Reply to How do you politely decline a request of guardianship?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My much-older cousin emailed me asking if my husband and I could be listed as guardians of her son should anything happen to her. 
She is 70; her husband is 60, so it's not out of the realm of possibility.
We would be [b]secondary guardians[/b]; she asked family friends to be first in line.
Son is 16, and she says he'd only need a guardian until 18. So it's only two years that we could possibly be on the line.

I want to say yes but also feel - like it's a lot. The son has some behavioral issues. We also have two young kids and aging parents ourselves. But I do not want to let her down. WWYD? If we said no, how would we frame it? I like her very much.[/quote]

So you are not even primary guardians and the kid is 16?  If you say no do you not realize that you will harm your relationship?  Personally I would say yes because you are the back up!  But, if you say no there isn't any real way to put a nice spin on it.  Just be prepared for cousin to be hurt.[/quote]

This. In these situations, the parents are trying to find someone to care for their orphaned child who is alone in the world. There's no good way to say sorry but I won't step in. It will hurt your relationship. Plus, wouldn't you really step in if this kid - your relative -  is truly alone in the world?[/quote]

It doesn’t have to hurt your relationship. It is a huge ask if people are taking the responsibility seriously. [/quote]

+! You would have to be a truly disturbed person to be angry when someone was honest that they are not willing and able to take on the massive responsibility of raising a child, let alone a child who experienced the loss of a parent or both parents. This is not...can you feed my cats when I go out of town. It is a very serious undertaking and it is shocking to me how flippant people are with saying "just say yes" regardless of where you are on the supposed list. Nobody owes you guardianship because you had a child. You need to form the type of relationships where people are willing to do such things for eachother whether it's a sibling, a cousin or a friend.[/quote]

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