Do our children think we've been put on this earth solely for their benefit?

I wonder whether the inlaws just fell into that beautiful three-bedroomed home when they were young with a family, or whether they struggled to get it?

I also wonder what is wrong with the younger couple renting a house and leaving the inlaws in their own home? It will cost them less to rent a bigger house there than the poky flat they live in in London.

It won't be for ever - parents and inlaws have a habit (how selfish!) of dying off before their children, and then their house and the money they have been spending freely on their only grandchildren will doubtless come to the younger couple.

She says "We have provided them with their only grandchildren of whom they are extremely proud, who they have set up regular trust-fund contributions for, and who they regularly spoil with things I would rather they didn’t bother buying." Their reward for geting grandchildren is to be expected to leave their home, and to be considered in the wrong to have thought more about the original suggestion and changed their minds?

We are not told who made that original suggestion, whether it was the parents or whether the parents went along with it.

Certainly some do seem very selfish and feel parents are meant to provide for them until said parents 'drop off the twig'.

Similar thing happened to friends of ours. Their son and dil asked them to do a house exchange, with no money involved- telling them they needed a bigger house and 'anyhow' yours if too big for you! Caused an awful lot of heartache, but the answer was a big NO.

Hope parents disinherit them and give their house to someone more deserving!

Well - a good answer from the "Agony Aunt" - my DD squashes a family of 5 into a small top floor flat with only two mezzanine bedrooms; but she does not begrudge us our 3 bed family home in the countryside one jot. She and the family visit and enjoy it; and she values the family home base for all of them. She is happy that we are enjoying the fruits of our long labours.

We help her and the others financially whenever we can; but we cannot solve their housing problem, which they know was partly based on bad choices in the past. They take full responsibility for their own lives and for their decisions, good or bad. And we all still get on fine and love each other.

It is far too sweeping question in the title of this post; in my experience such an attitude is not rife.

What a horrible selfish woman. She talks as though the 'provision' of a grandchild gives them special rights.

They obviously haven't saved enough money for a deposit because otherwise they could move to the Midlands and buy a smaller house for the parents to move into. Friends of ours did this very successfully when they took over the family business. That way you end up owning both properties when the parents die.

So what if the parents have been retired for ten years and have a nice life?

That's one helluva chip she's carrying around on her shoulder.

Crumbs, what a selfish person. Would be interesting to hear what her husband has to say.

It is not the first time we have come across selfish DiLs, in some cases maybe they were brought up to believe they really could have it all without working for it themselves.

We have sons who keep telling us they are not relying on us any more and that we should spend it all and enjoy it while we can. One is even saving up the money we gave to help him buy his house so that he can give it back to us when we need it. He actually has no idea what we have saved, just thinks it is the right thing to do.

I'm gobsmacked!

We cheerfully help out when we can but certainly there's absolutely no sense of entitlement- it just wouldn't happen with my dcs, thank goodness.

Do you think it's a reverse ? That it's the go smacked inlaws who wrote to the guardian? I can't believe that someone could write that having so little insight

I wouldn't want her for a daughter-in-law!
Hopefully they will not budge and will stay put in their house.

we have provided them with their only grandchild
I thought people had children because they wanted them and loved them, not as a bargaining tool against the in-laws

I'm blessed that my children are the very antithesis of this awful woman, and the piece is so shocking that i did wonder whether it was a 'put up job' (no agony material and column inches to fill)! If it is a genuine case scenario, i expect the d-i-l is smarting not only because they aren't getting the house, but because she has probably smugly intimated to all their friends that this is going to happen and now has a lot of embarrassing back peddling to do, making her smart even more! I haven't the least bit of sympathy and in the parents' position i'd say 'up yours' and leave the house to an animal sanctuary!

Would you really? That would mean disinheriting the GC as well.

The article was astonishing but it made me think. DH has not worked for 20 years (early retirement at 56)and his pension is much more than the average wage. We have no mortgage or rent to pay.

To be honest, I don't feel as though we worked especially hard during our working lives, basically 9 to 5 with holidays and full sick pay.

Having said that I'm not about to give up my house. I've lived here for nearly 40 years. DDs would never expect it anyway.

If the article is genuine I have to say I find it shocking but not all together surprising.

Our ES and his wife who cut us out of their lives 3.5 years ago and deny us access to our GC live 15 doors down the road from us, in a house they could never have bought if not for our's and my brother's investment; he too has been cut out of their lives.

ES told his father nearly 2 years ago that he hated living there and we'd only agreed to invest our money as a means to control him, Mr. S. suggested that if he felt that way, he should re pay the money.

They're still there presumably because our money gave them the deposit and if they were to sell and pay us back, they wouldn't have a deposit to put down on another property.

Personally if I was them, I'd rather live in rented accommodation than in a house I could never have owned without the financial support of family members I want nothing to do with.

Surely it has to be a spoof? Could anyone really be that self-centred and selfish?

If it is true, I wonder if the in-laws, knowing what their DIL is like, have talked it over and decided that it would be far too precarious to give up their home in their old age and rely on their son and dreadful dil to rent for them.
Added to which, perhaps the PIL think they may at some point need to sell their home to pay for care - because it doesn't sound as if dil will ever put herself out to care for them in their hour of need.

We struggle in this poky flat while every day these people who haven’t worked a day in the last 10 years swim around in space and a garden they don’t need
these people - how rude!
Are these people retired - is that why they don't work?

I think I would disinherit them too, and make sure I had a solid cast-iron will perhaps leaving some in trust for the DGC (whom they obviously love), making sure people other than dil are the trustees and the rest to charity. I would have to make sure that the will could not be challenged in any way.

Well put Jamila. I certainly wouldn't trust either of them, I wonder if they've seen the article, can't imagine how'd they feel if they did.