How do you choose who is guardian for your children
Rain clouds post about wills reminded me that we really need to get ours sorted now we've moved house.
We have discussed it before with each other but the problem we have is who would have our children if something happened to both of us.
for various reasons we wouldn't want either of our parents or siblings, so it would have to be a friend.
But how can you ask somebody to do that? We have good friends but to ask someone to bring up two children and the amount of responsibility that is is huge. I hate even asking someone to babysit for an hour!! If they already have children of their own, for them to add an extra two kids to their family would affect the house and car they need and have a big impact on their own children's hone life. at the end of the day, if they had wanted an extra two children they would have their own.
If it's someone without children, then again it's a big impact on their life, and means it would affect them having children of their own later as they would already have two to look after so again they would end up with a big family.
i just don't see how I could ever ask someone to do such a huge job, but we know we have to as otherwise they will be placed with a family member and we really don't want that.
Not sure of the point of this post really, it's just something I've bee wondering for a while and need to sort out but i have no idea what to do
Replies
We asked a couple who are very good friends of ours, they're a little older than us, they're children are grown up, Z loves them, and they are Christians like us as we want her to be brought up in our faith. We didn't ask our families for this reason. We just said they could think about it, wouldn't be offended if they said no etc. They were delighted and said yes straight away!
It's so hard isn't it? We have briefly spoken about it. We're not sure about our parents as mine are in their 60s and H's in their 70s. H wants his sisters, but in truth I'm not sure I'd want them bringing up my child. They are both lovely but their parenting styles are very different to what mine are. I know they'd love him though so does that matter? I also worry about my side not getting to see L if he lived with them. H's sisters are quite confident and say what they think whereas my family, particularly my mum, are more likely to step back, and id hate to think they wouldn't see him. I have two brothers but one still lives with my parents and isn't in a position to bring up a child. My other brother lives with his girlfriend who doesn't want children.
Also, circumstances change so would the will need changing regularly? How do you 'choose' between the two sides of family? And how many guardians do you put down? Could you do someone from each side? It's a minefield.
It's a huge minefield RC, that's why we keep putting it off as we just don't know of anyone who we think we could ask. But I know we need to or they would end up going to someone we didn't want. I really don't know what we will do
We recently did ours and faced a similar dilemma. In the end what we decided was that it wasn't actually as important to us who brought them up, but more that they stayed in the same area with people they knew, particularly now C is in school. Circumstances change so we didn't want to name any individuals in case their health failed etc. and they wouldn't really be able to look after them, but felt that they had to. In the end we've put in a note saying that we'd like immediate family to discuss between themselves who would be in the best position to look after them, with the priority being that they stayed in the same area and preferably in their own house. We wanted all avenues to be explored, including close family friends to prevent them going into the care system. My mother was quite upset that I didn't name my brother, who doesn't have children, but considering he has nothing to do with them and has to be hassled to even buy them a birthday present, I made it clear that unless he would be prepared to relocate, that wouldn't be an option. I can't think of anything worse than them losing their parents and be forced to leave their home, friends and family in one area to start a new life somewhere else, with people they hardly know. We also stated that whatever decision was made, they were to have regular contact with the other side of the family.
They are only your wishes anyway. If there's a dispute it will go to court and they will rule who gets them, has access etc.
This is something we need to sit down and discuss as we need to do our wills once we move house. I only have one sister and H has 3 brothers. They are all happily married with children of their own and, to be honest, any set would be more than capable of looking after ours. Having said that, I have a natural draw to my sister, but H would have a natural draw to one of his brothers. My sister isn't local, however, whereas H's brothers are. I wouldn't want to pick one brother over the others, nor would I want to pick one set of parents over the other. It's really difficult.
Thanks little welsh one. I hadn't even thought about the upheaval of them moving location. Interesting to know you can put wishes and ideas down too. I didn't know this. More to think a bout, thank you.