I’m NOT the parent in question. Just a FYI.
And by mental capacity, I mean like not just IQ, but also other mental conditions like depression, ADD/ADHD, etc…
Like the child(ren) has not done anything wrong like crime or misbehave, but simply the parent thinking that giving an inhertance to (in their view) a “mentally disabled” child is a waste and “would just end up in the hands of government”. And they justify it since they think that “the kid can just get disability income anyways”. (Location is USA, for reference)
I personally think this is just very ableist… what do you think? Is it okay for parents to do that?
Here’s a tip: if you have multiple children, split everything evenly no matter what. It doesn’t matter how good your reasoning is. It doesn’t matter if one kid is an addict, it doesn’t matter if one kid needs the money more. It doesn’t matter if one cares for you in your old age and the other disappeared.
No matter what.
You are inviting nothing but misery into ALL of your children’s lives by dividing it unevenly. No matter how reasonable it is to do something else, they will always tend to think that dividing the inheritance unevenly means that you loved them unequally.
Agreed, but let’s be clear about what “evenly” means.
If you have two children and one goes to college and the other doesn’t, the one who doesn’t go is getting shorted money unless you make an alternate arrangement with them.
If your children are adults and one lives on your couch and one has their own house and job, if something happens to you, splitting the inheritance down the middle is not fair: you paid room and board for one and not the other. Itemize that shit and it comes out of your roommate’s end.
Starting at adulthood, equal is equal; it isn’t “equitable”. I’m not arguing that you gotta take Tommy’s braces out of his inheritance, but you gotta take out the car you buy him to get around as an adult, bail money, the money you have to help with house downpayment, it all counts.
I think it’s also worth having frank discussions with your kids about their inheritance and encouraging them to work things out themselves ahead of time.
My family has maybe a bit unusual but I think very healthy relationship with death. It comes for us all eventually, no sense dancing around it.
There’s no complicated inheritance situations in my family, if you have kids everything gets divided up evenly among them. If they don’t have kids it gets divided up evenly among their nieces/nephews.
So for example my parents estate gets split between my sister and myself, my uncle who doesn’t have kids gets split between us and my cousin, my cousin gets his parents’ all to himself.
We’ve already got things divvied up amongst ourselves pretty well. As long as my sister signs over her claim to our parent’s house, I’ll sign over my third of our uncle’s house to her, and she’s happy to buy our cousin out of his third or trade him for her current house (which would also have the benefit of getting all 3 of us in the same town, cousin has some disabilities and it would be nice to have us all nearby in case of emergencies, or the payout from my sister or money from sale of her house plus his own inheritance from his parents would set him up pretty well)
We also occasionally call dibs on some other desirable belongings, like my uncles skillsaw
This is something that needs to be more common. Estate planning shouldn’t be a surprise for the survivors, dramatic will readings are a B movie plot device, not reality. You don’t need to do an annual reading of the will, but everyone should know the basics that’s involved.
Or, if you have an inkling that you won’t split everything evenly, at least talk to the kids about it. My mom has 2 kids. She’s told me she’s giving a greater proportion to my brother and I’m ok with that.
My brother is a drug addicted felon and has always needed/gotten more support than I have needed/gotten.
I’m distant from my mom by choice (we didn’t have a healthy relationship) and I’m a functioning adult with a lovely partner, a stable job, and a competent therapist.
Mom’s told me she’s putting things into a trust for benefit of my brother, but I don’t know that she’s done that and it’s not my problem.
Anyways, I guess the takeaway is it’s ok for your kids to think dividing the inheritance unevenly means you love them unevenly if they’re not wrong.
this. even if it’s a dollar.
that one kid will be wondering why the $1 for the rest of their lives but have no way of finding out why. that stuff can start as nothing but fester quickly. I’ve had this happen to my family.
100%
Anyone who doesn’t understand this has no family that’s dealt with family breaking over money.