I’m assuming this isn’t supposed to be in GD, but the way my girlfriend reacted I don’t know.
Say you have 2 siblings, one is very rich and one is dirt poor. Each has one son. At Christmas/holiday with presents you know the rich one will get lots of presents and the poor one will get only a couple. Should I and an uncle give each the same amount of presents or give the poor child more presents to make up for his relative lack of presents?
what are their ages, are they old enough to understand?
And will they compare their presents or do they live in different areas?
Give the same to both. Uncle Snarky can be fair, even if life is not.
I’d probably give a little more to the poorer one. If questioned by the richer one, I’d tell him exactly why (provided he was old enough to understand).
It depends on the situation. If there is a big age spread between the two then it could go either way. If the kids are close in age then I would give them roughly equal presents. It doesn’t need to be the same present and probably shouldn’t be in a lot of cases.
Same ages and they’ll see each other. Say they’re 10 years old. By same present I didn’t mean exactly the same thing. What I meant is would it be right to spend more on the kid that doesn’t have as much?
Nope. Treat them the same. The take home message these kids are likely to recieve is “Uncle Snarky likes the one he gives more stuff to better than the other one”.
I certainly sympathize with the temptation to spend more on the one who doesn’t have as much, but I’m not sure there is a way to do it that won’t send the wrong message.
Put the money you are tempted to spend on poor nephew in a bank account and offer it to him when he needs help buying a car or paying for college. By that time, your ability to explain that rich nephew doesn’t need your help and poor nephew does will be much greater.
But really, kids do not need as many toys as they(WE) think they do, so poor nephew will be ok, and rich nephew spoiled rotten. Feel sorry for the rich one. 
Well at ten, the richer kid should understand why the poor child is getting a little extra. If the poor family wouldn’t be offended, I’d send a few extra gifts to their home before Christmas with instructions not to tell the kids where they came from. The parents could take credit, or say the gifts were from “Santa”, or whatever. That way, the poor child gets enough presents without the extended family realizing that I gave one nephew more than the other.
If you want to give more to the less-well-off kid, wait for his birthday.
Then buy him a pony.
I would ask the parents first if it would be okay for me to give the child the extra gifts, along the lines of, “I’d like to make Johnny’s Christmas extra special this year.” After all, it’s not just the rich kid who is going to react. Poor nephew’s parents might also be hurt, and feel that you’re offering charity, not just wanting to do something nice for your nephew. Some people don’t take kindly to being offered charity. It’s a matter of pride, and it’s their prerogative. If the parents agreed to let me help, I would do as Omega Glory suggested. I also really like Eureka’s idea of putting the money into a college fund.
It’s not the rich kid’s fault that his parents have money. Why give the poor nephew more gifts?
Give them both the same amount. As long as poor kid is not neglected and rich kid is not spoiled, there’s no reason you can’t treat them the same. Remember, they’re cousins, and they’re going to be around after you guys are gone, so let’s not foster any rivalry because one family has more money than the other. They’re family, and one is not more special than the other.
OK…We were the “rich” family on both sides. But, we never really bought our kids a lot of presents. Books, PJ’s and maybe one toy for Christmas (and always socks and underwear). We did travel a lot with the kids, and spent most of our extra money on that.
Both sides G-parents gave WAY more stuff to the “poor” G-children. It bothered both my hubby and I, but we tried to ignore it as best as possible. We never brought it up in front of our kids, but come to find out, they are now grown up–and they always KNEW 
. Even though the G-P’s tried to hide it by having a separate Christmas without us–our kids always knew (cousins probably told). And as kids they just didn’t get it!
The funny, sad, part is that the poorer G-kids always got and had way more STUFF (toys, clothes, electronics–both from their parents and G-P’s) than our kids–but guess who’s in grad school and who’s working at the 7-11? 
But the bottom-line: I agree, if you want to do something for the “poorer” kid, save them some $$ for college or a even get them a computer for HS or sooner. Do comp. stuff for the major holidays.
My nephews and nieces have to do a little sucking up to get presents from me. The quality of what they get is dependant on the quality of calling me their favorite uncle.
You know you could slip one of the kids five or ten bucks here and there, under the table, secret handshake sort of way.
This type of crap drives me nuts. My mom has always freaked out at the thought of not “spending equal” for each of the grand kids. As a result, she drives herself insane every year (and drives everyone around her insane). She’s OVERLY concerned about ensuring that each grand kid gets “the same”–regardless if they need/want it.
For example, when HallGirl 1 went to college, Grandmother went out and bought her the mini-frig, dorm stuff for her dorm room. HallGirl 1 had worked her butt off during high school and managed to get scholarships which helped cover anything grants/loans didn’t. As a result of investing much of her time with school, she didn’t have a lot of time to work and couldn’t afford much of the stuff she wanted/needed for her college dorm. Two years later, Hallgirl 2 went off to college. However, Hallgirl 2 did workstudy her senior year of high school, and worked 40 hours per week (two jobs) during her senior year, and although she graduated high school, she didn’t have the academic standing her sister did to garner the scholarships. Working so much also meant that she was able to puchase the things she wanted/needed for her dorm room (and use whatever her sister didn’t need, since she’d moved into her own apartment). Grandmother went nuts at the thought that she wasn’t able to “do the same” for Hallgirl 2 (ie. buying her crap), but that didn’t stop her. Grandmother still went out and spent money on crap that Hallgirl 2 didn’t need, or want, and in the end, it just pissed everyone off. If Grandmother had LISTENED to what Hallgirl 2 wanted/needed–bottles of water and juice, copy paper, ink cartridge for her computer, subway tokens, etc.–then things would have worked out fine. However, since Hallgirl 1 wanted/needed “big ticket items”, and Hallgirl 2 wanted/needed “smaller ticket items”, it freaked Grandmother out.
Forget about spending equally, and go for what the person wants/needs.
Note, only actually do this if you’re also willing to pay for the upkeep on the pony as well, instead of sticking the poor parents with it.
Kind of depends what you mean by “dirt- poor”. If you mean the kid doesn’t have enough clothes, or the parent can’t afford to buy school supplies, then buy those things, but not in connection with a holiday or birthday.