Do you have guardians for your children?
Find a Conversation
Do you have guardians for your children?
| Wed, 01-12-2005 - 8:48am |
Every time my dh and I travel without the kids we try to figure out who we'd like as guardians for our kids if something were to happen to us. We just never seem to be able to make this decision. I feel very guilty about this because I know the importance of having someone listed in your will (otherwise the courts will decide for you). Just wondering if we're the only ones with this problem. This is the hardest decision we've ever had to face. How did you make your decision?
Wendy
Wendy

Good luck, as I said we are also struggling with this.
Nancy
I don't think we have agreeded yet.
I would like for it to be a family member who is about our age, married, with children, but not too many, because taking care of two more would be too much.
Dh & I can't agree on someone, we are having a real hard time with this important decision as well. I would like it to be my sister, she has 1 dd, and a large house, and good, jobs, but, she lives far away from both of our families, so that kind of bothers me, I would still want dd to be close to my family, and dh's. Dh wants his sister, she has 2 kids who dd is close to, they have a large house, very good jobs, and live close to both our families, but I think she's too strict with her kids, and kind of has an odd way of raising them and disciplining them, and is pretty materialistic. Most of our friends don't have kids, so not them.
The real "ideal" choices are older, so that's not ideal.
I can't figure it out, and I don't what are the big factors you should consider when deciding.
If you figure it out, let me know how you did it!
Lesley
We do not and this is something that comes up every few months with us. I think we have decided but not sure. I feel bad because there is NO way I want anyone in his family to have her. He would like one of his cousins and wife to have her since they could not have kids, but every time we are around them they don't seem interested in her.
Unofficially it is my parents who will be getting Maggie. They are still in the 40's so they are young enough that they could keep up with her. My brother and sil are another option, but they just got married so we want to give them some time to get used to being married before asking them about something so huge. We will be going out of town again in March so maybe we will get something in writing by then.
Sarah
Forget when you travel, what about when you go out to a movie and leave the kids home, or when you drive to the grocery store??
We have what is called a Living Trust for our kids--it's like a Last Will and Testament that is specifically geared for people who have minor children. It establishes everthing from guardianship of your children, the handling of property, the payment of all debts and even our own funeral arrangements. Our home, life insurance payouts and assets would be be transferrred to the name of the kid's guardian in trust for them, with a clause that it could only be sold/used for the care and upkeep of our children. (Their guardian has agreed that if we should die, the kids should remain in their own home, at least for the time being after our death so that at least they have some type of continuity) Anything not needed for their direct care, and then anything left when they reach the age of majority would go into a trust fund that already has all of the stipulations applied to it, so that the dispursements would be given to the kids the way that we want them to be--not just handing a teenager a wad of cash. . .
If you don't have a Living Trust, two things happen--even if you have loads of responsible, caring relatives who love and could appropriately care for your children, the state automatically appoints someone--usually a social worker or family court judge--who becomes their guardian ad litem and then must decide through investigation who is "best suited" to care for your children, and who should be entrusted with your death benefits if you didn't specifiy that the money was to go to them through a trust fund managed by a guardian. They try to do this quickly, (usually--ugh), but even a few days of uncertainty is an eternity to a child who has just lost both parents--and that's assuming that everybody on both sides of your family would all play nice and agree where your children should live. The second thing that happens is that even if you used a standard Will to dispurse your assets, it must go through probate, and is subject (to a lesser degree in the new tax code, admittedly) to taxation. If you, like a lot of people, only have your spouse as your beneficiary on your life insurance, and you are BOTH deceased, the state is then put in a position of having to decide how to distribute your assets to your heirs. This means that right after you die, instead of worrying about what your children may possibly need to help cope with losing their parents, whoever finally ENDS UP with them will have to worry about their financial needs until the money/assets have cleared probate.
It doesn't cost that much to have a layer draw up a Living Trust if you have all of the information with you to begin with (Life insurance info, who will be guardian and their personal info, all of your personal info, all of your assets and debts, how to handle your remains, etc). They are even available off the shelf, but it seemed a little too complicated to me to try to do it all on my own. Plus, with a lawyer drawing it up, they hold a copy for you, and can even be named as executor of your estate so that everything can happen very quickly as far as legal custody goes. We put a second copy along with all of the life insurance documents into a band deposit box and gave a copy of the key to three people in our family, so that somebody would surely be around to get to them. I know it's uncomfortable to talk about, and it's kind of dark and depressing, but a much worse thought is your children, not only without you, but left to the devices of a newly graduated from college, never had children of her own, has nothing in common with you, goober social worker who hasn't got a clue what she's doing. Do it. You'll sleep better at night.
Angela
Thanks Angela for the info...it's not that I don't know the details of what you should have and why you should have it...our problem is that we have no one to list as guardians. What happens when you don't have anyone to list in those documents?
Thanks everyone else for your responses. At least I know I'm not the only one who has struggled with this decision.
I don't care about the things we own, just the best for our children and their future.