You can always be there.
From the moment you dash out of bed in the morning to the second you place your tired head back on your pillow at night, you do your best to be a great parent. And you are! You’ve got an action plan for all the days’ happenings from preparing lunches to doctor visits, school projects and birthday parties. But what have you done to prepare for the day you physically can’t be there?
It’s not a pleasant topic, we know.
But although we all cringe at the thought of planning for such misfortune, it lingers in our minds. The harsh reality is that if you don’t plan now, someone else will make decisions on your behalf that will affect your children for the rest of their lives.
Day after day overworked and hurried judges are faced with families that have lost a loved one and must make critical decisions based on limited information. The very decisions you’ve struggled with yourself – like who will be the guardian of your children in your absence and who will make financial decisions for them – may be left up to a stranger who doesn’t know you.
When you decide and legally document who will raise your kids if you can’t, who will make financial decisions for them, and how you want them to be raised, you are doing the right thing by your family.
And it’s about more than a simple document you can download online. Most people believe that a will can solve it all. We’ve had clients who were misled by other sources into thinking that their “simple” Will took care of everything from their children to their finances. Still, we’ve found gaping holes in those “simple” documents that left children without proper care, and family legacies at risk.
A simple will is simply not enough!
Every parent should have a comprehensive plan. And the old “I don’t have much to leave behind” excuse is just not valid. Since when is parenting just about money?