No one is entitled to anyone’s inheritance. The ethics of the situation really depend on the details. Did one child look after the parents in their old age? Doe one child have more needs? Was there a promise to distribute everything evenly?

If the only reason for exclusion is because one child has depression or anxiety and isn’t the smartest, then that sounds pretty ableist and shitty. If the person really can’t manage the money, why not set up a trust designed to help them out without just handing over lump sums of cash? The one case where exclusion makes sense is if they require long term in patient care since at least in the US, all your money is eaten up by the medical bills before you default to Medicare (unless you have a stupid amount of money and can pay out of pocket for premium care forever)

I think a lot of it depends on the asset.

Cash and stock is easy to split amongst children, but a lot of families with generational wealth usually have wealth generated from ownership of a company.

I can see some parents choosing to keep the company together under streamlined ownership rather than breaking it up across several children. If you are choosing inheritance based on who would be the best person to run a company, you’re going to self select for certain personality traits.

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It being “ethical” and it being “okay” are two seperate things. Ethics is mostly subjective. Most people would say it is unethical though. It isn’t illegal, you have the right to divide your assets as you wish, so that would make it “okay”.

Differentiating based on mental illness and your perceived value of a person based on their mental health struggles is plain wrong and not based in reality, unless said person is at a point of needing a caretaker to get by. Especially since a bunch of illnesses are hereditary. Stuff like ADHD can manifest in different ways. My brother is both hyperactive and has attention deficit. I only have the attention deficit part. Both of us lead normal lives. Our parents dividing assets based on the fact that he has it worse on that front, and giving more to me, would be plain wrong and nonsensical. Especially since I’m absolutely shit with money, and he isn’t.

I didn’t for a second read that and think you were the parent.

If I were the parent, knowing exactly how little disability actually covers, as both my father and my wife are/were on it. I would help that kid more, and hope I raised my other kids to appreciate that they just needed more help.

I think it’s their money and they can do anything they want with it.

I’m okay with not giving someone with disabilities and inheritance if it’ll fuck with any government money they’re getting for their disabilities. You have to handle money in that kind of situation very carefully. My mom is my life insurance beneficiary or whatever it’s called, but the money would be going to my sister. My sister is intellectually and physically disabled and cannot work. My parents handle her finances so she doesn’t lose her disability income, so my mom would be in charge of keeping that money for my sister and using it appropriately. When I make a will, most, if not all, of my shit (my house, car, etc) will go to my mom legally, but my mom knows my sister is the intended recipient and would help figure shit out.

It’s going to happen to me. When I was homeless, I was a waste to help because I’m doomed. Now that I am decently off with a great career, I am a waste to give anything to, because I have it handled. I have this feeling my parents don’t like me lol.

If that’s the attitude, I don’t think it’s right. If it’s going into a trust or something, to prevent the recipient from harming themselves, I don’t see a problem.

I don’t think that is OK and the parents I’ve known in situations like that would never have thought of it.

Structuring it to avoid having benefits clawed back does seem unethical but I would honestly do the same.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with leaving everything in the hands of the most capable child along with the clear understanding that they’re now the one who is responsible for looking after the family.

trying to not give too much away but this happened in my family. a relative who has quite severe autism and has been on benefits for something like 30 years (they are in their 60s) is not being given any money by their parents. the parents willed all their physical assets to their other child (with special clauses that the person should still be able to utilise them if they wish) and put any money they would have gotten into a trust that pays out monthly. the reasoning for this in that the person in question is unable to gauge the worth of money, and because they are constantly getting suckered into niche religious groups that want tithes (until they tire of their mannerisms and throw them out).

while it does sound ableist to say, i do really think this is for their own good. it falls on the rest of the family to look out for them now and we do try. both children did agree to this arrangement by the way.

Sometimes it’s a legal necessity! I have a child with severe disability and if they ever posses 10k in value they’ll be disqualified from their many thousands of dollars in mental health supports.

What we’ve done is set up things to go into a trust where their advocate can use money for ongoing support (my child is also extremely irresponsible with spending and used to always immediately spend Xmas gifts on impulse spending including a lot of scratch tickets). While their government support is great it may not always be there so the trust is there if there’s a break or support or to try and support them if they become disqualified from disability (it’d be fucking awful though, we’re well-ish off and our life savings could support our child’s support for about half a year max).

If we’re not talking actual cognitive disability, like needing to live with some form of caretaker. Then that’s kinda fucked up.

If you’re cool with that kid killing themselves in your name then yeah.

Otherwise what the absolute fuck is wrong with you (not you, OP)? No. This 100% makes you a horrible human being who should have never procreated to begin with and you’re a failure as a parent.