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This is a really hard topic for us because it comes down to values and a lot of our family members don't share our values. My sisters are both single and have their own kids. His sister an brother weren't options. His cousin would be awesome but she and her partner are TTC right now. Hopefully we don't die together anytime soon because his cousin is our current designee.

Eta: cultural considerations for M were really important.

@looch: Would the situation be different if your son only had citizenship in one country? We're trying to decide whether we'll apply for dual citizenship for our LOs (they'll be born in the US and I'm American, so they'll have US citizenship by default, but we're unsure about adding DH's country to that). It's mainly because there is compulsory military service for makes in his country and he doesn't want to force that on our child if we have a son...and we don't want the kids to have different citizenships if we eventually end up with a boy and a girl. I never really considered the other implications, though.

I actually refused to even consider ttc until we discussed this because I didn't want it to be a conflict later (which I saw potential for). We agreed on my parents for now, they are in their early 50's, and if my brother ever gets married to the woman he has been dating for the past 5 years we will change to them, but we weren't comfortable with him taking guardianship as a bachelor, simply because I don't think his bachelor lifestyle would be conducive to parenthood.

My other brother is single and I don't think he would be comfortable with being a childs guardian. DH's parents are wonderful but have an pretty young child they adopted to has some developmental disabilities so I don't think they could take on our child/children on top of that. One of DH's brothers is very career focused and single, and honestly at a selfish stage in life, so not parent material today (if this changes in the future we would consider changing to him), and DH's other brother is married with 2 kids, but we don't agree with their parenting style, I don't think they would love our children the same as their own, and I don't trust that they would make the effort for my family to continue to be apart of the childs life, this is who DH originally wanted but after discussing it he agreed with all of my points, so we are totally on the same page now.

We will not be sharing our plans with family, so as not to cause drama, and also in the case that we do change our plan in the future.

Ours is a "village" type answer. My parents are closest to raising him (as my mom is his primary care when I'm at work), but ILs are also a very big part of DS' life and so I would think they would help in raising DS as well. Ultimately when the age of our parents becomes a concern, it would be my brother.

Oh man. There is definitley no perfect solution. My first thought is my BIL and his wife. They are great people, have two kids of their own and I like the idea that my MIL would get to be more involved in DS's life. It's tough though because they live on the west coast by themselves, DH's family are all in the midwest and my family are all on the east coast..

We chose SIL and her DH for a few reasons. They have kids in the same agre bracket and are close in proximity to both of our parents. I would LOVE for my sister to be her guardian but she lives 4 hours away in a huge city and kids aren't really on her radar right now. Our biggest issue is that while his sis and her hubs are great parents, they don't parent the same way we do. I guess if we're both gone it won't really matter that much. She will be loved and cared for. We asked them not long after she was born. Still haven't put it on paper yet but we did tell both sets of parents our choice.

We just asked my sister and brother in law this past weekend, actually. We have 6 siblings between us, but most of them are much younger, so our choices were a bit more limited. We also agreed that while either set of grandparents would be willing to take in any future kids, we would much rather them be raised by someone close in age to us, if we couldn't do it ourselves.

I know we are just TTC, but this is something we have given a fair amount of thought to already. Now, we just need to get life insurance, and when there is a child, to make a will. It is important to me to be prepared!

Eta: I know that my parents had actually designated my siblings and I to go to a (very) close family friend over their siblings in the event of their death. I know it caused some hurt feelings among siblings, but we would have been very well taken care of, and we all could have stayed together. I don't know if this is an option?

@mynoahbear: only mentioning your sister is interesting. I wonder if you can put language in that in the event of divorce., ny sister would get them?

We chose my sister. Hands down, it was an easy choice. My parents are secondary, but since they are older (well 50's) my sister would be more suitable to care for our kids full time. I would never want them to live with my MIL and FIL (I won't even get into it here), or my DH's brother/SIL. Both of them have WAY different views on things, have dirty (not messy, filthy) houses and the list goes on. I would have anxiety just thinking about LO having to live with either of them. I love them, but no.

@LovelyPlum: I'm sure it's doable to word it so if your sister and BIL were to divorce, the kids would go to your sister. We just thought it easier to name my sister only. We love our BIL and technically, he is so much more responsible than my sister but in the end, we just decided to name her. We did the same with DH's brother, as our just in case person. We didn't name his wife either. I don't think anyone was offended.

we gave our's too one sibling to live with but then the trustfund money will be overseen by another one. The lawyers suggested this so that the one's doing the day to day parenting aren't accused of using the money for themselves and also so that it shares some of the big decisions/responsibilty. If that makes sense. We chose who they would live with by how we/they interact with them. For example, my brother and his family live down the street and thus we will see them regularly. My husbands sister lives out of state with her family. So it doesn't make sense to us to ship the kids off away from everything and everyone that is familiar.