Sorry, heavy topic, but DH and I are talking about it and have come to somewhat of an impasse. It's such a huge decision, and we both disagree with one another, and have no idea how to resolve it. Help!
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Subscribing because I am interested in this topic. There are no obvious choices for us, unfortunately.
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LO has three grandparents (2 paternal and 1 grandma maternal) and aunts and uncles (my sis and her DH, my bro, my BIL and his SO). If something happened to us, LO would go to my sis and her DH. this is because I feel like I want her to be raised by someone young who will have kids of their own. My sister will raise her the way I want her to be raised and since she is o ly a couple of years younger than me, she will still be "in the know" with modern parenting. I know anyone in our families would step up and take care of her, but I feel like with my sister LO will have the most "conventional" upbringing.
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My parents were the obvious choice. They are younger and live closer than his mom and will play a bigger role in his life because of it ! His mom is also single. Many years from now when my parents are much older we plan to amend our will and change it to my brother and sister in law.
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We thought about who in our family would raise him closest to the way we would have and who had the means. The obvious choice were my ILs, and I'm sure they would if asked, but they have a very active life enjoying their retirements. So we instead opted for my BIL/SIL. They have the financial means to take on another child, they have similar political/religious/life views, and they have two little boys already.
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My brother and SIL. We didn't want to name our parents because they're all older. So it was my bro or hubs' sister. My bro is married to an awesome woman and they are pregnant with a baby due on my LO's first bday. They would raise M very similarly to how we would. And they are more than financially able to take on another child (though our estate should provide for her any way).
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LO (and however many more we have) would go to my Sister (she is currently single with no children but it doesn’t matter in the decision). DH and I agreed on it right away. I feel like my sisters views in and about life are the closest to mine and DH. I feel like she would give our children the best life and most similar upbringing to what DH and I would do. She is the only person I trust whole heartily in regards to anything and in any situation.
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@scg00387: what is the major reason for each of your preferences?
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We decided we would want my brother and SIL. We haven't worked up the courage to ask them if they're up to it though.
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Honestly we don't know. Ugh. None of our siblings are in serious relationships/comfortable financial positions. His dad is single. His mom and stepdad would probably be okay but their relationship isn't the greatest. My mom and dad would be okay except that my dad is much older and my grandpa lives on their property. It won't be long before my mom has her hands full taking care of both of them...a child added into the mix would just be too much. I'm really just hoping that one of our siblings gets their act together before we have to worry about this.
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We haven't done this yet, but it's on our radar and we will begin discussing soon. DH and I are the chosen guardians of my nephew (my brother's son) so I don't know if that will influence our decision.
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We had this talk last year before our 2nd LO was born. Ultimately it was decided that they would go to tr guardianship of my sister. She and I are so close and she loves my kids like they are her own so I know she would be the kind of mother I would have wanted for them. It sucks cause DH has one sister but I wouldn't leave a goldfish with her.
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We'll need to decide on this soon, as I want to have our wills and healthcare directives drafted by the time LO arrives. It's more complicated for us because DH is foreign and much of his family is still in his native country, but I'm not sure either of us would want our kids raised there. Visits, for sure...but the political situation there makes me especially wary and DH has felt the same way recently. Anyway, I think our choice is between my parents and his brother. My parents are still pretty young (had me at 22) and would gladly accept. They live in a really rural area, though, and while it was a nice enough place to grow up, its not the environment I necessarily want for my kids. DH's brother and his wife are close to us in age and I'd be comfortable choosing them, except that they live in NYC. I really don't like NYC (sorry, bees who live there...) and I'd worry about how they'd house another person or two, along with potentially their own kids at some point, in such a crazy high cost area where space is at a premium. But I know there would be so much more opportunity than there is where I grew up. At least my parents and my BIL and SIL live within a couple hours of each other, so we can specify that the kids spend x amount of time with whoever isn't the primary custodian, but I really don't know who we'll end up choosing.
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We're torn between my sister or my parents are another good option since they're relatively young still (early 50's) while DH's parents are in their mid 60's and just SEEM way older with aches and pains and stuff, and are really now just wanting to travel all the time so we'd hate to ruin that for them.
We may end up asking my parents for now, and changing it to my sister in a few more years once she gets a little more settled. She has a house and a serious relationship with a guy who already has a kid that he has partial custody of, so I might feel kind of bad forcing more kids that aren't hers on her right away. -
We decided on my little sister and her husband. Actually in our will she's the only one mentioned as the guardian, just in case she and her husband decide to not be together, which I can't see happening. We discussed it with her first of course. They don't have kids and aren't going to have any so we weren't sure she would even agree but she said yes right away. We also named one of DH's older brothers as a back up, in case something should happen to my sister. He and his wife also have no plans to have kids of their own.
