How do you choose backup parents in case your and your DH kick the bucket?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a hard one for me. My husband and I both have one sibling Sibling A is a lot less financially stable but is a fantastic single parent

Sibling B is more financially stable but has said they doesn't want to have kids or get married. They absolutely loves my kids though.

You’re supposed to have life insurance.

Do you think the financial circumstances of the guardian are irrelevant because the life insurance left for your child will fix everything? Hope it’s a really big policy.

[Anonymous]

We struggled with this. We each have siblings but for various reasons (addiction struggles, volatile marriages, etc...) none of them are people we would want raising our kids.

So we chose my best friend and her husband, who are godparents to our kids (as I am to their daughter) and who have a warm, loving, stable home. THey also live near one set of grandparents so our kids would have family close by.

It's not a perfect solution, and we will revisit it when our kids get older perhaps, as relocating them in their teens would be different than relocating them as infants or elementary age. But I'm not sure our end result would be significantly different - we still wouldn't trust our family members with them.

[Anonymous]

My sister is listed in my will and I am listed in her will. All of our assets would go into a trust for our kids with my sister as co-trustee with our banker so there would be no financial burden on her as well as an outside monitoring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a hard one for me. My husband and I both have one sibling Sibling A is a lot less financially stable but is a fantastic single parent

Sibling B is more financially stable but has said they doesn't want to have kids or get married. They absolutely loves my kids though.

You’re supposed to have life insurance.

Do you think the financial circumstances of the guardian are irrelevant because the life insurance left for your child will fix everything? Hope it’s a really big policy.

It certainly won't "fix" everything, but it should absolutely cover 100% of increased costs of every kind for the guardian.

We are fully insured so that our guardians would not be burdened.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole shock of the Kobe Bryant death made think I need to write our will and plan for god forbid something happen to us both. The problem is, I can’t think of anyone who would be a good fit?! My side has legitimate issues - one sibling had a DH cheat on her, the others are some version on mentally ill.

DH’s side he has one sister that could do it, but she is passive aggressive and seems money hungry.

These are all people I love and care about, but the idea of putting my children in their care is anxiety inducing.

Welcome people sharing what compromises or plans they have made for their kids!

If you appoint your dh's sister the guardian, you should leave your assets in a trust for the kids and have someone else be the trustee. Actually regardless of who the guardian is, it is a good rule to have one person be trustee of the money and another be the guardian.

NP. Some people will agree to this, but I never would. If I'm raising your kids in the event of the worst, no way in hell am I dealing with your Aunt Edna on a constant basis, and letting her decide whether we are able to purchase a larger house to house your kids, or letting her decide what a reasonable vehicle is if we had to get a larger one. Hell to the no.

That might very well make me the wrong choice for you, and I completely understand that.

It would be for your protection as well, to protect against accusations that you improperly used the money for yourself. We have friends who were given custody of a friend’s daughter when the friend died, and were trustees on the girl’s trust as well. Everything was fine until the girl got to her late teens and began showing signs of significant mental illness, at which point an aunt swooped in and started whispering in the girl’s ear about how her guardians were mistreating her. Next thing they knew, they were hit with a lawsuit by on behalf of the girl accusing them on fraud on the trust. They ultimately prevailed, but it cost them a fortune in legal fees. If there had been a separate trustee, the lawsuit would have been much easier to get dismissed.

PP here. We have very good financial record keeping, and I'd track every dollar spent out of the trust. I'd gladly take the risk of having to spent my own money to fight a lawsuit over the certainty of having to deal with a separate trustee. If that set up isn't acceptable to the parents, they're welcome to move along.

We have a very stable and warm household. As a result, we have actually been asked by two different family members if we'd be willing to serve as legal guardians. We ended up declining both times due to the financial set up that the parents were insisting on. In one case, the parents were dramatically under insured (and seemed to think we'd be glad the foot the bill), in another case the parents wanted a separate trustee.

The parents are free to set up the arrangements however they think is best, but they should keep in mind that no one is forced to agree to what they decide. Also, if you name a guardian, that guardian is not automatically given custody, and they're free to decline if they decide the arrangement is unacceptable. In our case, even though the possibility was remote, we knew the right thing to do was to explain our objections on the front end, rather than back out later or hope the back up selection would step up.

Warm? Yes, your post sounds that way.

