How to choose guardians?

[Lazydaisydaydream]

My DH and I need to write wills, we have been putting it off for years and due to recent personal events we want to get it sorted ASAP.

We have a DS who is 2, and I am currently 33 weeks pregnant with our second child. The point at which we always get stuck when discussing the will is who to appoint as guardians for our children in the circumstance that we both died. Basically how do you decide who to appoint? How much did you discuss it with them beforehand?

Our main options:

1. either of our sets of parents. Unfortunately both have various health issues and I don't think could cope with two children full time.
2. DHs sister and her husband - don't have their own children and frankly don't seem to want children, plus they have some odd ideas about raising children.
3. DHs brother. Probably the family member who spends the most time with our son. No long term relationship or children of his own, loves our DS but honestly I think his parents would end up taking over.
4. my sister and her husband. They have three children of their own. Live overseas so we only see them a few times a year, but they have very similar parenting style to us.

We just seem to get to the point of listing pros and cons of each one and then never deciding and getting any further! It's just such a hard thing to think about. How do people decide this?!

Any advice gratefully received 🤞

This was tough for us too. My parents are younger than DPIL, but still late 50s. My sister would take DC in a heartbeat and would be fabulous at it, but she's 24, renting in London, working in events and living her absolutely dream life and getting custody of a bunch of kids would completely torpedo her whole world.

In the end, we went for my cousin and her husband. They've got similar aged DC, they're in a similar position to us, so we agreed to do it for each other.

If my sister ends up in a position where DC wouldn't be hugely disruptive to her way of life, we'd switch to her.

Most importantly we've made sure that our mortgage is covered by our life insurance, and we're working hard to maximise our equity, so if something did happen, whoever ended up with DC would be able to use some of the proceeds from our house sale to set the new family up in a suitable situation (overseen by our executor, who is absolutely not guardian material but would walk through fire to make sure the kids were OK)

I might add, if it helps, that it was the hardest decision I've ever made and i cried every time i thought about it.

The guardian isn't necessarily the person who will look after the child. The guardian is a representative for the child(ren) in court when decisions are being made. So choose on the basis of who would make the best decision for them, rather than who would make the best substitute parents.

In reality even if you name a specific person/couple in your will to look after the child, this would be overruled if it was felt somebody else would be more suitable.

For me, the choice was always going to be one of my three sisters and my dh was in agreement.
They're similar in age to me, have their own dc so dd would always be around her cousins.
The hardest part was choosing a sister. I sat down with a list, and made the decision of the one who had the closest parenting style to me.
Dh parents were never an option, as I don't believe they'd keep the communication open with my family so she'd still have a relationship with them.
My mum also wasn't an option as she spent her life raising four children, mostly on her own and as much as I know she would take her in a heartbeat, she deserves to enjoy her child free time now.
Dh brother morning as option, I don't think he's spent more than 5 minutes around my dd since she was born. She's 19 months now.

Our options are all basically too old or too poor for additional children so fuck knows.

We didn't go with parents as too old.

I have 2 sisters, one is early twenties responsible still lives at home, the other loves DS but has a chaotic life with SA involved.

DH has one married brother who lives in a tiny flat.

We have given joint guardianship to DH brother and my younger sister as we trust them to make a good decision based on all info at the time it is ever needed

I know what you mean; we’ve had similar conversations. We ended up deciding on my pil as they are relatively young energetic grandparents compared to my mum despite only being a couple of years younger. Also my sister would need to use a significant chunk of our life insurance to get a bigger house and pay childcare whereas pil have the space and wouldn’t need to pay for childcare. My sister also works (which is fine, I work too) but I wouldn’t want two recently bereaved children to be in full time childcare.
We will revisit it as our children get older and based on pil health etc. My biggest fear is my sil ending up with them as for various reasons I would not want that so that prompted us to make a firm decision- not sure how to tell the people we haven’t chosen though.

It’s a horrible decision to make, our parents are in their 70s and our siblings live overseas and have no relationship with our daughter.

We considered friends but at this point have gone with my parents and will review our situation again in the future. It’s an evolving situation what’s right now won’t be right in 10 years time. Just put who is best for the next 5 years.

