First the background:
I am divorced and have a young daughter (age 6).
I don’t really date very much: I don’t seem to have much time lately because I have gone back to grad school. I have not seriously dated anyone since my divorce and don’t see it happening anytime remotely soon.
The issue:
I am very fortunate in that my daughter’s grandparents (my ex’s parents) and I get along fabulously and they take very good care of my daughter in financial terms. I can say that more than likely my daughter will never hurt for money. One of my jobs as a mother is to keep her grounded.
So this aside, if you were in my position (or are, or have been) would you date someone that couldn’t afford to raise their children in equal financial terms to yours.
What happens, I wonder, when the finances are very unequal specifically in terms of the children. I ask myself how other children would feel that my daughter has all these opportunities that might not be available to them. Would there be much resentment? Would they grow to dislike my daughter because she has a chance to go to any college, for example, and they might not have this?
In all sincerity, I don’t care about the money on a personal level. I would happily sign any pre-nup, etc. This genuinely is not about me, but how the dynamics change when one child has privilege and the others do not. This is just something I have wondered about.
If there were a really big age difference (at least 12 years), it’d be OK. Yeah, maybe some resentment, but the kind you can live with. Otherwise, it’d lead to no end of chagrin.
Would your daughter’s grandparents be prepared to support your other children? I mean, assuming you don’t have a dozen of them or anything, and I mean at least in terms of vacations or music lessons or something. It’d be better for your daughter, too.
If every Christmas resulted in a pony for your older daughter and a My Little Pony Happy Meal Toy for your younger, that’d be problematic.
I am not going to have other children…these theoretical children would not be mine genetically.
I can’t see asking her grandparents, for example, to pay for other children to go to private school.
No, private school would be a huge financial commitment just because they were your grand-daughter’s step-siblings. Depending on how old they are, they will probably understand that; you get stuff from your grandparents as well as your parents, like noses, eye colour and money.
But the little things like equitable Christmas presents would really help everyone involved.
What a tough question. There is indeed a lot of room for resentment, because it is objectively not fair. While people learn to live with vast wealth inequalities in the world, it’s a bit much to ask for them to deal with it in their own house. I couldn’t imagine how it’d feel to know you are getting the “second best” future in your family.
It might be smart to hold back on the whole “blended family” thing until the kids are a bit older. If the kids grow up thinking of each other as siblings, it’s going to cause a lot more problems than if they consider each other “the kids of the guy my mom is dating.” I’d think if they are over 10 or so when they start coming together, they’d be better able to deal with the idea than if they were raised together as siblings from a young age.
Is the father in your daughters life? I think it’d be smart to emphasize that these things come from her father’s family, not from you. Try to frame it as “daughter’s father’s family is crazy rich,” not “daughter is crazy rich.” I’d just keep the money as separate from you personally as possible. Don’t make it “I’m sending her to this school,” make it “her grandparents are sending her to this school.”
And yeah, it might be advisable to scale back until she is an adult. Yeah, maybe she could get a new car when she is 16, but she doesn’t really need to. Sure, maybe she could afford to go on the class trip to Europe, but it won’t be that bad if she goes on a family vacation somewhere closer instead. She can get all the money when she is 18 and do what she wants with it. I think it’d be a lot easier to understand “my sister’s grandparents set up a trust fund for her, so she will have college money and stuff when she is an adult” than to live with the inequalities on a daily basis. Assuming you are middle-class, there is no reason why she shouldn’t be fine with the lifestyle the family she lives with can afford.
scratch scratch scratch OK, I’m messing up my hair bigtime here…
Am I on a “will never live together” basis with the guy? Then the question is moot. His kids are his kids, and any I happened to have (I have nephews, including one for which I’m the designated alternate parent, may I never have to take up that duty - amen), are separate like my kids and the kids of my friends are separate. I’m a co-educator but not a co-parent.
Are we considering marriage (de facto or with papers)? Then his kids become mine and mine become his. By cultural tradition, all children of mine have the right to the best education I can give them and that they want, whether they are acquired biologically, by adoption or by marriage, and that’s it. Since I happen to agree with that tradition, I’d have to think about what do the kids want to study and how will we (where “we”=“the family”) pay for it, but not about whether they got to go to the school they want (the kids are responsible for getting into it and staying in good standing). At the below-college levels, I wouldn’t send the kids to different schools unless one happened to have special needs, and then it would have to be an extreme case for the other kids to not be able to go to that school with the special program.
“You marry one person, but acquire a whole family”.
