Anonymous wrote: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.

I think splitting up siblings is under most circumstances cruel and unusual especially when they've lost their parents

Anonymous wrote:We couldnt agree and DW adamantly insisted on her parents (ages 70+) as backups. Terrible idea and I deeply regret not going to the mat on insisting in someone younger. Hopefully we dont die at the same time.

This. But it’s it’s DH that insisted on my parents. Now they have health problems. They would have been good and better then our siblings ten years ago. They can’t do it now. We have never agreed on this and hope we don’t die.

Sorry. With corona virus...it is sort of scary. Imma gonna follow govt if India recco and get some homeopathy meds.

Anonymous wrote:Make your choice and move on. The odds that both parents are going to die in the same instant are vanishingly small.

But you need to make the choice because it is a possibility. The odds are small, but it happens. My parents died in an automobile accident. I have a family friend whose parents and aunt and uncle died in two separate commercial airline accidents. Odds are just odds. Not a guarantee.

^ what's funny is I did this in a complete panic about 8 years ago when we were traveling without kids to a destination wedding. I almost insisted on separate flights for my husband and I. We found a neighbor that is an estate/tax attorney in the weeks before departure and set up a trust. It is very detailed and outlined. We do need to update it. This thread is a good reminder.

My dad used to always tell us the 'folder' was on the dining room table in the event they perished when they traveled

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For various reasons, DH and my siblings cannot be guardians so, unfortunately, our parents are listed as guardians in our wills, with some cousins as backup.

My parents were too, but my dad recently died of cancer. My mom is now 76 so not ideal. My kids are MS and starting HS next year.

We now have my sister and my BIL. They now have an empty nest. They are great people, but my parents were more in line with the way we were raising our kids, particularly education, etc.

We set up a trust. We have specifically outlined how and when they get $ from estate. We didn't want them to turn 18 and run wild and blow through everything.

Luckily--financially they are set. Their 529s are fully loaded. One house is paid off and our current house is about 75%. We have a very big life insurance policy.

So- sibling would not have to worry about $. It would be more like ensuring that we protect some of those assets for our kids.

Anonymous wrote:For various reasons, DH and my siblings cannot be guardians so, unfortunately, our parents are listed as guardians in our wills, with some cousins as backup.

My parents were too, but my dad recently died of cancer. My mom is now 76 so not ideal. My kids are MS and starting HS next year.

We now have my sister and my BIL. They now have an empty nest. They are great people, but my parents were more in line with the way we were raising our kids, particularly education, etc.

We set up a trust. We have specifically outlined how and when they get $ from estate. We didn't want them to turn 18 and run wild and blow through everything.

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.

Pp here. Exactly. I can trust sibling A to keep my kids clothed and fed but I'm not sure if they would manage money well enough to do extracurriculars or save for college. Of course this is a entirely hypothetical situation

We spent a lot of time not agreeing. None of the siblings would raise our kids “just like us.” We had a couple of cousin options, but one”s kids are older and we didn’t think they want to start over (our kids are very young), and the other is wrapped up significantly in the other side of the family. What was important to us was they be raised with similar values (including education, worldview, etc. but also someone who would make sure they would see both our families a lot. We settled on my sister. DH wasn’t thrilled as they are not as focused on education as us, and they watch way too much tv/iPad, but my sister and BIL would adore them and treat them as their own, AND make sure they saw my DH’s family regularly. We picked the aforementioned cousin as trustee as my sister/BIL are not experienced with large amounts of money, and he (cousin) would focus on using the money wisely but also be generous in that wisdom. I think we did as well as we could.

Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1

And a trustworthy trustee, who is not the guardian.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

On this thread, I think there has been three instances of people sharing the aftermath of parental death. In one case, the guardians got sued, in another the kids got split up, and here you have a 70 year old raising young children alone.

OP this is why you need to do your best to put a well funded, clear plan in place. What will be cobbled together in your absence is unlikely to be pretty.

Agreed. - OP

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes when I get sad about this issue and think "this is such a weird, modern, where-is-the-village" problem, I think about the Secret Garden, and how when her parents died she was shipped off to a weird uncle and housekeeper, and even though it was bad at first, it all turned out okay. I know I sound like I'm joking, but I'm serious.

Best response of the thread..

Sometimes when I get sad about this issue and think "this is such a weird, modern, where-is-the-village" problem, I think about the Secret Garden, and how when her parents died she was shipped off to a weird uncle and housekeeper, and even though it was bad at first, it all turned out okay. I know I sound like I'm joking, but I'm serious.

Anonymous wrote: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.

On this thread, I think there has been three instances of people sharing the aftermath of parental death. In one case, the guardians got sued, in another the kids got split up, and here you have a 70 year old raising young children alone.

OP this is why you need to do your best to put a well funded, clear plan in place. What will be cobbled together in your absence is unlikely to be pretty.

Make your choice and move on. The odds that both parents are going to die in the same instant are vanishingly small.