Education is only part of the experience of high school. I have great high school memories because I had a great group of friends. My sister had a very unhappy high school experience because she didn't fit in. Same school, 1 year apart. This may already have been voiced above, but a few additional things to consider, which I have seen happen to other people, are the lifestyle issues and the donation issues. Specifically, will your child feel left out if they cannot afford to do the things their classmates do? I can remember being the only one of my friends in (public) high school who didn't get to go to Europe senior year (in my case it was my mother worrying rather than money, either way, I was left out). I've seen the activities and things friends' kids want. Will your child feel left out if they can't go skiing in the Alps over Christmas break? Will there be an issue if he has a beater car rather than a BMW? Another issue which I was a little surprised by was the "donation" issue. A good friend of mine has her only child in a $30k per year high school. They can easily afford it. However, the school also expects a sizable donation every year, and it keeps going up (he is in his third year). Think thousands - extra. They also do expensive things to raise money for the school, like auctions. Regarding treating kids "the same". It is very difficult. My parents didn't pay (or even help pay) for my law school because my mother didn't think they should do something for me that they were not going to do for my sister. But they weren't going to do the same for her because she wasn't going to go - she dropped out of college. I didn't argue with them about it at the time. In fact, it wasn't until after I graduated that my father even knew they didn't help. He assumed they had. My mother handled the money. So now all the money they saved my father is spending on his chi-chi girlfriend (my mother passed away). I have to admit, it irks me now. But it wouldn't have bothered me if my parents had used the money together. My in laws took the "equal" thing to a ridiculous extreme. DH was the "perfect" child. He was the oldest, and was a great student, athlete, and was very handsome (voted "best body" in high school, which we have a good giggle over). His parents wouldn't even give him praise unless they could give the same praise to his 2 younger (and less stellar) siblings. One story he mentions is when he came home with all As in all AP classes. His mother said something like, "well, Sally and Billy tried very hard to". My MIL was an early example of the dangers of praising trying as much as succeeding. His siblings learned they would get as much credit for failing as DH would get for succeeding. No one lived up to their potential as a result. I guess my point is this, you can't treat kids equally, and you can't be perfectly fair. Every kid is different.

I am the adult kid here (scary, ha) with a 16 month old and I didn't have a job to go back to after maternity leave with no prospects (I'm an architect and 80% of architects in my county are currently laid off) so things are a bit tight here as well and I am doing the handmade/homemade gift thing as well. Both of my nieces have their ears pierced so they are getting a hand painted and lined jewelry box and an inexpensive pair of earrings for christmas and my parents/inlaws are getting a book of photos of our son (blurb.com allows you to publish "real" nice quality books and I have been working on it on and off for nearly a year adding photos as I get them - this one covers just his first year). That's about it. My parents are financially much better off than we are. We moved back to a very high cost of living area and purchased a house about a year before the height of the market and now I'm laid off whereas my dad is retired with a very nice pension and my mom bought her company a few years ago and is doing well with it and they are VERY generous with us. If the situation ever flips - well let's put it this way, there is no way I'd spend money on an expensive trip while my parents were living out of a crock pot because they could not afford a new stove! (though I would not get them a Wolf). I say as a parent you need to listen to your instinct. When we make sacrifices for our children it's because it feels right and because we want them to have a good life. It sounds like you have given them a good start to a good life and they are not babies anymore. You do what makes you feel right... and my parents are pretty tight-lipped about what they do for each sibling because frankly it's no one's business except the people actually involved. I think this is a good policy - your other kids do not need to know if you are helping out one of your kids who needs it more. JMHO - and it should not be part of gifts, just something you do because you can (no raiding your own retirement fund because then the burden will be on your kids to take care of you LATER) and want to. As far as gifts, I urge you to sit down and think about what would make YOU feel good to give them. I'm sure there are things you can come up with that don't cost a lot of money. If it's just about the money making you feel good then you should probably reevaluate what the holidays are to you. There is a LOT in between "socks n underwear" and giving an extravagant gift you cannot afford.

