‘Just a stupid piece of dirt’: This Texas woman’s husband wants to exclude her daughter from a family inheritance to keep it in his ‘bloodline’ — why Dave Ramsey says he’s ‘calling BS’

moneywise ^ | May 31, 2024 | Adam Palasciano

[where's_the_Outrage?]

Family dynamics can be a sensitive and thorny topic to navigate, especially when it comes to divvying up an inheritance.

According to a New York Life Wealth Watch survey, a phenomenon known as the “great wealth transfer” is well underway. It’s projected that 15% of American adults are expected to receive a sizeable inheritance in the next decade from a parent, spouse, or another individual.

Inheritances can be a fantastic financial windfall that can certainly help build generational wealth. However, it doesn’t always come without complications — especially if you already have a complex family situation.

Rochelle, 36, from Houston, Texas, found herself in this exact predicament. She called into an episode of The Ramsey Show for advice.

She told finance guru Dave Ramsey that her husband inherited 33 acres of land after his father passed away. Rochelle and her husband share two-year-old twin sons. They also co-parent Rochelle’s 14-year-old daughter and her husband’s 13-year-old son from previous marriages.

Her husband expressed a desire to keep the land in his “bloodline” — leaving his stepdaughter out of the land inheritance entirely.

Ramsey told Rochelle he thinks family should come before money. “I’m calling BS,” he said, adding, “this kid is more important than a piece of land.”

[where's_the_Outrage?]

There is probably more to this story than is being presented. For example, there are often problems with leaving property to be divided amount heirs, especially if the will does not specify who gets what, or how the heirs can buy out the others. If the intent is to keep the property together inside the family having the heirs entitled to 1/4 can be a recipe for disaster and dissention.

Also, were there any stipulations/intent included with the original inherited property (even if verbal)?

[Jonty30]

If a man has decided to adopt a woman’s child for his own, that child should be treated equally to the blood children.

Maybe the husband can give the adopted daughter a cash equivalent settlement that is equal to her share, if the land is that important to be kept in the family.

That would be reasonable, imo. It doesn’t deny the daughter a share of the inheritance and it keeps the land in the blood family.

[where's_the_Outrage?]

I don’t see where he adopted her, plus the article refers to him as the “Stepfather”, if adopted wouldn’t he be referred to as the “father”?

Also, what about the daughter’s real father, is she in line for inheritance from him that would not be shared with her siblings?

[FLT-bird]

I disagree on this one. You can’t expect a step parent to love/value somebody else’s kids as much as they love/value their own.

[Mouton]

Do not intermingle inheritances into joint property or they become one unless you are fully committed to losing part of it in a divorce.

[Ikeon]

Never marry a divorced woman with children. Never. You aint the father, you will never be the father, you cant legally discipline them. You will always be just an ATM to them. Stay single or find a woman without children.

[MeanWestTexan]

1. He inherited the land. It’s his separate property to do with as he desires.

2. Any man who marries a woman with children from another man is making a serious mistake. She will always put her children first. You are just a paycheck for her. If she inherited the land, she would give it solely to her biological children and cut out any step kids, without hesitation or condemnation.

3. He should cut out the step kid.

[MeanWestTexan]

Correct. There’s an entire section of proverbs dedicated to this wisdom.

[Mr. K]

you can’t marry into a family bringing children with you and expect him to give up HIS children’s inheritance.

[Living Free in NH]

You can’t expect a step parent to love/value somebody else’s kids as much as they love/value their own.

My oldest child is from my wife's first marriage. I met my wife when the baby was 8 months old and I've never called her my "step" daughter. Here we are 41 years later...

[Zhang Fei]

[2. Any man who marries a woman with children from another man is making a serious mistake. She will always put her children first. You are just a paycheck for her. If she inherited the land, she would give it solely to her biological children and cut out any step kids, without hesitation or condemnation.]

---

I could see the case for children estranged from their biological father. But otherwise, the ATM analogy might be apt.

[where's_the_Outrage?]

Once read where a guy married a women with 2 children, he adopted them, then the woman left leaving him responsible for raising the children.

[Cowgirl of Justice]

I met a guy who had married a widowed young mother with two children - she was pregnant with one and the other was a toddler. He adopted them both but she never let him have any say in any of the child raising decisions. (I figured he was basically a paycheck, free room and board for her and her kids.) Then she left him when the youngest turned 18. Oh well...

[subterfuge]

I raised my stepdaughter as my own since she was 13. Put her through college and she’s been an emergency room nurse for a children’s hospital for 25 years now. She’s never asked me or my wife for a dime. Just a comment.

[TexasFreeper2009]

yeah something is being left out of this story!

I am sure the land is not the ONLY part of the inheritance, and he simply wanted that particular part of his inheritance to stay within the family.

[ChronicMA]

people disinherit their biological children all the time, let alone non-biological children.

Let him write his will however he wants. There is a reason states allow you to choose who your financial heirs will be.

[FLT-bird]

If you want to that’s your choice, but most people are not going to value another person’s child as much as they value their own.

She has a father. Its not him. Anything she inherits from her father she should not be expected to share with her step and half siblings that are not that man’s children.

[Hattie]

Give her cash or property equal to her share of the land.

[SheepWhisperer]

Prodigal

“And he said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to[a] one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.”

Once upon a time, during mother's day dinner, with parents, grandparents, children and grandchildren at the table, a dispute among the grandchildren arose. Each was clamoring for “stuff” the grandparents owned, to which they each believed they were entitled. “I should get the silverware, because I used to help grandma polish it”; said one. “I should get the 1972 cutlass, because I helped grandpa wash it”; said another. The clamor continued as I sat in dismay, before standing up from the table with the retort; “You selfish, inconsiderate people! Our grandparents are very much alive and sitting at this table while you selfishly devise arguments on how to divide the spoils of their death and do so right in front of their faces. You should be ashamed of yourselves.”

After few years, two of my cousins devised a scheme to have their mom divorce their dad because he was squandering the family money, through a few investments. This was the same dad who made VERY much money through investments. Mom did indeed divorce the dad. His heart was broken after so many years of marriage and ultimately drank himself to death. He did not have drinking problem before the divorce. The family was divided in greed and hate. The truth of the matter was not about what the parents did with their own money, the heart of the matter was that the kids wanted to get their inheritance, even if it meant destroying the marriage. Not one of those four kids have ever held a full time job. Their entire life was paid for by the parents.

I guess my point in all of this is that I see a generation of entitled post-pubescent infants who clamor for what they did not earn and it destroys marriages and entire families.

Today, the estates have been settled for the grandparents and the parents, who have all died. The remaining grandchildren have no relationships with each other and it is not bearable to sit with any of them, even now, many years later, because they still gossip, ruminate and slander each other for the “injustice of it all” and each complaining about not getting the “fair share”. It's disgusting.

Any family member who dares to bring up the gimme dat play while I am alive and healthy, will immediately receive a stern warning to never discuss the subject to me or anyone else ever again, or that person can be certain that there will nothing...NOTHING...left to him, or her.

[MeanWestTexan]

I’ll bet $50 donation to FR that, if you reversed the scenario and had the woman inheriting the farm, the answers would be 100% in favor of her cutting the step kid out.