For the children’s sake

Clara Wiggins urges parents to prepare for an untimely, if unlikely, death.

Choosing someone to look after your children if you die is a vital decision.

That realization hit my husband and me hard a few years ago when my brother died of a heart attack and hadn’t left a will. He was survived by the mother of his two children. But that event, coupled with the fact my husband’s job as a police officer takes us to dangerous locations, made us realize we needed to prepare.

All of us — especially parents — need to prepare for life after our deaths. Most importantly, we need to think about who we want to have raise our kids.

We narrowed the choice to two of my siblings. But asking someone to take on two extra children — even if the chances are slim that both of us would die before they’re grown — is no trivial matter. There are many considerations, including who would look after them in a parenting style similar to yours, what would happen with their education or even who has room in their house.

We chose the brother nearest to my parents, who could provide additional support. He and his wife said yes when we broached the sensitive question with them; I’m not sure what we would have done if they had said no.

Given how hard it is to nominate your child’s guardian, I wondered what would happen if you die before making this choice.

Gina M. Spada, a lawyer who works on guardianship, says choosing a guardian is one of the most contentious issues for parents drafting a will. But even with a will, she says, it’s still up to a family court to make the decision.

“Guardianship is decided based on what is in the best interests of the child,” Spada says. “However, without a nominated guardian, the court has no information of the parents’ wishes to consider.”

She emphasized that it’s still important to put your decision in your will because “an informal nomination would hold very little weight with the court.”

I asked her what would happen if the people you asked didn’t want to do it.

“He or she is under no obligation to accept. It would certainly not be in the best interests of the child for the court to appoint a guardian who does not want children,” Spada says.