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DH and I have differing opinions about this, too. DH thinks his parents are the "only choice" because they're the most financially stable (pretty well off, actually) but they're in their mid-60s and I'm just not on the same page as him, even though I love them dearly and know they would raise our child in a way we'd want. I think my aunt and uncle (who are essentially my parents) would be a better choice...they are in a good place financially and in their early 50s. We need to figure this out, but I haven't brought it up since DH was so adamant about his parents being the only choice...
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Well, we looked at immediate family first. DH's parents are both no longer with us and my parents are nearing retirement age and we didn't want to saddle them with another kid to raise. My mother would take C in a heartbeat and spoil her rotten, but I feel like they've reached the point in their lives where they need to enjoy being grandparents and not parents.
Next we considered siblings, DH's brother was out because he's irresponsible. My oldest brother has a heinous bitch of a wife who I didn't want raising my daughter and my middle brother is CBC.
Neither of us has much in the way of suitable extended family either. So, it fell to my BFF and DH's BFF (who are dating and live together). We felt we could trust them to raise her the way we would want, they have similar values and beliefs to us, they would make sure she stayed involved with both of our families, and my BFFs family would love her just like she was a blood relative (BFF's mom considers me a daughter anyway and they'll probably already be her "2nd family").
The ideal situation would have been a sibling, but since that wasn't in the cards this was our best option.
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All three of our living parents are in their late 60s, which makes me very uncomfortable. My MIL would be out anyway because she is not that responsible, plus she has very extreme religious views that we do not agree with. My parents would be very responsible but they are getting pretty old and out of touch in certain ways. That does not seem like a fair choice for a young child.
My sister leads a very single lifestyle and doesn't *quite* have her act together in certain ways that I would prefer. We would also need a boatload of life insurance because she makes very little money. If she decides to be very involved in our child's life, then she might be a good choice in ~5 years if she matures a bit more. But that doesn't solve the immediate problem.
My husband is an only child. He has a cousin who might have been a good choice until last summer when he started to date a woman who makes my skin crawl. At the time, he was dating around a lot and we assumed she was a flavor of the week, but she is still in the picture a year later. She is such a train wreck that there is no way I would want my kid to even share oxygen with her. This makes me question his judgement so badly that I no longer think he's a viable choice. Besides, as long as they stay together I would not pick him because I would not want her to influence my child in any way.
So, I guess we would have to consider some of our friends, but to be honest none of them are ideal either. This topic makes me sad.
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This is such a hard topic for me. My parents are older, so while they'd be my first choice, it wouldn't be fair. My brother doesn't have a steady job and isn't very mature (he lives with my parents). DH is an only child, and his parents are divorced. (Dad is remarried). His dad is younger than my parents, but still older. His mom isn't stable, so that's out. This leaves our friends, and I know of a couple that'd be an excellent choice (my BFF and her husband), but how do you ask friends to raise your child? The topic makes me sad and slightly anxious.
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both of our parents are older and so we ruled that out. we chose my brother and my SIL because we think they are the closest in terms of parenting and values as we are, and they are financially able to do so. We set up a trust where all of our assets would go and my brother would be the executor of the trust, and I trust that he would use that $ for our LO(s). I'm also sure that if my parents were still alive that they would help them out tremendously.
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We had a limited pool because we have small families. Fortunately we had an obvious choice within our families who we are sure will provide LO a strong and positive parental presence, religious instruction, and a good education in the event of our deaths.
ETA: It may help to remember that the guardian(s) won't have to go it alone. We expect the rest of our family will support LO's guardian in the same way they would support us.
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I have limited choice, because if something happens to me and DH, DS goes to his biological dad. But, if something happens to him before something happens to us, DS goes to my brother and sister in law.
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So have you all actually written your wills/asked your prospective guardians? We plan on having our friends me guardians but haven't asked them yet...
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We did all of that grown up stuff (wills, powers of attorney, life insurance, disability insurance, etc) right after LO was born. We went with DHs parents as primary guardians and mine as secondary. We each have a younger sibling but neither would be ready/able to afford a kid. DHs parents live very close to several of DHs cousins who have kids the same age as LO, so we know she would have lots of extended family. Luckily, our parents and families all get along well, so there wasn't a fear of cutting out one family.
We did ask before we made it official. They accepted
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@hilsy85: yup we asked my bro and SIL while we were still pregnant. (My brother said to me "I don't know, can I wait until the kid gets here and make sure she's cool." At which point his wife smacked him). Then we executed our wills shortly after the baby was born. We hired an estate attorney who wrote our wills (which established a trust for our children), our living wills, our power of attorney docs, and our health care proxies.
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We are terrified of this! We don't even have any idea as to who we will ask to be our kids God Parents. DH & I have no friends who are catholic let alone friends we are comfortable with taking on that responsibility. I don't want my brother raising our kids, sadly their parenting skills involve screaming. DH's siblings are all older and will want empty nests. We REALLY need to make some good friends FAST!
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@MamaMoose: yea we need to get on that...!
