Submitted by throwRA_boomers t3_112hmu0 in relationship_advice
I know I need to get over this. My own mother [70F] said I'm going to get bitter and twisted over it. I really want help because the cost of living crisis in my country is making our finances tighter and tighter every month and it's driving a huge wedge into my relationship with my parents.
In the 50s and 60s my parents benefited from expensive private schooling and extremely wealthy parents - as well as all the other Boomer stuff that all the middle class Boomers got like cheap housing, jobs that paid well etc. My dad literally got given a partnership at a major law firm by my grandpa.
They had me in the 80s. They preferred my brother [38M] from the start, which doesn't help things. They foisted me off on my granny pretty much full time. But when I was 10 and they were 40, the age I am now, my mother inherited a buttload of money and they bought a huge 30 room mansion in the centre of our town outright - no mortgage.
I went to local state schools. I was bullied and ended up going to literally every school in town, because my mother cut my hair herself (very short), I wore free glasses and second hand clothing. I rarely got Christmas and birthday presents, and never birthday parties. The other kids were really confused, because well, we lived in a bloody mansion and my mum wasn't buying me sanitary products. She made me work in my dad's office under minimum wage at 12 to pay for them, and then in various local shops around the town.
Meanwhile my parents were living it up with two huge parties a year with 200+ people at a time, crates of wine, barrels of beer on tap etc. My mother bought curtains that cost £6k. That kind of thing. They inherited more huge lump sums over the years as various relatives died. My mother owns a diamond tiara, and has given away numerous fur coats.
I went to uni, and my loan was means assessed - but my parents didn't give the level of hand-outs that the government expected, so unlike poorer classmates I had to work through my degree.
My parents helped me with rent for a while, and did give me part of a deposit for my first house - about £10k, so, just over one and a half curtains. I was incredibly grateful at the time - of course I was. They also paid £7k for my wedding, and again, I was hugely grateful.
I'm not so grateful ten years later, and I really need help getting my shit into perspective. I'm still really privileged, but I'm struggling to remember it.
I have a daughter now. All my money goes to her schooling and the rest into savings for her. I look at my childhood (mentally - my parents never took photos) and at my tiny home and think wow, how great would it be to have no mortgage? How great would it be to afford a birthday party for my kid? How great would it be to take her abroad without saddling myself with huge, crippling debt?
And I look at my parents, proudly part of the SKI (Spending Kids' Inheritance) Club, going on their cruises, downsizing their house to a mere 4-bed so they can enjoy the last dregs of generations of wealth. And listen to them telling me that all we have to do is eat out less (less than once every six months?) and maybe we wouldn't have to worry about kitchen cupboard doors falling off.
My cousins went to private schools, then Oxford and Cambridge universities, subsequently working in high paid careers. They have been bought houses outright by their parents, flats in London, horses, ski holidays, you name it. And of course I get them asking why I can't be more like my cousins.
Meanwhile, for Christmas my parents bought me a pair of slippers off the internet.
How can I let this horrid sourness go? I know I need to. I can't keep feeling like this. I know we can all agree that the Boomers (yeah I know, Not All Boomers) have screwed over Millennials, but I feel like I'm Tiny Tim being given financial advice by Scrooge. It isn't good for my mental health OR my relationship with my parents, never mind their relationship with my daughter [7F] who's always asking why we can't live in a nice big house like Granny and Grampa and all their friends.
Edit: thank you all so much for your thoughts and advice. You're all right, in one way or another. This isn't about the money - I know I'm so much more privileged than other people. My husband has never had any financial assistance from his parents - but his parents love him. That's the difference.
I don't know if I can bring myself to cut my parents off. But watching them be so caring to my own daughter is harder than it should be, because I see that in actual fact they ARE capable of being caring and loving to a little girl. Just not me, is all.