Forgive my prying, but I’d like to know more about the circumstances of this conversation. What led to it? How did it end? What do you think caused her to say/think these things?
I’m not asking for the purposes of trying to assign blame but because your situation is resonating with me in that I feel I’m headed in the same direction with my oldest - a daughter who is now 20 - and with whom I’ve recently become somewhat estranged.
Parents are supposed to control their kids when they are kids. It’s in the job description. Any freedom they have is granted as a privilege. That continues until they are fully fledged adults - when that varies with each person.
Not out of line at all. We wondered as much. Don’t THINK so, but when someone you love is acting in ways you don’t understand, you wonder about any possible causes. My daughter professes that she and her husband love each other madly and support each other wholly. He’s not the person I would have chosen to marry, but he’s okay. Decent job, seems to love my dtr and gdtr. Could have been a lot worse. I wish I could say better about my SIL. He doesn’t seem to like us terribly either. We’re not sure why. As far as in-laws go, I’d think we are - at least - relatively benign.
My best guess is that my dtr has always been - um - not adventurous. She used to say her “spirit animal” was a turtle! She decided she didn’t want to work in a career at which she got her degree. I suspect she married - at least in large part - to have someone provide and make decisions for her. Her H has a decent job - tho not terribly well paying. My dtr works a cple of pt-time jobs she loves. The bought a modest house, and should be able to maintain a modest lifestyle.
One thing that bothers us is that they often complain about being poor, yet we see them spending - and maintaining debt - in ways which exceed what WE spent at their age, and which we think at odds with their fiscal situation. Not horribly spendthrift, but just not retiring student and consumer debt, not maintaining things they presently own - that sort of thing. But, so long as they aren’t moving into our basement, they get to make our own decisions. But we wonder if $ concerns are a factor in our interactions.
One thing we’ve thought is that we don’t want to provide for their kid’s education if that would contribute to them being less financially responsible. The idea of saving for a kid’s education is daunting, but we did it primarily on our own, with far less assistance from our parents than we were considering. What we figured is we can forego the advantages of regularly contributing to a 529, and simply see where we are 16 yrs down the line. At that time, however things are, we can contribute whatever we care to. Or, maybe we’ll be dead by then and the kids will have inherited, making it moot! 
The purpose of gift giving is to show affection. Money as the only gift does not show the requisite level of affection. You need to think about them and go purchase something for them. It is fine to give money for a specific purpose like a college account, but money for Christmas and Birthday gifts is too impersonal and is inappropriate for a close family member.
I don’t have kids, so my thoughts are pretty theoretical from that end. But I was one of three sibs with very different personalities raised by two people who tried very hard to be even but had their own share of problems. Which led to three, well 6 actually, very different relationships between each sib and each parent. Despite all 5 people being sensible functional adults; no crazies, addicts, or crooks.
Several disjoint thoughts. …
You doing anything different gift-wise with this daughter versus the others now is pounding a gigantic stake into the heart of your relationship. It would be doing exactly what the daughter is (probably wrongly) accusing you of: controlling via gift. Thereby cementing that belief in her mind as absolute fact.
You creating a college fund for the granddaughter is real touchy given that the daughter’s stated complaint is you forcing college on her. “You did it to me and now you want to do it to my small child!!1!” is how that will resonate. So don’t do that.
You can set up *and fund *a trust for the daughter or for the grand daughter without telling them anything about it. Then, in a few years when whatever is eating at her has subsided you can show her the history. Demonstrating that you loved and cared for her all along and you’re glad she’s back. OTOH, if she finishes wigging out, disowns you and all your Satanic works, and moves to outback Alaska to make meth, you can revoke the trust. Win win.
If she’s able to speak rationally and calmly about this stuff you can approach her again. Tell her you *were *about to give an equal money gift to each of your kids but now after your last conversation there’s a problem.
Then ask her how she’d like you to solve this problem. At least one of these things must be sacrificed. Which and why?
Whatever she says will be informative. If she chooses door number 2, ask her to think about that for a few days and get back to you. If that sticks, comply with her wishes. No gift for her, and gifts for the others.
As you lay this out you might point out that someday she will probably have multiple kids in their 20s and she’ll face this problem or one much like it. This isn’t you just dumping a burden on your daughter. it’s your daughter creating a burden now that she may see again depending on how she raises her kids.
Dinsdale, if I were you, I’d put the money for your granddaughter’s education into an account that you control, and not say anything about it until she is much older.
As far was your daughter is concerned, I’d go ahead and give the same amount you were planning to give. I assume that your gift isn’t conditioned upon some sort of behavioral response from your daughter.
One explanation for the recent rant by your daughter about your parenting, may be just immaturity combined with the fact that her spouse may have been raised differently and she sees the difference and doesn’t yet understand your reasoning. Patience. Just love your children the best you can, and it sounds like you did a pretty damn good job!
Some great responses. Thanks all.
Another concern is that I’m not dealing with this alone. My wife and I are doing it as a team - and our thought processes are not identical. My approach is more of “ignore it, maintain the course.” Where as my wife prefers to “get to the bottom of things.” Believe me, that has contributed to some heated moments - but despite those, we’ve been married for 31 yrs. Maybe not the Cleavers, but not an insignificant accomplishment IMO.
