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.

I think it’s wise to think about. We had to write wills when we had our daughter as we are immigrants and therefore our child would go into foster care if we didn’t have a clear will giving custody of a British child to someone overseas. We have changed it several times and it’s now our friends around the corner as our kids are now 13/10 and I wouldn’t want them moving countries if it can be avoided. It’s not a perfect solution but it’s the best we could come up with.

foster care is really the last resort. They’ll be split up, they’ll end up wherever (probably totally different places) and it’s very likely they’ll eventually be in a group home or similar. There is a massive, massive shortage of foster placements, particularly as they get older. So I’d think carefully about any solution possible. Appreciate your local friends have other responsibilities but what if you had amazing life insurance so they could get a bigger home and hire a cleaner etc? Could that help? Growing up in care is really difficult and I’d do anything I could think of to avoid that fate for my kids.

@Duckin of course I can’t control it. I can point out that it is both irritating and naive, though. Sticking your fingers in your ears and singing la la la might be effective if you’re a Disney princess but for us plebs, you can die at any time and acknowledging your mortality doesn’t mean you’re excessively worried about it, it is a mere fact!

If you insist you are merely being practical about this consider that you are very unlikely to have any choice in the matter. You can write a will appointing a guardian for your children if you can find anyone to take them on. You may be lucky enough to have a devoted friend, maybe a godparent, who would be willing to be named in your will but generally speaking it is normally relatives who are appointed guardians.
Are you really considering writing a will that says "I don't want my children brought up by my sister- in- law so please place them in foster care should my DH and I die while they are still minors." Quite apart from the insult to your SIL which, were she to find out would likely sour your relationship with her, I very much doubt that you would find a solicitor who would advise on this course of action.

No, @Nothavingagoodvalentinesday . I’m considering what the best options would be, which is why I asked on here, and did receive some helpful and thoughtful replies. Of which the above is not one of them, it has to be said!

It's got significantly worse!

Sorry I assumed by you saying if they are half way through GCSEs and A levels it’s different to them being younger, that they were older…. Otherwise it was a pointless comparison because you would make changes to the arrangements you make as your children gain independence and you are picking holes…
You have a very idealistic view of looked after children in care to want to think of it as an option rather than blood relatives that although you don’t see them often, hopefully they are nice people who would care for children within their family.
You are determined to be right, comparing someone saying they would take in children from Gaza to someone who has said they would definitely take in their nephews/nieces and close friends children and see that they were loved is odd.
Hopefully you will come up with a solution you are happy with, perhaps spending time strengthening your circle will benefit your children should anything happen

I agree with you op. Having a bit of a plan is totaly sensible. We have one too. Then you can put that worry away, knowing you have a plan.
I don't know why people are being weird about it.

I would really look at the state of foster care provision in your area though before putting that as your preference.

@lessglittermoremud i am sorry if that’s how it’s coming over as that’s not the intention. If everyone had said ‘yes definitely foster care’ I’d probably have played devils advocate a bit there too! Just the same, there ARE a lot of posts insisting that depriving a loving and caring aunt and uncle from raising them and this is very far from the case.

I do genuinely appreciate the replies and as with most things will be weighing everything up. Current plan is to put a trusted friend forward to be their guardian. I also have thought of someone possible but she isn’t particularly close to me so may be taken aback! Still, hopefully it will never be the case!

When my DC were small my sister and I agreed we'd take our nieces and nephews in case of deaths of both other parents and we both took out life insurance policies to leave a good lump sum to pay for dc's care. My sister had 4 DC in a small 3 bedroom house but with money from insurance policy she could move to a much bigger house to accommodate my DC. Insurance policy is the way to go.

@caringcarer the difference there is house prices. Even with a payout of a million BIL and SIL wouldn’t be able to afford a six bed where they live.

Agree. OP you refer to BIL & SIL as "virtual strangers" but foster carers would be complete strangers, no tie or link or shared anything. If the worst happened I'd choose family over location - as my niece once said, aged about 4, "we belong together" .

I get that @Bollihobs . Just not sure as such there’s any real discernible difference from the kids’ POV!

For heaven’s sake, OP. Have you looked up the educational and health outcomes for children who’ve been in care? That’s the difference!

