What if you have no one to leave your children to in a will? - Page 3

[Engineering_Mama]

Originally Posted by JollyGG

I'm going to second this. Get good life insurance, that way you don't have to worry about the financial burden your child would place on a guardian and you can instead concentrate on who would be an acceptable choice.

Also remember you and your spouse are really unlikely to die tomorrow. Siblings and friends are likely to grow up before the worst were to happen. And if you did die tomorrow you sibling or friends would likely step up to the responsibilities and grow up fast with a new family to care for. Not something I'd want to do to my brother but something I can accept. Plus our kids grow up and need us less. My hope would be that were anything to happen to my husband and I my kids would be beyond the needy infant, toddler, and preschool ages.

Like many previous posters have mentioned if there is no good choice you really need to find an acceptable choice.

Thanks for this! It made me re-think things and come up with some alternatives. In particular I'd never considered my single brother. Right now he doesn't have a job and is living with us. But with enough life insurance and financial planning the fact that he doesn't have a job isn't an issue. And eventually things will change and he'll have a job (he's trying to start his own business right now). Other than that its all positives. He's the sibling I'm closest to and the one I think would parent most like me. Plus he's lived with us for DD's entire life. She knows him and loves him and its amazing how much he loves her.

[quantumleap]

We're in a similar boat. Quite awhile ago, we had asked some good friends of ours to think about taking dd. The male half of the couple is also dd's donor. I'm not sure if that played in to things at all, but while they didn't say no, they also didn't say yes. They would be awesome - very similar parenting styles, wonderful, caring people, and it would ensure that dd remains in contact with her half siblings and her donor - but we have no interest in pushing the issue. We wanted them to take her, but only if *they* wanted to take her. So, onward.
We also discussed my sister. She married about a year ago, to a guy who seemed really neat, and I just assumed my kids would go to her. She'd love our kid(s) to no end, and would raise them very similarly to how we would. But, I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with her husband, and the more I got to know him, the less I wanted my child anywhere near his parenting, especially because my sister seems easily swayed by his wishes.
What to do?! Especially because my sister and I had previously said that she would take any children of mine if DP and I died?!
Our current picks are actually my sister's sister in law. As in, my sister's husband's brother and his wife. It's a really great fit, but I don't even know how to go about asking. Never mind the fallout if we designate someone other than my sister. She would be absolutely devastated. It's not like we have "abuse" or anything remotely like that to rationalize the decision either. I'm just uncomfortable with how I feel DD would be parented by my sister's husband. He's a good guy, just not the good guy I want raising my child!

Anyone have experience rescinding a guardianship request, especially with someone with whom you have and want to maintain a healthy, loving relationship?

We need to get on the ball with life insurance too. Maybe asking my sister and her hubby to be the financial end of things (they're very good at that stuff) while having sister in law do the physical parenting would be enough to apease sister?

Holy, complicated. This is one of those "it takes a village" things, that makes me wish we lived on in a commune, or a farming community in 1850.