I admit to watching a lot of coverage of Michael Jackson's death. Though his songs were always in the background when I was growing up, I was never a huge fan. So, I'm skipping all the life retrospectives and zeroing in on the sycophants drugging him up and his stomach pumpings.
The child custody angle led to some discussions among friends this weekend. All of them had worries about who would get their kids, if they should push off unexpectedly. Which relatives would be able to handle a disruption in their lives? Who would gladly welcome new kids, and who would perceive it as a burden? One friend was bypassing all the relatives, because they were either crazy, sick, or too involved in sports. Our solution is to be heavily insured; enough money and even the most rigid relative will loosen up.
Apt. 11d 
crazy, sick, or too involved in sports.
I like this description a lot. Unless I otherwise felt good about the relatives, though, I’d worry about the insurance. It sounds way too much like some sort of nasty fairy-tale situation where the kids bring money and then are kept in the basement except when the social-worker comes to look in on them. Better just not to die!
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We have a deal with my sis and her husband, made several years ago. Now, though, hers are college, and who knows if she’d be up for ten more years of pimples and angst. Matt, I’m with you: exercise! vitamins! no skydiving.
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Looking through the list of possibles, the just-don’t-die plan is probably the best one right now. How many parents are blessed to know of another family that is young enough, energetic enough, careful enough, good enough with money, has basically the same values, and loves the kids enough to raise them? (I’ve heard the recommendation that ideally one should choose a guardian for the kids and a separate trustee (if that is the right word) for the money, but we chickened out on that one in our will and just gave both to the same set of people, not wanting to accidentally create some sort of epic Hatfields and McCoys situation.)
The good thing is that it’s very rare for a child to have both parents die at the same time.
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My uncle will handle our estate. My best friend and her husband have 4 children, all within a year of our children. We’re the same religion, hold similar ideas politically, kids attend the same school and are the people we know that could likely handle a big influx of children.
Our relatives would still play a huge role in our children’s lives, but day to day our friends are a better option. Our older kids know, our friends know, but we haven’t spelled it out to all the relatives. We’ve left a pretty extensive letter with our will for the relatives to read. Hopefully, they’ll never see it.
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Amy P, my father practiced family law. His absolute rule was, you must separate custody of the children, and possession of the money. It’s much less tempting for guardians to operate in a system of checks and balances, in which they must present an accounting to another party. If you’re worried that your sister’s (or cousin’s, or aunt’s…) feelings might be hurt by any implied lack of trust on your part, why should you care? In this entirely hypothetical case, you’d be dead, and beyond all blame.
We switched potential guardianship of our children from his sister to my sister. My sister’s children are closer in age to ours, and we live much closer to each other. You don’t need to find the perfect guardian, but you do need to name someone. If you don’t, your least favorite relative may end up raising your children. You can always amend your will if your favorite uncle turns out to have been running a Ponzi scheme.
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“If you’re worried that your sister’s (or cousin’s, or aunt’s…) feelings might be hurt by any implied lack of trust on your part, why should you care? In this entirely hypothetical case, you’d be dead, and beyond all blame.”
I had more in mind that (in our particular case) the prospective trustees and the prospective guardians would have an 80-95% chance of feuding and that could be detrimental to the kids. It’s possible that disagreement could be kept down with clear instructions to the guardian about the insurance money (X thousand dollars a year to defray child-rearing costs, with the trustee’s discretion for extras, with a lump left for college). The prospective guardians have a good income themselves and are careful people and would be very scrupulous kid-raisers, but they’re just not that good with money, and I can easily imagine them sinking it all into some hare-brained investment scheme.
Next time we work on our wills (in a year or two), I’ll let the lawyer talk me into separating the kids and the money.
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Oops. I meant “clear instructions to the trustees,” not guardians.
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We were made (in a will) guardians of my twin cousins, who are a year older than my oldest. We talked about money, since the twins’ grandparents had quite a bit at the time, but now there is no money left, so that’s not an issue.
In our will, we gave the guardianship of the kids to one sister and financial stuff to another (the accountant ;). We don’t have a heck of a lot, but the kids do have 529s and Roths.
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At one point, we were on the hook to receive 7 children of relatives. I had wild thoughts of forbidding the three couples involved any joint air travel or ferry rides. As the children get older, and approach 18, it isn’t as frightening.
Even if there isn’t any money at this point, there could be in the future. Most people don’t tinker with their wills on a regular basis, so I think it’s wise to set things up so that future unpleasantness can be avoided.
Every state is different. In our state, if your spouse dies without a will, the estate’s split between the surviving spouse and the children. That could lead to trouble if, for example, your spouse’s children are products of his first marriage, and his ex-wife has always hated you and your children.
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Even if the kids aren’t products of first marriages, there could be trouble. When my dad was diagnosed with cancer, I made him draw up a will right away (he didn’t have one!). He thought upon his death, the house and his assets would automatically go to my mom. WRONG. I’d read up on NY state estate law when my MIL had died 4 months earlier. If he died without a will, there would be 5 owners of the house–my mom and us 4 children. What a nightmare that would be in court paperwork! Who needs that when you’re already dealing with grief?
And OMG, I’ve been reading TMZ (bad Wendy!) and the MJ situation sounds nightmarish for the children.
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Thanks for the tip to TMZ. (Good Wendy!) Ugh. Just awful.
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