I tried to describe the history above. Like I said, over the past few years, we’ve increasingly sensed out SIL disliked us. We realized that all of our interactions with our eldest dtrA/gdtr were at out initiation, and at their convenience.
Within the past yr, my 2 dtrs had a big disagreement. While my other dtrM seemed (to us) willing to address it with her sister, dtrA said she “wasn’t ready” to even discuss it with her sister. This was 6 months ago. We do not want to be in-betweens, but we do strongly wish that we can gather congenially as a family on holidays, life events, and such.
When you try to discuss things such as family relationships with dtrA, she quickly escalates to crying and screaming, and may hang up the phone or storm out the door. She does this to my wife and me as well as my 2 other kids. My other 2 kids do not act that way. Instead, they seem to value being able to discuss things intelligently and personally with us. We express our views/experiences, and will disagree, but we do not force our opinions on them.
DtrM and my son were going to be in town and having dinner with us x-mas eve. We knew dtrA had no other plans. We were uncertain whether to invite her family, if she didn’t want to be with her sister. We extended the invite a couple of weeks ago. She had to ask her husband. A week passed - no response.
In that time my wife was at the mall with DtrA, buying gdtr some clothes. Wife said, “Let’s go see Santa.” Dtr A said she had to ask H. Sure, I understand the desire to do things as a family, but I’m not sure why a 1.5 y.o. can’t see Santa 2x. Last Fri, my wife had said again that she’d like to take gtr to see Santa. Dtr A said she was busy. That eve she called to say what a good time she and H had taking the kid to Santa. My wife felt excluded/lied to.
Personally, I couldn’t care less about going to Santa with the kid, but I do care about my wife’s feelings. My wife is wondering if she can’t go along when her gdtr sees Santa - what IS her role? Which is a short step from wondering if you are simply a bank.
So in the context of all that, my understanding is my wife called dtr A to ask about x-mas eve dinner, as she was going to order meat from the butcher. And in the course of that conversation, dtrA told us we were horrible people, with a horrible marriage, we had been horrible parents, etc. All of this I’m simply getting from my wife.
My position is that we give the kids equal checks. We’ll be seeing dtrA/gdtr tomorrow. I intend to tell her that at some point - likely after the holidays - I’m going to want to discuss with her what is going on, how she perceives us, and what she expects/wishes from us. If she wants a more distant relationship, I would be disappointed, but I would prefer that to a dishonest relationship with one of the 4 people closest to me.
My kids strongly prefer cash. We asked them. Like I said, we have long talked about ANYTHING, and generally try to respect each others’ preferences. At one point it got to them giving us detailed lists of what to buy them, rather than anything we really cared about giving them. At that point, we’d prefer not to simply be their errand persons.
We give each of them one tangible gift - probably around 50. And we give them some of their favorite candy. As our financial situation has improved, we've been increasing the size of our gifts - and being more generous about simply buying them things throughout the year when we know they would like them. For example, when my 2 other kids expressed interest in baking, my wife bought them nice rolling pins and pie plates. Or my wife will go shopping with my dtr to buy a snow suit for gdtr, and then have lunch with them.
I like the idea of starting the acct and not telling them. As I understand it, 529s are transferrable, and even if we decide not to use it for education, we just pay the taxes we would have paid all along. To me it is just shifting numbers around on a balance sheet. Nothing I’m ever going to spend. And if I don’t spend it on the kid’s education, my kids will just end up inheriting it. But my wife is pissed - at the moment at least.
Seems like you guys have it handled pretty well… she does sound like the more emotional one of ya’all’s offspring, that’s for sure. Would be curious to know how well your conversation over the holiday goes.
I’m sorry you’re having to go through this. I can certainly appreciate the kind of stress this can put on the entire family.
I hope things improve for all of you in the near future.
Thanks for sharing.
Your wife wanted to take the granddaughter to see Santa, but your daughter wanted to check with her husband first. Then, later, you found out that your daughter and her husband had taken the granddaughter to see Santa.
Almost as if they had planned to do that together, and that’s why your daughter didn’t want to do it when grandma wanted to. And your wife is upset that they didn’t change their plans to go see Santa to include grandma.
Since your wife is wondering if your daughter only thinks of her as a bank, is she somehow expecting that if she buys clothes for the granddaughter, then your daughter and her husband are obligated to take grandma along to see Santa? Did she maybe say something like that to your daughter, that she’d bought clothes for granddaughter and was then refused the Santa trip?
Because that would come across as an attempt to use money to control your daughter.
It’s not like me to take a side in a marital disagreement but this struck me really hard, and I gotta say this:
You are right, and your wife is wrong.
Let’s be absolutely clear; your daughter has the problem. She has a hell of a lot going on; she’s got a young child, a lot of grownup worried she’s not yet entirely used to, two jobs, a marriage, and on and on. She lashed out at you not because you did something wrong - and I know I’m hearing your side of the story but even interpreting it as badly as I can she still comes off as a whiner - but because she’s under the full pressure of being an adult, she was pissed off, and she hasn’t worked out all her personal issues, many of which are, frankly, the kind that at some point you just slap yourself across the face and say “I gotta grow up and stop being such a goddamn pussy.”
