{"id":374020,"date":"2025-11-12T17:30:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T17:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374020\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T17:30:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T17:30:19","slug":"is-it-possible-to-be-100-percent-fair-with-your-kids-im-not-sure-i-can-be","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/374020\/","title":{"rendered":"Is It Possible to Be 100 Percent Fair With Your Kids? I\u2019m Not Sure I Can Be."},"content":{"rendered":"

Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? <\/strong>Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here<\/strong><\/a>. (It\u2019s anonymous!)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Pay Dirt,<\/strong><\/p>\n

So many people resent their parents for a lack of \u201cfairness.\u201d How do you handle \u201cfairness\u201d situations with your children when the circumstances are both similar and completely different? I have three\u00a0kids, \u201cAnna\u201d (27), \u201cBen\u201d (25), and \u201cCaroline\u201d (22). In most ways they received resources comparably growing up, but now unevenness is rearing its ugly head.<\/p>\n

My company pays for the employees\u2019 health insurance and then the employee can add (and pay for) additional insurance, including for kids. \u201cKids\u201d 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 \u201cKids\u201d 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 \u201cKids\u201d at my company. I never had a stated plan to insure my children until they were 26\u2014it just worked out that way for my older children and didn\u2019t cost me any additional money. But it\u2019s clearly a benefit they received courtesy of me that Caroline won\u2019t receive.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s 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\u2019t 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?<\/p>\n

\u2014Don\u2019t Want My Kids Writing to an Advice Column Because I Treated Them Unfairly<\/p>\n

Dear Don\u2019t Want, <\/strong><\/p>\n

Fairness doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t cost you extra, so it wasn\u2019t intended as preferential treatment. Caroline\u2019s situation is different, and that\u2019s just a matter of timing and how the plan is structured.<\/p>\n

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    No, you don\u2019t need to somehow make up for this by paying for Caroline\u2019s insurance, especially if it\u2019s something that she easily afford herself. Life is not this transactional, and there are plenty of other ways you can offer and show support\u2014financial or otherwise\u2014when 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\u2019ll drive yourself nuts. But what you can do is commit to being equitable over the long run. You\u2019ll help each of your kids when it makes sense, when it\u2019s within your means, and in ways that fit their circumstances.<\/p>\n

    Be clear with Caroline that her older siblings\u2019 coverage wasn\u2019t a special gift\u2014it was just a quirk of the insurance plan. Emphasize that you\u2019ll continue to support all three of them when real needs arise, even if the form of help looks different.<\/p>\n

    Fair doesn\u2019t always mean \u201cexactly the same\u201d\u2014it means being thoughtful and balanced about everyone\u2019s situation and being there for all of them in other ways. If you handle this openly, this shouldn\u2019t become a source of resentment.<\/p>\n

    \u2014Kristin<\/p>\n

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    Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pay Dirt is Slate\u2019s money advice column. Have a question? Send it to Kristin and Ilyce here. (It\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":374021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[600,210,255,1087,5597,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-374020","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-personal-finance","11":"tag-relationships","12":"tag-slate-plus","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115537918845116673","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}