Wills and guardianship

[glitterglitters]

Expecting our second child and I've brought up the subject with dh again about sorting out guardianship for our children.

How did you decide who to choose?

We're in a tricky situation that my side family are a LOT older than us so it feels unfair to put that pressure onto people who would be that elderly (df could potentially be 80!) or my sister who has already had her children and would be in her 60s potentially. Nephews and nieces of a similar age to us but live elsewhere and are just starting their own families etc.

Dh's parents are younger than mine but again still seems unfair to put the pressure on them if they are say... in their 70s.

Dh's brother lives the other side of the country and Id want dcs to be closer to more of their family.

And none of our friends really share our parenting values. Plus I'd rather they were with family.

And dh just wants to deny the whole thing could happen. 🙈

We've not sorted this out for our DS yet...But...me and DH are the named guardians for my niece (my brother's daughter), and I'm wondering whether there will be any expectation from my brother that the arrangement could be reciprocal. I really hope not because my SIL is a nutjob and I'd much rather my 2nd brother and his wife were named guardians for our DS (my 2nd brother and I are more similar in world outlook)! I know its all hypothetical etc but I don't want to piss anyone off...

@clarabellski it's a bit of a minefield isn't it? 🙈

We've not sorted this out yet and dd is 20m.
We've discussed it many times and I think it would be my MIL for the next 10 years or so, then SIL after that (she's a bit young atm)

It is hard, not because we're in denial - both of us grew up in single parent families due to death - but because it's so hard to choose. Location, relationship, values etc etc. Bloody nightmare.

Haha, totally!!!

Think I'll just stick my head in the sand again....

Yes it's hard, we can't decide either :(

We opted out completely of choosing and just a note in our will saying we would like them to stay with family (essentially one of our siblings) as we felt we couldn't ask anyone to commit to being a guardian now when their circumstances might be quite different when (if!) it happens.

At the min its my younger sister as like you OH siblings and my other siblings are too old / have teens already.
We have nephews and nieces planning to start families soon so we will prob change it in a few yrs if they agree to it.

I've put my sister in our will and she's threatening to bump us off so she can have ds now 'while he's malleable'.

DH's parents are in their 70s and MIL has health issues so they're out, my mum is also 70s and wouldn't cope long term with ds.

I always wanted my sister but was worried DH would want his brother and SIL but he was happy with my choice. He'll pretend otherwise if I ever say anything about them but he agrees with me that they're the last people we want our son left with.

She's got serious MH issues and he's an arrogant twunt. It's not the MH that makes me not like her btw - although it'd be a factor regardless as I doubt she'd want to inherit a nephew - it's the fact they never visit, respond to invites, reply to DH's attempts to see DNs. I 100 % disagree with their parenting - that I've seen anyway as we do hardly see them.

I know my sister would spoil DS but essentially she's on the same page as me.

I'm in a friend's will if anything happens to her and her DP as she's estranged from her mum, her dad is alcoholic and her siblings don't bother with her or her dad and her DP is an only child with no living parents. Obviously I hope nothing happens to them but it feels good to know they'd trust me to bring up their DD.

No one will know unless you actually die, so it doesn't matter about offending people- the only people who will know are the ones you ask.
The care is needed from now until at least the eldest sibling is eighteen, so the guardian needs to be reasonably well for the next 16-20 years.
We asked a friend who lives nearby, so the children wouldn't have needed to change schools etc. I never asked who she named for her children.
The guardian can of course choose someone else to actually parent the children, and they would oversee it. So if your parents were too elderly they could nominate another relative and 'manage' the arrangement.