To wonder if foster care is the best of the bad options if our children were to lose both DH and I?

[ohmaaaan]

Horrible subject but …

In the event of something happening to both DH and myself. I’m wondering if our children might be better in the care system. I know the usual response is no, absolutely not - but we don’t have anyone who could take them. The only person who could realistically take them in is SIL and BIL, who live a long way away and have their own children and a house full. They are nice people but the children don’t know them very well, largely because of the distance.

I would ideally want them to stay at the same school and in the same area but maybe that’s not realistic.

Obviously hope it doesn’t happen.

You don’t really have to decide this in a final binding way. If you’re making wills, you can explain your priorities, eg children not being separated, staying in the same area. Do you have some life insurance that would support anyone who did end up looking after them?

We do yes but it’s still difficult as local friends all have children the same age and (understandably!) aren’t up to taking in two more.

So that leaves BIL and SIL but them living out of the area is a huge problem.

I think ultimately trusted family trumps staying local.

Firstly, it's not your decision to worry about, as you'd be dead.

And secondly, there's no answer anyway as their needs and relationships change year by year. If you died when they were babies, then one option would be more suitable, if they were 5, 10, 15... other options would be available and better suited to their needs.

Social services would try to place them with family as foster care is very expensive and often unstable.

BIL and SIL might not be able to cope with them when they are 5, but be fine with looking after teenagers. There are so many factors that keep changing that it's impossible to plan for.

I think moving from the area is a strange thing to focus on if you know and trust BIL and SIL. Wouldn't a caring family member who knew their parents be more comfort to bereaved children than complete strangers? (With no guarantee of area regardless!).

Just to let you know, they wouldn't necessarily stay in the same area if they were fostered. I used to foster for the local council and more often than not children were from another area. It depended on who had capacity. This was 30 years ago so it may be different nowadays.

Why are you thinking about this it never entered my head when mine were younger.

I guess I’m imagining how they’d feel if they lost DH and I, and were taken away from familiar school friends and teachers who they’ve potentially spent years with and have bonded with and having to live with people who are effectively strangers. I think the last time they saw BIL and SIL was Easter, to give an idea of how regularly we see them.

Of course I could be wrong! I’m just trying to think of ‘best fit.’

I think it is much stranger not to think about this possibility when you have young and dependent children.

So do I, but some people really will start an argument in an empty room!

I decided that the best way was to ask a particular person to help them make the right choice at the time it happened. I knew that my brother would never be able to take them but that he would help them with the situation and to chose the way forward. Different solutions are right for different ages so this allows flexibility and recognition that at some point children are able to contribute to the decision. People are also more willing to sign up for this role than to commit to taking the children on when they don’t know what their own situation at the time.

100% agree with this.

Obviously staying with family is much better than the foster system. And I don’t think they are likely to enter the foster system until all family placements have been ruled out because there are lots and lots of children without a nice Aunt and Uncle who need foster care more.

Also, I would not hesitate for a second to take in my sisters two kids even as a single mum of two of my own and we see each other a few times a year only.

I would address why this is taking up any headspace - is it likely you and DH will both die in the next 10 or so years? If not I would just try and stop carastrophising as it would be very unlikely to ever happen anyway.

Back in the 1970s, my Aunt died when my cousin was 4. It must have been awful. My Uncle worked away, driving HGVs all over the country, and in those days, there was no such thing as flexible working.
I was about a year old, and my elder sister was the same age as my cousin. He came to stay with us, during the week. He usually went back to his Dad at the weekends, but sometimes stayed with us, and Uncle came to us. He was based almost 2 hours away.
It just made sense, as my Mum was at home with us anyway, and was soon pregnant with my brother too. So, Mum took the 4 of us around. She said that after 2 kids, what was 1 more?! 😂
Anyway, my point is that my cousin was perfectly happy with being at school a couple of hours away from home. I suppose it was all he’d ever known….
As it was, my Uncle happily met his second wife, and married when my cousin was 13, and he ended up going back there to live, and his stepmum looked after him in the week. We talk of the time where we were all together, fondly. I’m sure my cousin would rather have had his mum, but a loving family home was more important than him going to school where his Dad was.

You're assuming a foster carer will mean they can stay local!! Some areas have huge shortages so kids either have a very long taxi journey to school or swap schools.

Family or trusted friends would be best.

You say theyre crowded but surely you could leave them some assets to pay for a bigger house??

The thing is OP that if they ended up in the foster care system they likely wouldn't stay local anyway. It would be amazing if there were foster parents who wanted them near enough for them to stay at school etc. If you know and trust BIL and SIL then that will give the kids people they know. The chances are that they would go to people they didn't know in a different area anyway.

I think the other thing to bare in mind is that the people you name are going to be the people that take initial charge when you first die or become totally unable to look after the children. The most important thing I think is that these people would care deeply for the children and would put their needs first when they had just lost their parents. They don't HAVE to decide that living for them for ever more is the only answer. Maybe other people in your area would come forward, a school friend's parents might adopt them or something. but the point is that the people you appoint would work through the options with the children, and would be there to give that initial love when they were alone in the world.

Round here there are so few foster carers that they'd be unlikely to stay in the area. I know a few foster carers and one has been asked to take children from 75 miles away, another had a 30 mile round trip to take the children back to their old school.

Thing is it depends on there being a foster carer who does that age, who is free, doesn't have children (either their own or other foster children) schooling in the opposite direction.

You say your DC don’t know your sil and bil very well, but they wouldn’t know the foster carers at all, There’s also a very big chance that they would be sent to foster carers out of your current area because there aren’t a huge amount of foster carers in the first place. Even worse, depending on the age of your DC, they might end up in a children’s home.

Is it taking up so much headspace asking on here? Another thread made me think of it. I’m not meaning to sound snippy, sorry, I just don’t really think asking on a parenting website is constituting it taking a lot of headspace!

Obviously no one plans to die but it could happen and I don’t want them to not have proper provisions made for them.

People are talking about family but that’s assuming a familial relationship and there isn’t one here particularly. We all get on, no bad blood but equally no particular closeness.

Child has a friend whose parent is terminal, from overseas and partner has family with MH issues. Hoping it never comes to it but we’d do it for him and many others of our children’s friends. Or red line is that we get enough life insurance (or home equity - but want to keep that for kids) to do the loft so they have their own rooms and so having them doesn’t negligently impact our own kids. That said I’d expect family to take them first if it was possible. Either way make sure they are funded, and maybe some more visits to bil sil.

They probably wouldn't end up in foster care in your local area and maybe not even together, so definitely explore family as a first option if it's available.

Children don't statistically do well in foster care, of course there is exceptions, siblings are not always kept together, and then there is foster carers who might give up their jobs. Care. leavers are not always supported, i don't know why you wouldn't ask family who might be more suitable to look after the children.

Thanks. That’s helpful. I’ve obviously no idea what the established norm is!

Them not being together isn’t ideal but I genuinely don’t know if them staying together would be possible in the eventuality of both DH and I dying, I just don’t know. Difficult one, isn’t it?

Nope. We have SIL and BIL as our choice and they live in Sydney. We would never choose govt care for our children.

Because I’m not convinced they would be more suitable, as I’ve explained. I think people are acting as if I have a doting aunt and uncle who’d be delighted to take them in and I’ve tried to explain this wouldn’t be the case at all!