Grandparents: Do you give your adult DC without kids similar financial help as those who have DC?

[Sundaycoffee]

For example, if you spend money on gifts / days out for grandchildren, do you find yourself compensating adult DCs that don't have children in other ways in the interest of fairness? E.g. more expensive birthday gifts

I think with gifts and events for grandchildren you should treat them as individuals in their own right and not just an extension of your child. Try to treat all the grandchildren the same. Day to day things shouldn't matter but large sums of money like house deposits should be equalled out. Then again, every circumstance can have its own factors, such as one adult child being a multi millionaire and the over being on minimum wage but having done all the 'right' things in life but having bad luck. Then it depends on the situation. But really, no, I wouldn't keep a tally and think I need to buy an adult child a bigger present as I bought a young grandchild of their sibling's something.

My parents and in-laws have never ‘evened-up’ the expenditure and it’s never bothered me. Ie. If families visited and got treated to a meal out, chocolate gifts etc, that cost wasn’t spent on the other family at another time.

The only exception was one Christmas when favoured son’s child got clothes from a better quality shop compared to what my kids got. That irked me.

Growing up with unfairness, I have always tried to treat my children exactly the same. We have told our children that if they feel anything is unfair to tell us. This is quite easy for us as both our children have the same number of their own children. I do treat our grandchildren as separate beings and I try to also treat the grandchildren the same. If one of our children did not have children, I would not be giving them something every time I bought my grandchildren something. This keeping everything the same is really important for us. In addition to finances I have always provided the same amount of childcare to our children.

I am likely to be in the position whereby one of my kids (DD) will have 2 kids of her own, but my DS doesn't want kids.

Re birthday/Christmas presents for my grandkids, no way would I feel that I had to buy more expensive gifts for my DS to compensate. However, if I started giving out big money to Grandkids, say for a car/house deposit or something, I think I would recognise that that was diminishing DS's inheritance somewhat, so that would require some deep thinking.

Surely though the grandchildren are family members in their own right not just extensions of their parents? If I give £100 to five family members that is fair. I don't understand how it would be more fair if say four of those people are my DD and her 3 kids and one is my DS to then give my DS £400 to make up for the fact my grandchildren are getting money.

I’ve never heard of this and would find it very weird/ would never do it.

I wouldn’t spend £60 on one DC but £20 on the other because they have children and I’ve also got them a gift. Grand children are their own people, they are just an extension of their parents.
It’s weird for the DC without kids to expect everything to be tallied up that was spent on the grandkids and to then go to them too.

No, I don't see gifts I give to my grandchildren as gifts to their parents.
I have two children one with children and one without. I spend the same on them for birthdays, Christmas etc. I see money, gifts , treats etc i give to my grandchildren as completely separate.

I've got one child and my siblings all have at least two. It would be very weird if DS got twice as much spent on him.

I guess if there's any inheritance I'd expect that to be divided between me and my siblings equally though but that seems different to me!

Grandchildren are people in their own right so any gifts/treats for them shouldn’t need balancing out. Any large-sum financial gifts probably yes, it’s fair to distribute evenly to all.

My mother does spend a lot more on me for birthdays and Christmas than she does on my sibling. It’s not to balance her gifts to the grandchildren (from my sibling), her reasons being that my sibling receives gifts from their spouse and teenage children as well as from my mother, whereas I (single, childless) only receive gifts from my mother so she’s treating me for that.
I also do all of the care and support my mother needs where my sibling doesn’t bother. So I think that’s what she’s balancing.

This and my Mum had the same approach.

My parents contribute to my nephew's nursery fees but do not give me the equivalent payment as I don't have the need for it. I think that's the right approach. When I have kids, they said they will give me the same amount of fee contributionas they did for my sibling.

Otherwise sibling and I are treated the same for gifts given to us but I'm not compensated for gifts given to the grandchildren as they're recipients in their own right. I wouldn't expect more spent to be spent on me just for not having kids.

I have no kids, but can't begin to imagine expecting my parents to send me money because they took my nephew to the zoo, bought him an ice cream or gave him a tenner to spend on tat.

That would be an extremely weird dynamic.

OP what is your position/angle on this? Why do you ask?

Why would a grown adult expect to be treated the same as a child? Seems ridiculous to expect a treat because your mother took your niece or nephew out for ice cream or a trip to the zoo.

The responses in this thread have been interesting in that they all agree that grandchildren are individuals, and if Granny decides to buy ice teams for little Janet and John, then she doesn’t have to give money to their (childless) Uncle Ernie to compensate.

However, if this was an inheritance thread, then a lot of people would be arguing that if granny decides to give Janet and Johns mother , plus Janet and John each money, then extra money should be given to Ernie so each subset gets the same.

