Dear Amy: My wife and I have three children, now all in their 40s. While our daughter has always gotten on well with both her brothers, the boys are very competitive with each other.
Although comparably educated, the younger son’s career took off early, and he is quite wealthy. While he doesn’t really flaunt this, clearly he has a large home with a swimming pool, fancy cars, etc. His children go to private schools, they travel extensively, and his daughter has a horse.
They have been quite generous to us over the years. They’ve air-conditioned our house, made other repairs and pay for a yard service and a cleaning lady. We’ve turned down more generous offers because we are happy with our current standard of living.
My wife thinks he should be more generous to his brother and sister, but I disagree. No one is destitute. He works hard for his money and should spend it as he sees fit. She also thinks we should be more generous to the older two in an effort to close the gap, but again I disagree. I can’t imagine broaching this topic and think it would only cause further problems between our two sons.
What are your thoughts on this? — Should Sleeping Dogs Lie?
Dear Sleeping: I am squarely with you. Your wife’s instinct to keep everything fair and square denies all of your adult children the ability to make their own choices and be in charge of their own destinies. If they are solvent and happy, then all of your children are successful. Putting so much focus on your son’s material success diminishes the validity of the others’ choices.
Using your wife’s logic, if your wealthier son air-conditioned your home, he (or you) should then air-condition his siblings’ homes. This is not redressing inequities but rather reminding the other two that you see them as needy and somehow inferior.
Your youngest son is helping the whole family by helping you in your elder years. By doing this he is removing burdens that might (theoretically) fall to the others in the future. His generosity is also enabling you to bequeath more wealth to all of your children, if that is what you choose to do.
So now a mother thinks she should have a say in how one of her kids spends his money?? Amy is correct in that the son is helping his siblings out by taking care of his parents. I appreciate everything my oldest bro and sis do for my parents. It does help me knowing my parents have wealthy crutches.
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Sometimes you're the windshield, and sometimes you're the bug.
My brother's career took off, too. He was able to spend more on me for birthdays and holidays, and here and there throughout the year he would help me. Then he started a family, his wife gave up her career, and my career slowly but surely rose to his level. I spend more on his daughter than I did on him. Now we agree to just spend on each other's kids. Any time my parents would help me (or him) she would give the same to the other, regardless of need. In other words, she made sure what she did was fair, but did not interfere in our (my brother's and my) relationship.
Parents should keep it as fair as possible when they distribute their own gifts or income--if they give more to the other two (who don't really sound like they need help, they just aren't as wealthy), then they are not being fair.
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I'm not arguing, I'm just explaining why I'm right.
Well, I could agree with you--but then we'd both be wrong.