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Our situation is complicated by family law in two countries and the fact that our son has dual citizenship. As an example, if we were living abroad and divorced, since I do not have citizenship, I lose parental rights and would have to leave the country. We are in the process of researching attorneys that are familiar with bilateral agreements because it very well may be that if something happens to the both of us while we are abroad, our documents might be invalid.
For us, it's not about being in a financial position, it's about the guardians being able to give our son the same quality of life as he had before. And that's proving very difficult.
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This is such a heavy and personal topic!
We made several decisions, but ultimately we made a short term decision with the agreement that we will revisit the situation in a few years (will we had more children? Will our chosen guardians still be alive and in good health?) and reevaluate. We didn't feel a huge amount of pressure because we knew it wasn't a permanent decision, and we were basing everything off of the "what if we dropped dead today"?
For instance, we ruled my sister out because she was a junior in college when we wrote our will.
We plan to revisit our will every so often and update it as necessary.
In general, we chose guardians who could give Chloe the same quality of life as us; who do and would continue to respect our values and wishes as parents; who are financially stable, are moral, with high family value.
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We have an easy choice, thankfully. His family is out - we 100% disagree with their religion/lifestyle.
For my side, my family is all very young - my brother is 20 and my sister is 12, so they're out (though my brother is a backup if ever needed). We chose my parents because they would raise her the way we want, and they are stable and young at 43 & 45.
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@scg00387: we have talked about this a few times as well and have yet to come to a determination.
Things to consider: who will best raise your children the closest to how you & DH will, who will be able to love your child(ren) unconditionally like their own?, who will it have the least financial impact on?
We are torn between (I think) ILs or my eldest brother.
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We decided that DH's brother and SIL are the best option. They have two boys already and are in the best place financially to take on additional children. We also really agree with their parenting philosophy and know they would love LO as much as we do. My parents are older and DH's parents aren't capable. My sister has 5 of her own children so I wouldn't want to burden her even more financially.
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I saw this topic and we just talked about it this morning-- the decision is pretty easy for us though. LO would go to my sister and her husband-- they already have a 2 yo and I trust they would raise the baby similar to we would and really really love him/her, plus they live close to my family. Our parents are all older and I wouldn't want them raising the baby. I should mention it to my sister since we don't have a will yet or anything.
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We have chosen who we want, but still have to ask her. We decided on my sister. We wanted someone close by and one that would raise R similar to how we would. She isn't married, so it would be a total life adjustment to her. But we both have issues with some parenting decisions that my brother and SIL and his sister and BIL make, that neither of those couples were a good choice. We thought about some close friends, DH BFF and wife, but I really wanted family.
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DH's sister was the obvious choice for us because she is the only local sibling and loves kids. But since DS was born she has become completely psycho and refuses to respect our wishes for him, even when we are still around! She has proven that we cannot trust her so I am telling everyone to make sure DS and any future kiddos do not ever end up with her under any circumstances.
I would like my sister to become guardian in the worst case scenario but she lives halfway across the country. Now I'm thinking of my local cousin who is older and in a very loving marriage but unfortunately unable to have children of her own. DH doesn't know them that well so I'm trying to convince him that they are our best option at this point. -
We didn't want to pick parents since MIL is on her own and in her late 60s, and my parents are in their early 60s. DH's half siblings are also in their 50s/60s and he's not close with them. That left my siblings. My brother is younger, not married, lives basically in a frat house, and my sister is older, married, and she and her DH both have good jobs. So, no brainer, she and her DH would get LO.
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You should pick the person/people you want to raise your LO in your place. If this is causing problems because several people want to be named in the will, you should keep your ultimate decision to yourself. No one needs to know until after, God forbid, you and your husband die.
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We went back and forth, but ultimately we choose his brother and SIL. We feel they will raise our child(ren) the closest to the way we would & they are the most financially stable. Second choose is my younger sister, she's a mother thru and thru so while her finances aren't as strong, she would love my child(ren) like her own.
We have 2 sets of parents but I feel like age would be a factor there, mine would be first since they are younger, but still not something I would want to impose on them.
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My brother and his partner and my BFF are our people! We spent a lot of time discussing who had the same values, good home and the financial resources to take care of my lo
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This will be hard. My BIL and his wife could do it - but they are extremely career focused, waiting years to have kids, and they only want one. They have their entire life very planned, so while I'm sure they would do it - I don't think they'd want to. SIL is 21 and living the single/party lifestyle. My sister is only a year younger then me, but still in school and on my moms payroll
My brother is young and has a horrible girlfriend and is in NO position to have a child.. and will never be if he stays with this girl.SO that leaves my mom or DHs parents. DHs parents are older than mine.. late 50s. They wouldn't want to. My mom is only 50 and my step dad is 45 so they would probably be the best option. But I don't necessarily want to do that to them.
Agh! I have no idea what we will do. Maybe list my mom and then plan to change it to my sister eventually. I guess DH and I will have to figure this out come March!
My brother is young and has a horrible girlfriend and is in NO position to have a child.. and will never be if he stays with this girl.Subscribe to our newsletter
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