We plan to do this. Our parents are too old/dead. I have one sibling with a severe mental illness. My spouse has one sibling with 6 kids all younger than ours, they can’t take more. Right now we have it as my parents, who are currently 83 and 79. Our oldest is 15. There is no one else, we don’t have really close friends or anything, just a lot of acquaintances. We will ask BIL to serve as trustee until the eldest is 25. He’s a CFA, so that at least makes sense. Hopefully it’s all moot anyway.

Gross. You care more about your other kids possibly having to switch schools, more than you care about your 18yos entire future.

Talk to your kids. My oldest said “no way, i want to have a normal life”. Our will is set up so she can opt in at any time, but the default is someone the same age as me. Now that she’s actually over 18, she’s started to make comments suggesting that make it sound like she is assuming she would and should have custody, but that’s a lot of responsibility for someone who doesn’t have complete brain development so it’s her choice, but I really hope it doesn’t happen.

Anonymous wrote:Op - I think my thought process is that if we changed it to our 18 year old the kids could stay together. Otherwise they would have to most likely split up. Any family who would become guardians of kids live in different states and would not move to VA.

But I do see what other people are saying as well. It’s a hard decision to make.

No, OP, it's really not. A grieving 18 y/o is not emotionally mature enough to become the parent to siblings who are also grieving the loss of their parents. How are they supposed to deal with their grief and their resentment at having to put their entire life on hold to parent younger siblings? And how are they going to guide them into adulthood having no experience with adulthood themselves? Moving to a new place with a stable adult would be much better for everyone.