If anything happens to you and your partner...

ball.and.chain

...where will your kids go?

Not the nicest question, I know, but one we all sort of have to figure out at some point.  We are working on wills and I am thinking about it a lot and not sure what I want to do.  I'm curious to hear what others have chosen to do...or what you plan to do when you have kids, if you don't already?

StacyLH24

We have talked about C's sister. She is probably who our kids would go to, with the understanding that my parents would be included in everything. My parents have expressed interest, but are concerned about their age. So, I guess we don't have a concrete plan. Those are our first choices though.

ATXmommas

We chose my sister. She loved Ash to pieces, she's financially stable (more so than us), and I trust her with my heart and soul to include Z's family in his life and to raise him to be an intelligent, compassionate, and hard-working adult. Will she do things differently than we would? Absolutely. She's pretty religious (but not at all intolerant), and I know that she would raise children with faith/religion. I completely respect the way my sister practices her faith (she walks the walk), so I don't have a problem with that even though it's different than how we plan to teach our child about religion, faith, and spirituality.

I wouldn't want my parents to raise him. Not that they aren't completely awesome, but I want them to be his grandparents, not his parents. And, they are already in their 60s.

KH826

This baby and any future kiddos will go to my wife's brother and his wife, should anything happen to us. We have formalized this in our Wills with our attorney, and we talked to my BIL and SIL about this before we started TTC. We trust them completely and are very close. We hope our kiddos will grow up very close to their cousins (they are TTC but not yet pregnant), and we know that should anything happen they would honor our wishes for our family.

trisholio

My wife and I have talked about this at length.  There is no one on my wife's side of the family that we would want our child/children to go with, so that leaves my family.  It kind of defaults to my sister, but she is currently 9 months pregnant with her first and living with my mom and step dad.  She is not financially stable and works as a bartender.  Though she makes good money, its not something she can do forever (hence while she is living with parents, she had to cut back her hours due to be pregnant).  We do not have similar parenting styles at all and she doesn't/wouldn't raise our child the same way we would want.  Though I know that she will love her more than anyone, I am not sure if that is enough.  We have picked my Aunt and Uncle as God Parents, but that is more a spiritual role model and not for them to have custody if something were to happen.  My mom is another option to have custody, but I am not a huge fan of her husband.  So we are stuck in a bit of a rough place.  We have talked to my family and I know they would love our child/children and do what they think is best, even if its not how we would raise them.  I also know they would continue a relationship with my wife and her parents if something happened to me or both of us.  We do not have anything in writing and I know that we need to do that ASAP!

valeriegp

My will specifies that our son will go to my parents if something happened. They are in their 60s but in pretty good health and quite active. As he gets older, we may have to revisit this.

JGY

Ugh this is a seriously difficult topic in our house right now.  The good thing is that we have multiple, wonderful options.  The bad thing is that we disagree about which one we want to choose. 

S's Sister and BIL are awesome, and have two amazing boys (8 and 4).  The are wonderful parents, and we know that Gabe would be safe, happy, and supported with them.  They are not wealthy by any means, but they make it work.  And there would be insurance money to help.  Also, S's Mom and Dad would be reasonably close and they are very helpful.  We know that they would work diligently to keep my family in G's life as well.  They are religious (VERY) and I am not, and I do have some reservations about their expectations for Gabe in that regard.  But it's not something I can't work through.

My Sister is also amazing.  She loves to Gabe to absolute pieces and he has a relationship with her like none other.  She has a power over him that I only wish I had.  In many ways, I knew I was having a child not just for me, but also for my Sister.  However my Sister is single (not a big deal in any other way than having less options for care), self-employed, barely making it, and lives in NYC where the cost of raising a kid couldn't be higher.  Yes, there would be some insurance money, but enough???  She's also a free-spirit, very unstructured, and has no kids so no full understanding of what it really takes to raise one.  She would be close to my parents, but they are in their 70's and 80's and while helpful, not able to do quite as much as S's parents.