If you attempt to get to the bottom of things, you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to make it ten times worse. Everything said will be pulled apart and deconstructed and rebuilt to constitute some sort of insult. Sorry, but you can’t solve other people’s problems for them. Your wife is, mistakenly, thinking she has to fix your daughter’s problems. That works fine when your daughter is 3, works only for some problems when they’re 12, works for few problems at 16 and absolutely none at all at 28. What you guys need to do is let her sort out her own shit.
I know someone like your daughter. A few someones. They hold onto weird, inchoate, only-a-university-student-would-have-time-to-car grudges, rely on parents and then resent them, think primarily of themselves, and take all generosity for granted. I know someone who accepted a free car from their parents and then called to complain - over a year later - that the car needed maintenance. The right move in that situation would have been for their parents to say “Sorry it’s not working out for you, would you like us to have it picked up and brought back?” The wrong move is to “Get to the bottom of things.” You never will, 'cause if you entertain this bullshit they will never run out of things.
Your daughter might grow out of this - I suspect she will, I think having a family forces some of that. Or not; one of my wife’s best friends is in her late thirties and has the emotional maturity of a ten year old. There’s nothing anyone can do about it.
The fact the OP’s wife, not the OP, is in the middle adds a whole new wrinkle.
It sounds like dtrA (funky labels but I’ll run with them) and Mom probably have the worst pairwise dynamics of any. So Mom = OP’s Wife is not the one to try to work though this dilemma. OP is.
The needle must be threaded between the OP’s need to support the wife, and dealing with the daughter’s issues as the daughter perceives them. Not as the wife perceives them or as the wife perceives the daughter perceives them. Or worst of all, as the OP perceives the wife perceives the daughter perceives them. That game of telephone is connected to dynamite.
Agree with RickJay who was simulposting with me.
Daughter is probably a whiner. But seen from the daughter’s POV, Mom is acting like a bull in a china shop.
My wife is 60+. Her mom is 90+. And Mom still tries to run her daughter like a little kid. Which triggers massive resentment between them which I get to referee. Such fun. The old dear is not a bad person at all. She just has a ginormous blind spot that assumes she’s in command and the kids (my wife and her almost 60 yo sis) exist as little moonlets orbiting her Sun.
The OP’s daughter may well be over-reacting. But she’s also reacting to something. There may be lots more room for the OP to have a friendly relationship with daughter than for wife to have the same opportunity. I’d argue that some is better than none.
Something to think about. As I said in my first post, between my sibs and my parents there were 6 very different relationships. One of which was pretty stormy while the others were ordinary or downright extra calm.
As the kids grow and marry you’re going to have maybe 12 relationships once the full set of SIL/DILs get involved. The relationships won’t be clones of one another. Don’t pull out a hammer and try to make them all fit one mold. The chunks you (or your wife) knock off to make it fit will be costly.
IMO, this is a dangerous place to go. Your wife’s place as a grandmother isn’t up to your wife to define alone. It may be that going to see Santa is something that she wants to do with her husband alone, she may not want grandma steering the conversation towards certain gifts, the granddaughter may have a lot of anxiety about the whole scene, etc. Obviously we only have your words to go on but I could see where your daughter feels that your wife is imposing on her, and it could be a reflection of some feelings from her childhood.
You’ve never mentioned that your daughter expects money from you. I’m not sure why your wife thinks this is a short step to being considered a bank. I’ve had some minor clashes with my mom over similar sorts of things - she asks us kids to plan and run something as we see fit then exerts subtle and not so subtle pressure to have things go a certain way. It can be seen as an effort to control, and since my folks are paying we certainly aim to please. But it can leave a bitter taste.
I think you’ve gotten sound advice from everyone-- keep treating the kids the same. Maybe make it clear to the odd-out daughter that the money has no strings attached and your plan is to gift each child equally as sort of an “early inheritance”.
One thing to keep in mind-- because of the parent/child dynamic what might seem like the most casual, off hand comment from the parent might seem to the kid as an attempt to force them to do something.
You say: “I hope you’re doing well at you job”.
She hears: “Don’t fuck up your job like the way you never kept your room clean!”
Give them the equal gifts. Because based on only on what you’ve said, it looks to me kind of like your wife is trying to be controlling. * Your daughter might in fact be overly emotional about a lot of things but so is your wife- she feels excluded and lied to and is wondering what her role is because she didn’t get to go along for what is essentially the granddaughter’s first visit to Santa. I’d be willing to bet that that’s what brought everything else about- one or the other said something about the Santa visit during the conversation and everything went downhill from there. And I can almost guarantee your daughter is going to see any differing treatment as punishment for wanting the Santa visit to be “parent-only” - I’m wondering about that myself
This “Life in Hell” seems appropriate for the seasonal topic.
OR maybe his wife is upset because the daughter didn’t have the common decency to simply tell her that she planned to do the Santa visit with her husband, and they preferred to do it as only the three of them.
Mom? Is that you?