[Anonymous]

We asked my twin sister, who at the time was single. She's now married, but has no kids (and doesn't want them, other than perhaps mine one day). One of her conditions upon marrying was that her husband understand that he could one day become a guardian to my kids and dog. I trust her completely and she probably would be a better parent than I am.

My elderly parents are her back up and my younger (but still senior) aunt is their back up. Fortunately my kids are 10 and 12 so my parents would not have too long to be their guardians.

[Anonymous]

We asked very good friends of ours who have three kids the same age as ours--the kids have always been close. We actually would be very comfortable with my sibling or either of DH's, but they are not local. Another factor in our decision was that we have one kid who is extremely talented athletically, and his sport (which he loves above all other things) takes up a lot of time. We didn't think any of the sibling options would find it easy to put in the time to keep him in the sport at that level, while our friends' had a kid in the same boat and we knew they would make it work. This decision did not amuse my mother, at all.

[Anonymous]

We had a very hard time determining who to name and this is what we ended up with:

My Bro 1: No way. 7 children from 2 relationships, his live-in girlfriend is a porn actress (really!), unstable employment, only has housing because our parents pay for it--and what happens when they die? What will the housing situation be then?

My Bro 2: Married a woman who lost custody of her child from her first marriage. Unstable employment. Yeah, no.

DH's sister: Has a child and 2 stepchildren, brags about only having to be a parent part-time. We hate her husband.

My parents: Dad already over 70, mom has multiple health issues.

DH's mom: lol no. At least, that was DH's response when her name was brought up.

DH's dad: stable home, job, lots of extended family around. We have a winner.

Is it ideal to name FIL as guardian? No, not really. But given our other options, it was he only one we were even remotely comfortable with.

[Anonymous]

When family of origin fails you, look to good friends.

[Anonymous]

Sibling our kids know best, plus a ton of life insurance so he & his spouse can throw money at problems arising from extra kids

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole shock of the Kobe Bryant death made think I need to write our will and plan for god forbid something happen to us both. The problem is, I can’t think of anyone who would be a good fit?! My side has legitimate issu7es - one sibling had a DH cheat on her, the others are some version on mentally ill.

DH’s side he has one sister that could do it, but she is passive aggressive and seems money hungry.

These are all people I love and care about, but the idea of putting my children in their care is anxiety inducing.

Welcome people sharing what compromises or plans they have made for their kids!

Why would this make the sibling inappropriate?

NP here but how many kids can a single parent manage. Alternatively, maybe she is trying to reconcile and the marriage is unstable due to the cheating.

They are together and seem okay, but I'm not 100% sure that is real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our problem is we have three kids and each of our siblings already have multiple kids themselves. DH’s parents have some health issues and frankly wouldn’t want them. My parents are early 50’s and in good health. We haven’t done this yet, but I feel like the best people for the job are my parents. I should probably ask them soon

The kids might very well be split up. That is what happened in DH’s family when a young aunt died. No one could take all three kids so the oldest went with one relative and the younger ones with another. It was either that or foster care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have no suitable family members (loser siblings and old parents) so just gonna stay alive.

This is us, too. May we both live long lives!

[Anonymous]

My SIL died with two young children and it caused huge crisis in DH’s family since their dad was gone too. We could only take one. BIL wouldn’t take any due to having raised his children and he and his wife having stressful jobs. 70 yr old MIL ended up with kids so they wouldn’t be split up. Family is a broken hip away from another crisis.

[Anonymous]

Our trust is setup with DH's youngest sister as DD's legal guardian. She is his only sibling in the US, DD knows them well, she has raised two wonderful kids, and she is extremely maternal. I know that DD will be well taken care of by them, and their goals and values, although not the same as ours, are significantly in alignment.

Backup plan is my brother. He only has one child, but he is close in age to DD, and they're best friends. However, his work/travel schedule means that he is not around much (his ex takes the son on weekdays), and while DD loves his wife, and she loves DD, her significant health issues mean that she isn't really going to be the best person to deal with a child on a day in/day out basis.

The trustee is a neutral third party, who is well respected, and can be trusted to be fair. DD's 529 plan is well funded, we are both well insured, and our assets should be more than sufficient to provide significant financial help to whoever ends up with her.

We are very fortunate to be in the position we find ourselves in.