Both options would provide a very different life for Gabe than what he has with us, and also very different from each other.  We originally had decided on S's Sister and BIL, just because we felt like it would be easier on everyone.  But my Sister stepped up and really threw herself into the ring for this.  She desperately wants to be the one, and I want to honor that wish.  S and I disagree.  It's really REALLY tough.  We haven't worked through it yet.

shelly2314

M and I had decided on my Brother and his wife and even had the wills drawn up. Now she is starting to change her mind. I can see where she is coming from, but no one could possible be perfect (enough for our girls!)

It is such a hard decision to make

redrockmama

This is such a hard decision. J and I have talked about it very briefly, but I suppose now that the little one is almost here we should have a more serious conversation about it. We wouldn't choose anyone in her family because they are very conservative and religious and would raise our kids completely different than we would, in a faith that openly practices hate and discrimination towards LGBT folks. 

I don't think we would pick my older sister  and her husband for a variety of reasons, even though we love them very much. 

That leaves my younger sister, who doesn't really want kids, my step sister who isn't an option, my step-brother who is great with kids, or friends. 

Our parents are too old to be raising babies. I don't feel great about any of the options. My younger sister and step brother are the best choices, but they are so young. We do have a really great friend I would feel good about and a few others.. Did you all ask people if they would want to do it before putting them in the will? 

wishiwaspreggo

C and I struggle with this.  I have two brothers and they both have major mental health problems.  C has two brothers but one's a heroin addict and the other is estranged from the family.  I have a bunch of cousins but they're all boys and incredibly immature.  I strongly disagree with some of our friends' parenting styles.  The one who I think would be the best mother would raise our kids to be religious and she has views on LGBT folks going to Hell if they don't repent so... while we're good friends I just can't imagine any child of mine being raised like that.  Both our parents' are in their 60's and I want them to enjoy retirement.  I have two cousins who are married, one who is engaged.  I guess maybe one of my cousins, then, if I'm really pressed.  That or another friend of ours who is a great mother to her 3 kids but I don't think they could afford to take ours on.  It's really hard to say.  I wish one of us had a normal, happy, healthy, stable sibling.  It's rough having brothers who are 100% unreliable.  Any of our viable options I'm lukewarm about.  But we really do need to have someone there in case we both die.  It's that or foster care/orphanage.  It sucks.  We still have plenty of time to think about it since neither of us are pregnant yet, but when the time comes we will have a very, very difficult decision on our hands.

ball.and.chain

We're also in the camp of having multiple pretty good choices but are having trouble picking.  Our parents are all 60+, with most of them being 65+ and one 70+, so we really don't want to go that route.  I have one sister who is not too together, but the other one is one of our options.  She is successful, capable, organized, owns her own condo, and will be very involved in our son's life.  On the other hand, she is single, and possibly raising our kid on her own seems difficult.  But she also is now in a LTR with someone I can see her marrying -- and I think they would want to have their own kids -- so it could all work out well.  Our other option is my wife's sister and her husband.  They have two kids of their own and are great parents.  I have two issues with her as a guardian: one, that they live out of state, so our son will be much less familiar with them than he will be with my family, and it seems more disruptive to move him there.  Two is that there are some big ideological differences.  For example, they are Catholic, attend church regularly, give $ to the church, and send their kids to Catholic school.  I have serious issues with the Catholic church.  But would our son be loved, cared for, safe, healthy?  Sure.  Ick...just such a difficult thing to even think about.

clairmeij

Augh. Such a difficult one. We've talked about it very briefly, couldn't come up with a suitable option, and then left it alone. We need to have that discussion and get it documented though.

gothammattox

Such an interesting topic. We've discussed it briefly and have a lots of varied options. My folks are in their early 50s and very active. I think they would do an outstanding job and honestly my dad would jump at a second chance at parenting while not working full time. My younger sister is getting married and is finally maturing. She and her future husband would do a fine job but I'm not impressed by his family. My wife's only living relative is her 24 year old son who is engaged to a woman with three children already and they plan to have a few more. It seems unreasonable to add any children we have to the mix. We also have a largely different parenting style than they do. Also I have friends from college who are amazing, have one child and have a great family as well. I know they would do a great job making sure the child saw grandparents/family. Still an open discussion at our house.