We're in the same boat, although we would be screwed, I've no parents, and his are too old and not who we would choose anyway,
he's got a brother who has 2 kids but just getting divorced and has gone bankrupt and also hes defo not suitable due to parenting style and lifestyle,
So that leaves us with friends, but we don't have couple freinds that we both have equal friendships with or feel that we could ask as theve got there own kids, full time jobs, commitments. It's horrible and I dread to think what would happen if anything happened to me and dh in a freak accident or something, our babies are our world.
Goodluck xx

We were in the lucky position of having several siblings and cousins - all with similar aged children. We asked the ones that lived the nearest and that have an approach to parenting that is most like ours.

Think about friends too though- it doesn't have to be a relative. I had a couple of friends who I would trust completely to do probably a better job than us!!

Have you actually spoken to your sister or DH's brother to see if they are willing to be named guardians? If either is not keen then that could help your decision. If they are willing it sounds like your sister would be the best option. Have you got decent life insurance?

We went for friends, best man and his wife in fact. Their children are a little older than ours, so we've got decent life insurance to compensate for the extended parenting they'll have to do. 5 year gap between their youngest and our youngest. We thought parents would be too old, all in their 70s. We have 3 siblings between is but none of them were as suitable as our friends for a number of reasons.

It was such a hard decision and was the one thing putting us off sorting our wills for years. Was very relieved to have done it in the end.

We're in an almost identical situation to you op, even the kids ages!

My parents and my MIL- both great options in terms of love and affection but mid 60's and realistically in 20 years max our kids would be facing heartache once again. They'd have them in a heartbeat but at their time of life it isn't fair to them I don't think

My brother and his family are out, they don't have same values as us, and struggle to cope with their own kids. In debt and make stupid lifestyle choices that get them further in a hole

My BIL and family share our values, and live in same city as us but they keep the extended family at arms length. I have no doubt they would not maintain a decent relationship with grandparents.

I have 2 very good mates who I think would be the best fit and I plan on asking them both and then making a decision. Values and lifestyles similar to ours, financially secure, young kids who my kid is friends with who would grow up alongside them.

We've both got separate life insurance policies - one which would pay off the mortgage and then the other would provide a lump sum. My plan would be to leave the house to the kids (and ask my parents or BIL to oversee tenants, for a cut of the income) and then leave the cash lump sum (think is £350k) to whoever took on the kids so they could move / afford to raise them

Our solicitor was very clear that we were appointing people we trust to make the decisions about what is in the best interests of the children but that we cannot legally say they must live with them. On this basis we chose my mum with our best friends as back up who have kids a similar age (and a reciprocal arrangement). We both have younger siblings who are not well placed to take on kids now (students etc) but may well be in a few years. We trust my mum and friends to make a good judgment call as to whether they themselves, my in laws or one of our siblings would be better placed to take care of the kids. My in laws may be well suited in some circumstances to have the kids to live with them but they are not our first choice (they live abroad) and in the midst of grief we weren’t convinced they would follow our wishes for the kids to remain living in their own home if possible (this could be financially made possible with life insurance) or to see anyone else as better suited to looking after them. We spoke to everyone potentially relevant about it, some very briefly (siblings) and more in depth with my mum and our friends. We also told my in laws tactfully that we had written our wills, these are the guardians etc. It seemed best that in the unlikely scenario we both die that the contents of our will isn’t a surprise to those not named - though they may have forgotten but we tried!
Goodluck with your decision.

thank you everyone, there are some really good points here for us to think about! I hadn't realised about them not necessarily living with the guardian. That might make me more likely to choose my parents as feel they would be in best position to decide on the children moving to be with my sister or staying here depending on circumstances at the time etc.

We have good life insurance cover, so the money side is covered but @user1493413286 makes a great point about not wanting that to be eaten up purely in my sister needing to buy a bigger house etc.

Unfortunately we don't have any friends we are close enough to for this, the only couple we would consider live overseas and I think would struggle to maintain links with our families.

@Somethingorotherorother this decision actually causes me heartache when I think about it, so I know how you feel.

Thinking about it in terms of "this is our 5 year plan" will definitely help I think, and reassess as time goes on.