2 DC will have free access to at 18. Obviously it will be very useful if they are sensible with it but you're still maturing at 18.)

We could aim for making things as even as possible so DC all get a similar amount, adding about £25000 extra for 1 DC, and £5000 extra for the DC who was older when their parent died.

We could do something different that we haven't thought of yet.

I'm leaning towards option 2 and saving something significant extra but not trying to match what the others will have. Is that reasonable? Most important to me is not causing resentment between siblings but I appreciate that all these options could appear unfair from someone's perspective.

I think we're approaching the end of the point where this thread is helpful to me, but thank you to everyone who has responded. This will be my last post on this thread.
The parent who died didn't know they were going to die, and the pension was not taken out specifically but a work benefit of a job. Apart from the obvious, that they would want their kids safe, secure and loved, I could only speculate on what they would want.
@JanefromLondon1 thanks for sharing your experience. I know things will never be even and wouldn't want to take anything from the DC that connects them to their parent.

The money the DC receive is from a DB pension. its quite standard for the widow (er) to receive 50% of the benefits built up and any children to get 25% each, usually until age 18 or until they leave full time education. In the NHS Pension scheme this is the maximum, so if there had been a 3rd DC born to the deceased parent they would have not got anything. I wonder what you & @FirstFallopians would make of that !!!!

Where I work you specify who benefits from your pension if you are to die and also who receives a lump sum payment. It can be divided as many times as chosen and a third child could have received everything with the spouse not receiving anything.

Not sure of the requirement of so many explanation marks. Are you excited for my answer or just conversationally lacking?

This.

that money is supposed to support them until they’re adults.

you are only managing to “save” it because of your new DP.

save the same for dc3.

my parent died when I was 11. My mum remained single so every available penny of my dad’s pension was spent on our living costs. I got no lump sum at 18 because my mum was not able to save.

Thats fine, but I expect you're in a DC Scheme. When the OP started talking about 25% to each child I took it to be a DB scheme (like the NHS) where the rules are stipulated & cant be changed. Yes, you can nominate a beneficiary for the Death-in-Service lump sum but 50% spouses pension & 25% each for up to 2 children are from the pension scheme.

And the exclamation marks was because you & another poster thought it was stealing to use this money other than for the first 2 DC. Just wanted to point out that (according to you) the Pension Trustees would also be stealing if the OP had had a 3rd child with the deceased.

We could be here all day talking about the ifs and buts of the rules of whatever pension scheme the deceased was part of. It’s irrelevant.

Plainly, they left this asset to their own two dc, not to be split up between them and any half siblings they might have through their living parent.

It’s not the bereaved children’s responsibility to make it fair.

I agree.

however the point is that this money is to support the children until they are of age.

o/p is not using it to support them, she is saving it.

the youngest dc should also have an equivalent savings account paid into by both parents.

look at it this way- oldest dc’s expenses should be met by surviving parent and pension from deceased parent. Youngest should be met by surviving parent and other parent. If surviving parent is supporting all 3 dc, other parent of dc3 should be putting their support into a savings pot.

either use all the money so each child is supported by 2 bio parent, or save equally for each child.

Well if you want to look at it like that then the 2 oldest DC get nothing spent on them as they have money intheir name coming in every month.

As you say, we could go on all night but the OP has said that she's probably not coming back as she's got the answers she needs.

Good luck OP. It seems from what you've said you'll even things up somehow so all good.

I would be aiming to save so that DC3 is in a broadly similar financial position to the other DC's at 18.