For heavens sake yourself

I mean, children don’t end up in foster care because they are in nice settled families, do they? They end up there because of sustained abuse and neglect. Which may impact your life chances a bit.

Unfortunately it is very much ‘least worse’ thing. Giving someone the label of family doesn’t mean they come with closeness and love. I don’t want to suggest my BIL and SIL are bad people: they aren’t, far from it (as much as I know anyway) but it’s a very distant sort of relationship and I suspect when DHs parents die contact will be virtually non existent.

We've considered our options in relation to this. Grandparents are all too old, not trusted, poor mobility etc. Auntie and uncle live miles away with kids who have ND and are very difficult. Our choice would be my friend and her husband, they have their own children but would give DS a good life, love him and that's all that matters to me. It never crossed my mind about staying in the same school or anything as that would be something for them to figure out, my only concern is that someone would be willing to take him if anything happened to us both. I wouldn't choose foster care over that option.

Yes, one of BILs boys is ND which adds a layer of complexity into everything

I am glad I started the thread because I do think BIL is probably not the best candidate on reflection, which doesn’t mean I’ll get them to take their chances in case but I will be sounding out some friends to at least act in their best interests even if they can’t take them in themselves.

OP is being very sensible to think about it, we all should.

We decided that our solution had to be flexible, so we put in three guardians (two grandparents and a trusted friend who lives 3 hours away) in our will. We said that if we died and the kids were in primary school, our hope was that they’d go to friend (who has kids the same age and the energy to deal with young DC) but that by secondary school we thought it might make sense for them to stay with grandparents (using our life insurance to buy in support as needed if practical stuff was too much for elderly grandparents), as then they could have stability of school for the exam years. Either way, we trusted those three people to do what they thought was best for the DC in the circumstances.

Foster care (while in many ways wonderful) is a last resort for a reason.

Children generally do vastly better with relatives. I would focus more on building a better relationship with some so that you feel you have a better "village" in the event of a tragedy.

I would take in any of my siblings DC without hesitation.

Respectfully, some of the poor educational and MH outcomes for looked-after children are because of movements between different foster carers disrupting their education (and not just their education, but their friendships and sense of belonging).

I wouldn't overthink this. If you both were to die, social services are likely to ask family first anyway, unless you put something in writing to say you don't want them to go to aunt and uncle. If they were willing, presumably (and I don't know for sure), then social services would place with family as this seems to be the norm. Further, if you are wanting them to go into care thinking that will mean they stay locally, that is quite unlikely from what I have seen (I work for the LA although not in social care). They could be placed anywhere within the county and possibly even further afield. I would like to think that there would be some effort made to allow them to remain in contact with friends but logistics will always dictate to what extent.

i think family would be preferrable

there may be no long term foster carers in your specified area

I don’t doubt it but there still remains the glaringly obvious fact that they are in care for a reason and that reason is going to be traumatic.

As I’ve said I’m not making any hasty decisions but I also don’t think it’s an ‘of COURSE BIL is the best choice’ situation.

This. Anything can happen to children in care. And they might not even be able to stay in their school/area anyway. They'll go where there are foster parents. I know a lot of people who foster and from what I've seen, it usually comes with a change of school.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I would make sure they went to someone I could trust, even if that one person was in a different country. I wouldn't roll the dice in the hope that they would end up with nice strangers.

Unless you can find a good friend willing to take them on, the reality is that social care will ask your bil and sil (or grandparents?) if they would take them. They can't be forced to say yes though. A sensible way forward would be to speak to your relatives and sound out their thoughts - it won't necessarily lead to a firm commitment but at least you'd have an idea. The reality is children age all the time, people's life circumstances change or they die. Nothing is or can be put in stone.

We faced the possibility of taking on 4, on top of our own 2. I'll tell you that if it had come to it (they are all over 18 now), there's no way I'd have moved to their area. It would have been shared bedrooms and new schools for them. And presumably the same for my two. Buying a bigger house wouldn't necessarily be an option, depending on house prices - using any inheritance to fund their needs and support them to live an interesting life would have been my focus. (Who might be in the picture to take care of your inlaws' children by the way?)