Are you doing a Will? If so, I have a question:

blondie315

Who are making the legal guardian of your child/children if something happens to you and DH/SO?

Are you doing grandparents, siblings, friends?

TIA!

Autumn_bride2b

My parents, followed by one of DH's good friends, if my parents can't do it for any reason.

I am NOT leaving it up to the courts.

S/Cambio

I don't know much about Wills but we are doing one. It would either be mine or his parents. I'm not sure if we could pick both and have them see what would be best for them if anything was to happen.

Elissa Bird

My husband and I are thinking my cousins who have a daughter who will be about a year older than mine when born.  Picking one set of parents over another would be hard.  I would want mine and DH would want his.  Our siblings are not married. I figure that we can always change it later. 

mrsnicolew

DH and I have been going around and around about this for years. We still haven't made one (so irresponsible, I know) and we have no idea who we would appoint as legal guardians of our children. We do not want to do family, mainly because our mom's don't really get along so we figured someone outside of the family could remain more objective in visitations. None of my siblings are old enough. I can't stand his brother or his wife and they wouldn't raise our kids in a way I would be comfortable with. His sister is unmarried and we would like our kids to be in a 2 parent home, etc etc etc......It's just a really really hard decision.

 

Mystery2B

We're going with my BF and her DH who plan to have kids in the next couple years. Neither of us have siblings, and our parents are older and I wouldn't ask them to take on a child full time.

And what motivated DH to agree to this plan (vs letting our parents figure it out after we were gone) was that some of his same age cousins are not people we would want to raise our kids and DH's mom would for sure tell them how much money would come with LO (life insurance, savings, etc) which we can see motivating some of them for the wrong reasons.

Cynthia7461

My mom and then his cousin  No way in hati are his parents raising my child.  They are lovely people but I was raised to be able to speak my mind (with limits) and DH was not raised like that at all.  His parents still act like they are still raising their children (ages 34 and 32).  They have to have imput on everything and act like DH and I are 12. 

aggielauren

We're doing my mom/stepdad as first choice because they are younger than his parents and in a more financially stable position. If for some reason they couldn't, we would probably have his brother and wife or my dad/stepmom. As of now, we just don't have any friends that we would feel comfortable putting that responsibility on.

1yeartogo

We will be writing a will and asking my sister and her DH to be guardian.

This is just a FYI you cannot leave a child to anyone in a Will. The best thing you can do is write it up, make your wishes known to those people selected, and other family members (so hopefully no one would contest it), and then a judge will decide who will get guardianship/custody. Teh judge will weigh your wishes in their consideration which is why it is important to have a Will, but if other family members contest the judge makes the ultimate decision and could decide against your wishes.

Jeni182

We havn't made one yet but when we do LO will go to my parents. His are great people but his mom would see it as a chore and an inconvenience and I don't want my child raised thinking they're not wanted.

vernab

My parents and then probably my sister when our kids get older.  My sister isn't really capable of taking care of infants, my in laws are divorced so we don't want to pick between them plus I don't think either would really care to do it honestly.

Elisabeth Zimowski

We are going to have a will drawn up and we have already asked my brother and one of my best friends to be legal guardians if something were to happen to us. I think most people use their parents, but for various reasons this was not a possibility for us. We have also upped our life insurance amounts considerably as well.

goldenleaves

No, but we need to. I want to make absolutely sure that there is no way my older sister would ever get custody of our child(ren). I don't want to leave anything up to the courts. DH and I really need to talk about this!

Temp36641187503164

*lurker from 1st tri*

I would like my younger brother, but he is far from getting married and settling down (hasn't had a girlfriend in 3 years). I would like to get to know whoever he's going to be married before I make that decision. I have 4 older siblings, but there are issues with all of them (parenting styles, etc). My parents have an unstable relationship and my Dad has a drinking problem. I wouldn't feel comfortable with my Mom raising my child even if she was no longer with my Dad.

We don't have contact with DH's Mom and SD so they are out (plus they are horrible people). DH's Dad and SM wouldn't even begin to consider our wishes for our child and I would never be able to let them raise our children (we won't even let them take them over night when LO is old enough).

I have 1 good friend that I would trust, but they have different religious views from us. They also have 3 children and my friend is somewhat overwhelmed with the 3.

So after years of pondering over this we have no idea! We have very large life insurance policies (a lot of that will be in trusts for DC) and we want someone who is very financially responsible as well. Ugg...We really need to figure something out.

Cynthia7461

1yeartogo:

We will be writing a will and asking my sister and her DH to be guardian.

This is just a FYI you cannot leave a child to anyone in a Will. The best thing you can do is write it up, make your wishes known to those people selected, and other family members (so hopefully no one would contest it), and then a judge will decide who will get guardianship/custody. Teh judge will weigh your wishes in their consideration which is why it is important to have a Will, but if other family members contest the judge makes the ultimate decision and could decide against your wishes.

 

Yikes!!!  Then I will have to write a letter to the judge and explain why I don't want my child going with DHs parents

Shell24

We actually have trusts.  They can't go into probate so we chose to go with that over a will.

As for guardians, my mom would be first, but if she cannot for whatever reason, it would be my DH's brother and his wife.  But in terms of money, we would have our financial planner in charge of our accounts and he would have to approve all withdrawals.  We completely trust my BIL and SIL, but lets say they want to take their 2 kids and our 2 kids on a vacay.  We would expect that the only money of our kids being spent would be on their 2 portions (even of hotel, etc.), not money for the whole trip.  Money can get sticky sometimes so having a 3rd party regulate that is important.  At a certain age, our kids would then have access to all money (I think it's listed as a portion at 25 and the remainer/full amt. at 30).

 

wpowell

My parents will have legal custody if anything should happen to my DH & I. If for any reason they cant then it will probably go to my sister. We haven't talked to much about it but I cant imagine DH's parents raising our LO. My MIL couldnt wait for all of her kids to grow up and move out, she wouldnt want to raise another one.

Temp785382312506150

1yeartogo:

We will be writing a will and asking my sister and her DH to be guardian.

This is just a FYI you cannot leave a child to anyone in a Will. The best thing you can do is write it up, make your wishes known to those people selected, and other family members (so hopefully no one would contest it), and then a judge will decide who will get guardianship/custody. Teh judge will weigh your wishes in their consideration which is why it is important to have a Will, but if other family members contest the judge makes the ultimate decision and could decide against your wishes.

Thank you for posting this. I was hoping someone would mention that. You would actually need a trust set up to avoid probate issues.

As for us, are parents are all in their mid-60's at this point so it wouldn't be wise to leave our children to them should we pass. While we still haven't 100% decided on this issue, DH has one family friend that is only 2 years older than us that is highly responsible and wonderful with children that we would like to leave our children to in this case. We'd most likely ask DH's oldest brother and his wife should DH's friend not be able to for any reason.