Pay Dirt is Slate’s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It’s anonymous!)

Dear Pay Dirt,

So many people resent their parents for a lack of “fairness.” How do you handle “fairness” situations with your children when the circumstances are both similar and completely different? I have three kids, “Anna” (27), “Ben” (25), and “Caroline” (22). In most ways they received resources comparably growing up, but now unevenness is rearing its ugly head.

My company pays for the employees’ health insurance and then the employee can add (and pay for) additional insurance, including for kids. “Kids” insurance costs the same if you have one kid or six kids. When Anna and Ben graduated college and started working, I kept them on my insurance because I was already purchasing the “Kids” insurance for Caroline. Anna switched to her own insurance at 26 and Ben will be 26 soon and do the same. Caroline now has a full-time job with benefits, including insurance. Her insurance is not free, but costs significantly less than “Kids” at my company. I never had a stated plan to insure my children until they were 26—it just worked out that way for my older children and didn’t cost me any additional money. But it’s clearly a benefit they received courtesy of me that Caroline won’t receive.

So what’s fair/even? Birth order just is, and there are perks and disadvantages to all the spots? Caroline should get a subsidy from me to help with her insurance, even though I didn’t spend any extra money on her siblings? Just let it play out because no one can say who will need help with something else along the way?

—Don’t Want My Kids Writing to an Advice Column Because I Treated Them Unfairly

Dear Don’t Want,

Fairness doesn’t mean you have to do the exact same thing for all of your adult children. Support comes in different shapes, and for Anna and Ben, it just made sense to handle insurance the way you did. It didn’t cost you extra, so it wasn’t intended as preferential treatment. Caroline’s situation is different, and that’s just a matter of timing and how the plan is structured.


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No, you don’t need to somehow make up for this by paying for Caroline’s insurance, especially if it’s something that she easily afford herself. Life is not this transactional, and there are plenty of other ways you can offer and show support—financial or otherwise—when she needs it. Over the years, each of your kids is going to have a different need. One of them might want to go to grad school. One of them might have kids and need childcare. If you spend all of your time keeping track of who gets what and trying to even it out with the others, you’ll drive yourself nuts. But what you can do is commit to being equitable over the long run. You’ll help each of your kids when it makes sense, when it’s within your means, and in ways that fit their circumstances.

Be clear with Caroline that her older siblings’ coverage wasn’t a special gift—it was just a quirk of the insurance plan. Emphasize that you’ll continue to support all three of them when real needs arise, even if the form of help looks different.

Fair doesn’t always mean “exactly the same”—it means being thoughtful and balanced about everyone’s situation and being there for all of them in other ways. If you handle this openly, this shouldn’t become a source of resentment.

—Kristin

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