(sorry for derailment)

I don't understand your point

People have the right to leave their money to whoever they want and to spend the money they have when they are living on whoever they want.
I have grandchildren, I love them, I pay for some of their activities, I buy them things. It doesn't change what I give my child who doesn't have children and it doesn't have any impact on my will.
Whatever I have left will be split between my children. It doesn't mean I don't see my grandchildren as individuals! Some people might make different choices but every family is different

Fortunately I don't know anyone who has favored their childless children to the point that they give them more than their children with children of their own.

Everyone I've know has given their children equal amounts of financial gifts (e.g. with house deposit, passing on money as "early inheritance" and equal Christmas/B'day gifts).

They've also given any grandchildren equal amounts of money/gifts to the other grandchildren.

The only thing I have ever seen that has been technically "unfair", but not malicious and can't be helped is grandparents who were able to help out by providing childcare for their eldest grandchildren, but were in too poor health or had passed away, so not able to do the same for their youngest grandchildren.

DS1 doesn't have children - DS2 does. When it comes to big cash gifts and our wills, we treat them both the same.

We treat the GCs separately - we don't think to give DS1 money because we have bought birthday presents for DS2's kids. However, I think we do tend to spend more on DS1 at Christmas because we are buying for 4 for DS2, DDIL and the GCs. Probably doesn't make sense but that's what we do.

I would say that even on an inheritance thread that the children should be given the same amount as each other, in addition to anything that they wish to leave the grandchildren.

I think it's quite normal for say 25% of the estate to be left equally between all grandchildren and the remaining 75% of the estate to be left equally between all children.

Equally it's a valid choice to parents to split between their direct children only, and think that the grandchildren will have an inheritance only from their own parents when their own parents die.

There's a few singles with chips on their shoulders on MN that do seem to think they should be compensated (by their parents and also generally in life) because they don't have a partner or children.

@Gundogday I don’t think this is a derailment of the thread. I think that is in the back of most people’s mind in this thread. It doesn’t make any difference in my case because my children do have the same number of their own children. Most people do just leave their money to their children and not include grandchildren. I do know a few people who have inherited from their grandparents, but only because their parent died early and before the grandparent.

I think that sounds a bit insane to be honest. You take your grandchildren out for the day so now you owe your childfree child something?
I think anyone who said “hang on, you’ve taken my niece/nephew out, that’s not fair on me because I don’t have children” would be being ridiculous.

I always disagree with that opinion. It makes no sense to me. Fine if you only want to leave money to your children, but if you also want to leave something (maybe a smaller amount) to your grandchildren I don’t see why that should be evened out.
When my grandma died, the estate was split 4 ways, 1/4 to each child, and 1/4 split equally between the grandchildren. I think it would have been insane of my mum to argue that her sister got an unfair benefit because she has more children than my mum does, and therefore in total my aunt’s immediate family got more money. The money went to individual adult grandchildren. Not their parents.

For birthdays and Christmas, my in-laws give considerably more to their one DC without children than to all their other DC-with-children + GDC combined 😂. I think it's their way to compensate for her being single, no DC and looking to stay that way.

My parents give each DC and their spouse the same monetary gift for their birthday (it's very sweet, actually. Not a huge amount, just a "get yourself something nice, love" kind of gesture). Each of their GDC got a gift for their birthdays, until they were too old and then they started getting cash.

Basically, all four grandparents see their children and grandchildren as individuals, but my in-laws feel a sense of responsibility for their childless DC whereas my parents don't for their one, childless DC. My parents consider their active parenting done and their children responsible for themselves and their choices, whereas my in-laws still consider themselves responsible for their almost 40yo childless DD because "she doesn't have anyone to look after her". It's a different outlook really.

I’ve also seen a lot of people on inheritance threads arguing that it’s unfair to leave grandchildren the same amount as each other because one “side” of the family is getting more, if siblings have unequal amounts of children. I’ve never really understood that viewpoint as I don’t see children as just extensions of their parents, but it usually seems to be parents making that argument, rather than “singles with chips on their shoulders”.

I think grandchildren are people in their own right so certainly wouldn’t transfer over ten quid every time I bought a round of ice creams. Possibly when it comes to more costly things but tbh I’d hope that an adult would also treat their niece/ nephew to an extent. Fairly of unfairly I’d make a judgement call as to inheritance depending on finances.

The younger generation have it toughest when getting on housing ladder so am more inclined to give them a healthy chunk compared to those that own a home. I do think inheriting £100k when you are in your 30s rather than 60s will make a bigger difference to your life.