There's a lot of distance between "damn well do whatever they please" and not being able to get the MONEY (or other assets) distributed exactly equally. Some of the examples, such as the folks selling a car at a discount to a kid that will use it to do errands for the folks, hardly seem blatantly unfair.......
Every situation is different. In mine, my parents basically gave a car to my brother (and then lied about it) to be used by their granddaughter. My parents have not entered geezerdom yet and do not need any help, so our situation is a little different.
I'm all for providing parental unconditional love and nurturing to all the kids and grandkids in near-equal proportions. But, you seem to have a fixation on the monetary side of things. You mentioned in an earlier post you were comfortable using MONEY as the yardstick of parental devotion because it's measureable. Are you taking this too far? Perhaps too much of a quantitative background from your years in West Layfayette?
It's a fair question...but I can honestly say that I don't really want any money at all from my parents. I mentioned earlier that I felt uncomfortable with the prospect of them giving me their share of a condo sale we had split. Our family problems started because of what the family members felt was unfairness of the time and money the parents were doling out. And since money is easily measured, it becomes the easiest way to explain it to others without providing 25 years of family history.
Let me ask you, if your folks called and said they'd like to move across country to your neighborhood and spend lots of time being involved with you and your family, would you welcome that?
YES
If in the ensuing years your folks required some effort from you and the family due to geezer issues, would you do that unconditionally? Would you feel you should receive some compensation for that if they had the money and could afford it?
Realizing that I have not had to face that yet, my answer would be that
yes I would be willing to help out unconditionally. Does a child deserve some sort of compensation for that help if the parents could afford it? I would not expect it myself but I would not resent it if either my brother or sister received compensation for care-taking. In my mind, we've veered off to a different topic entirely now. A parent paying a child for care-giving is not showing favoritism, they are simply paying for services rendered.
Not trying to be argumentative with you boilerman, but it does seem you have a tendancy to measure mom and dads love in $$$ and I wonder if you need to think about that a little, perhaps over a cold one at Harry's Chocolate Shoppe. I'm not saying you're actually that way, just that you seem to be coming across a little that way.
I can understand why you might think that. It's hard to condense 25 years of family background without boring the pants off of everyone who's not a member of the family.
But I am very proud of the fact that DW and myself have built a wonderful life together, including FI, without any help from our parents after we became adults. They did a wonderful job of providing me the opportunity of a fine education just down the street from Harry's Chocolate Shoppe
and I would be pleased as punch if they left their entire estate to charity.
Let me repeat, that the interaction in this thread has done a lot to help both me and DW gain a better understanding of the parents' perspective and we are both well on our way to "getting over it" - defined as coming to terms with the fact that our relationship with our parents has changed now that we are adults, and that fairness is not really a term to be used in the same context (or maybe at all) as when we were little kids.
Still, as you can see from several other people's posts, this is potentially a very serious family issue that can cause much pain and suffering. I sensed in the post from MSSULLY76 earlier today the same kind of attitude my parents have and wanted to warn him of the potential dangers.
Although my initial intent when I started this thread was to help myself work through my own problem, my hope now is for other parents to see the dangers ahead as their kids become adults. I wouldn't wish our family problems on my worst enemy (as of today, my sister and her family are barely on speaking terms with my parents.) I hoping this dialog will help.