Estate planning is important after numerous major life milestones, such as becoming a parent. Children rely entirely on their parents for care and support.
If parents die, children may be at risk of foster placement unless their parents have already named a guardian to care for them. How do new parents choose appropriate guardians to assume responsibility for their children if they die while their children are still minors?
Focus on the future
The closeness of a relationship is an important consideration, but the people closest to a family may not always be appropriate candidates for guardianship due to medical issues or other personal challenges. Parents selecting guardians for their children need to think about the age and health of the people they consider.
They also need to understand a potential guardian’s long-term plans, such as leaving the state for graduate school or starting families of their own. Those plans may not permit them to accept this responsibility. Choosing people who are capable, available and willing to assume authority is critical.
The importance of an alternate
Just as parents never know when something might happen to them, there’s always the possibility of a guardian having a medical emergency or dying before the parents who selected them. It is often advisable to select at least one alternate guardian to name in a will.
Parents may need to have difficult conversations with one another and with the people they consider for this critical role. Adding the right adult as a guardian in your will is an important component of estate planning for new parents.