How did you decide who will get "parental responsibility" should you and DP die?

[lovechildofBjork]

Rather a morbid subject, sorry, but I am very aware that DH and I need to make our wills. This will be pretty straightforward, except for the decision of who would take our DC (one now but hopefully there'll be more coming!) should the most awful thing happen.

Parents - my mum is in her early 60's and physically not bad but has long-standing axiety issues that mean she doesn't go out much so isn't well enough.
His mum is 66, in pretty good health but I am aware that she is getting older, 70 is not too far off. Also DH's dad is severely disabled and pretty much dependent.

So the obvious choice of the GP's isn't really suitable. That means we'd need to consider one of DH's brothers (I have no siblings). Two have children, they're nice people, so far so good. But I cannot imagine asking them (someone, anyone really!) if they would be ok taking on our children if we died.
Maybe it's just me, as I would be horrified if someone asked me to do it. DH and I haven't discussed it in any detail, just that maybe a brother would be the best idea.

What have other people done? It's such an awful thing to think about.

Thanks!

We haven't got a specific person lined up, but know that someone in the family would take the DC on. Who it would be would depend on the situation at the time.

As we have four DC, it would be a big deal, so what we have done is ensured that we have good life insurance.

Our wills say dhs oldest brother will be ds's guardian, and they were fine with that.

I'd take in any of my friends or families children if they were orphaned - no question about it.

Again we have a sibling to do the honours.

You do definitely need to talk it all over with your oh.

I wouldn't be horrified if I was asked - if the worst happened, I'd be extremely glad to be able to help their children! The alternative is that the would be fostered out of the family, and I would not want that to happen.

One of ours is severely disabled, and we have even talked about the fact that she might need to go to a residential school if we died, as my sister could not cope with 6 dc's (3 of hers and 3 of mine).

Also, we have left the financial decisions up to her, so she wold be able to use some of our money to buy a bigger house for all her and our children. Locking it in trust is not fair ono the guardians who have to shell out to look after the dc's.

Our wlll state my cousin who is like a sister to me.

My Dad and my MIL are both too old, too far away. My BIL lives in a teeny tiny house, and has not eaten vegtables since 1987. My SIL is a nutcase. Mt brother is a tosser.

I have specified that I want my kid to have lots on contact with thier cousins on both sides.

It's not easy, is it? We asked a close friend to do it. The family members either wouldn't be in a position to do it or have beliefs and values that are too different to ours.

It's a big ask. Not only would they be taking on another child/children, but it would be a child who needs lots of extra support. If you think about it, the child would be bereaved and and dealing with either the shock of both parents' sudden death or the trauma of living through parents' terminal illness. Not easy.

DH and I have not discussed this yet (pregnant with first) but I am dreading the conversation. I would come back and haunt DH's family from the grave if they took my children. But clearly he's not going to see it the same way.

It really worries me as I don't want to fight with DH about an unlikely, worst case scenario. But I feel really strongly about it.

Did anyone else have this problem?

I am named as the parental guardian for my DB and SIL. They asked me, I said yes, and then I started getting various bits of financial information for my records.

Hi, I'm a will writer & family lawyer so this comes up a lot in my work.

Most people do appoint their siblings as guardians, however it's not that unusual to appoint close friends. If your siblings live a long way away and moving to live with them would cause massive upheaval, particularly for older & teenage children, then it can be better to appoint friends who live locally so that there is continuity in terms of school and friends.

You should always ensure that the guardians are not also the executors of your will, ie trustees of the trust fund. If they're the same person, then there's clearly a potential conflict of interest. If the guardians are separate from the trustees, then the trustees agree how much per month or quarter or whatever is taken out of the trust fund for the child's upkeep.

If anyone's interested in making a Will with me, my email addy is [email protected]

GP's not an option for us as both DH's parents are dead and mine are getting on.

We have asked my youngest sister who has no children of her own yet but who I know would do a fantastic job as her views on life are similar to ours.

We ruled out the others for various reasons - enough DC of their own, no maternal inclinations and general self-absorbed weirdness (that covers the rest of our siblings :))

We have asked 2 close friends to be our executors as we trust them to put the children first and fight DSis's corner if need be as at least one sibling might try and cause trouble

FWIW DSis said it was a great honour to be asked and I know I would feel the same if someone asked me.

I have my parents for dc3 & dds gp to their Dad. My parents are early 60s but if they were older/ physically incapable they would make the right choice of my cousins( I'm an only) and wider family

Thanks for the replies. It seems that siblings are the most common. One of my BIL's is also DS's godfather so he would be the obvious choice. Did any of you have an issue with another person being offended that you didn't ask them? I suppose the others never need to know do they? I just can't imagine having the conversation that basically says "can you bring up my child if we can't".
I also wonder if the BIL would then ask us to do the same. Of course I would take on his children if the aternative is them being fostered out of the family. I am just terrified by the thought of it. I find having responsibilty for my own DC scary enough, never mind someone else child too. But of course, this is worse case scenario, prob never likely to happen.
Will remind DH that we need to get onto getting the wills sorted out and remind him of this issue (think we need a bottle of wine at the ready!)

Agree with feetheart - we chose DH's sister for very much the same set of reasons (rest of the family had odd views, odder partners, etc).

But I also knew as a child (I don't know from what age) that if my parents died my Aunt Maggie would look after me, and if she had her husband died then my parents would look after her children. And I found this very reassuring.

BTW, if any of you are interested in making a will with Marlow Wills, the fee for a standard will is £75 for a single, or £130 for a couple.

ds has been 'left' to db, as ds is close to his cousins. Db is also my exor, but so is dbil, so there is a balance there.

My mum was offended that we hadn't asked my brother to have ds 'he loves children you know' - but as that didn't extend to having anything to do with ds (didn't see him till he was 2), it wasn't much of an arguement

Like others, we have my brother and SIL who share our faith and I think are better parents than we are so v happy with that. We are also theirs and we are also appointed for a godson of DH's as his parents weren't able to ask their extended family for various reasons.

BTW, I think it can be important to inform the wider family of your decision - we definitely anticipated opposition from DH's family that we hadn't asked his side so made sure we told them once we'd done it so they don't feel at liberty to contest our wishes if the situation ever arose. We'd love them to stay in close touch with our children if we died but we don't want them to be in loco parentis.

Obviously it's only in an extreme eventuality that it would be needed, but I just think you need to keep it in mind for review in future years as circumstances may change and affect who would be most suitable.