That's wonderful. Most kids need money from parents or loans with occasional scholarships. Your son has basically earned his own college education through his hard work. You can be so proud.

If only it were that simple. My poor DH took the job in NYC following his divorce because he took a bath. His ex-wife got 65% of their marital assets (including most of the retirement funds), and his obligations included an $8,000/month fixed and guaranteed child support/maintenance payment, as well as 100% of the boys' college tuitions. He also had agreed to pay reduced maintenance upon his ex-wife's remarriage. She had already had her next husband lined up in DC, and she told DH she would need the additional maintenance (in addition to the child support) in order to stay in the Chicago area until the youngest son graduated. She reneged on that and moved to DC when she married last summer, and that's why the boys came to live with us, but she still gets her maintenance checks. The reduced maintenance runs for 3 years of her marriage or until youngest son graduates, so she synched her remarriage to get the maximum maintenance. Anyway, DH took the job before I was in the picture, and I think most divorced dads in that situation would just start a new life in their new city. My husband choose to keep his post-divorce apartment here so that he could come home on the weekends and be with the boys. He had tried to find a similar position in the Chicago area, but there just wasn't anything. So now DH commutes. He's usually home for 3 or 4 days on the weekends (yes, he can take long weekends, the flip is that he works 15 hour days while in NYC), and he does take time off during the school breaks (all winter break, spring break, and several weeks in the summer), so he does spend time with the kids. The irony of all this is that youngest son, during his recent tirade about how he doesn't want to live with us because of all our stupid rules, said he would follow his BM's rules because, as he put it, "No offense, dad, but I respect mom more than I respect you." This would be the mom that took off for DC and dumped him off with us. Go figure. I should also add that my ex-husband (my daughters' bio dad) is a lawyer who returned to Israel. Try collecting child support from that. So my DH supports all of us. I once had a conversation with DH's ex-wife about how we actually have 5 college tuitions to pay for, and she said, "But DH doesn't have to pay for the girls' college!" She was really surprised that he would, and thought that he shouldn't, but that is the kind of dad my DH is. I guess because I was raised by my stepdad, with a totally absent bio dad, I don't think anything unusual about this. Now that youngest son has opted to return to living with mom, our fixed and guaranteed child support/maintenance payment is $6,000/month, oldest son is in out-of-state private college with $40,000/year tuition, of which we pay 100%, we are still saving for college tuitions for younger kids, as well as for our retirement. My daughters are actually good girls. They are excellent students, involved in extracurricular school activities, they stay out of trouble, and were pretty upset by what happened with the step brother. They didn't want him to leave our home, and they think he's "dumb." I think the biggest difference between them and their step brothers is that the girls have always known what the rules were, and what was expected of them. I can't imagine my 14 yo ever skipping class (she is a straight A student), yet the boys were always doing that when they lived with their mom. I will share a funny story about BM. When oldest son first left for college, it was right after her remarriage and move to DC, so she was no longer receiving child support. She visited son at school, bought him 3 expensive NorthFace coats (we had bought him a new one before he left for school, we didn't realize he was going to need 3 more), and then called me to tell me she would need a reimbursement check. Her reasoning? Well, she was no longer getting child support. Never mind that she was still getting $2,000/month maintenance. I told her that oldest son was over 18, so no one gets child support for him, and that if any of us buy him something, it's a gift. She then said, well, she didn't want to ask for reimbursement, but her new husband thought she should. What a jerk. When I think of that compared to how DH treats my daughters, I have to feel sorry for BM, as well as my stepsons. What was my point? Oh, yes. We have a lot of financial obligations, plus my stepson DOES NOT want to live here (so long as I am here). He just wants to be able to "stay here" when it's not convenient for his BM. So I'm not sure that, at this point, my DH's 100% presence would make a difference.