Even Sven
Her father is in the picture. My family is very much the polar opposite in terms of finances. I do my best to keep her grounded: We do volunteer things and have a focus on things that are not financial. I don’t think the money is an issue now - she has no real concept of it really - but there is no denying that she is a fortunate child. Nava
I think if I actually had someone in the picture, I would feel as you say. I honestly just don’t know from my current perspective. You say that you wouldn’t have the children attend different schools - would you pull your child from a school they have been to and have friends at? A school that you happen to like?
It sounds like this problem comes up only if you marry a guy who alreay has kids and who isn’t as financially able as you ex parents in law to take care of them. So maybe just don’t do that.
Their Dad and his children are the recipients of a large hereditary trust fund. In the “those kids will never hurt for money” way. His kids are all his by his wife, except the oldest - his wife was married once before and brought a child into the marriage. The terms of the trust are such that there is no way for them to include that child in the trust - they don’t control the terms of the trust (which is DECADES old - and maybe even a century old - its money from the 1850s.). Adoption won’t do it - children “by marriage or adoption” are specifically excluded.
And while they are well off, they aren’t well off enough to subsidize their oldest to make up for the lack of trust fund.
I don’t think they’d give up their marriage and their subsequent children, but it is definitely NOT FAIR that one child has different expectations from the rest. And yes, it has apparently caused a bit of resentment between the kids. Even though, rationally, everyone recognizes that it isn’t anyone who has been alive in memory’s fault.
Not necessarily. It certainly isn’t anything to count on. She could be selfish. She could not like her step siblings, her step siblings could be people she doesn’t trust with money, she could help out her step siblings at first and come to feel that instead of gratitude, they feel a sense of entitlement to her grandparents money. She could decide that her grandparents wealth could be better spent on wildlife preservation, cancer research, malaria prevention, or homes for alley cats than on herself or her siblings and choose a very modest life for herself - and expect her siblings to do the same.
You’ll have two opportunities (entering middle school and high school) to change schools in a “natural” way. It might be possible to time any “blending of family” stuff for the year or so before these natural transition, so that you can get the kids on the same page without too much disruption.
I think you could most likely get away with the idea not that she is a privileged child, but that she will be one. For now she lives under your roof, with the life that you can provide for her, with perhaps the occasional perk from her grandparents that remains contained to her time with that side of the family (i.e. if grandma wants to buy her a pony, that pony is for her time with grandma. You should probably avoid pony riding lessons during the normal week if you can’t do something equivalent for the other kids.)
Just thought of something. Brady Bunch aside, is it all that likely that you’d marry a guy with kids where the kids would then live with you? Seems much more likely that any kids your new husband has would live with those kids’ mom and come visit every other weekend and some holidays. So, those kids may not really know that your kid is livin’ large, or if they do they’d just figure you have money and wouldn’t expect you to support them. They may be mad at their dad, though, if they think he is favoring your kid.
I have experience that is somewhat similar, don’t know if you’ll think it relevant, but: I live with my boyfriend. He has 2 kids and I have 1. We have his daughters half the time, and they’re with their mom the other half.
It’s not exactly the same, but his parents and his ex-wife’s parents help out tremendously with the expenses. Meanwhile, I have to work overtime and horrible jobs to provide a fraction of what they have. I wear myself out trying to “keep up” sometimes (for example, struggling to pay for karate while the girls get enrolled in tumbling, soccer, etc courtesy of Grandma)…my mother loves my son and thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread, but can’t financially help.
My son has moments where it causes a little friction or sad feelings but I don’t think it’s terrible for a kid to learn, even in his own home, that the world is an unfair place and you have to make the best of whatcha got. Still, as his parent, I hurt for him and it definitely hurts my relationship with the boyfriend. He also does not exhibit very much grace and understanding with it all.
It is probably apparent that I’m really the one who has the problem with this, and to be honest it has a lot to do with the relationship dynamic, and not so much the actual situation. It’s not a deal breaker but it comes close.
Naturally YMMV. I don’t know that everyone feels the need to equalize like I do. From the perspective of the “broke” parent in this situation, I would say these resentments are nigh impossible to prevent, despite how caring and thoughtful you seem about it (kudos).
My mom married a guy who had children the same age as us, and they were far better off financially. I then grew up and recreated the same situation for my own kids, so I’ve seen it from both sides.
All I can say is that we understood that different people have different situations. Sure, there is/was resentment…but no one thought it was anyone else’s fault, or that they were entitled to a step-sibling’s privileges.
I also have to say that my brother and I didn’t get along well with our steps, nor do my children get along with theirs. If we had, that might have been different, but there is/was always a very Us and Them vibe.
Thank you all for you input.
While the idea of marriage is nonexistent, it’s something I’ve always wondered about.
The whole us vs her makes me sad to think about.