Do you have a plan on who will raise your kids if something happened to you and your partner?

Question

When my son was a baby we asked my husbands brother and his wife if they would be his godparents and raise him if something happened to us and they happily accepted. He is now 3 and I no longer want my brother in law and sister in law to raise him in that case. They literally live right by us but make no effort to know him or babysit. They are always too busy or they will only do it if it’s a quick thing. They both don’t have any kids of their own and I do not trust them to love and care for him the way I would. My absolute number one choice to raise him would be my sister. I know she would love him as her own but she is single and I would not want to put that burden on her if something happened to us. I know she wants to meet a man and have a family of her own so I don’t want to complicate things for her. Both of our parents are elderly but if i had to choose, I would probably choose my parents my mom is younger 64 but my dad is 75 and his mom and dad are also 75. How did you make your decision? Thank you!
Edit: just FYI I’m aware that “godparents” don’t just automatically just take the kids. It was more of a general term. As I stated in my post, we had asked them if they would raise him should something happen to us… I don’t need a legal lesson.

Answer

Yes, it’s documented in my will that my parents would take the children since they’ve been around the kids the longest and have the best relationship with them. Plus they’re younger than my inlaws. Evaluate who has a strong relationship with your child, who is willing, who has the resources without any life insurance payments, in good health and who has similar values to yours.

Answer

Yes, my parents would take both of our kids if something were to happen to my husband and myself. Aside from us, they are the people who have been around the most and I know they could easily provide for, take care of, and love my babies and raise them right. Plus it helps that my parents are very young, my mom is only 45 and my dad is 47 (my mom had me at 19), so I know they could easily still keep up with young children if they ever needed to step in, god forbid.

Answer

Where i am from godparents have 0 legal obligations unless they are written in a will as a next of kin for the children. We had the same discussion about the godparents to our oldest daughter and once we found out that they would not be responsible for our children we had conversations with my parents who are the legal next of kin for us

Answer

We would have my best friend we know she would treat her like her own and that she would have the best life full time with her. We also have that her godfather could have her for long summer visits or weekends if he wanted and if grandparents are around they would still be hands on. I’m estranged from my family so we wanted i writing so my
Family couldn’t try stepping in.

Answer

We made a will before having kids and had chosen my MIL to raise them should something happen to us. 
Now that we have a baby, we will amend it. My SIL had babies when we wrote up the will and was overwhelmed, she didn’t seem like a good choice then but motherhood has grown on her and MIL is getting old. 
My dad would manage financials for our LO.

Answer

We had a will written once our child was born. We specified everything and asked our good friends to be the legal god parents. You don’t have to tell your brother that you changed your mind, just have the lawyer document what you want.

Answer

Godparents and legal guardians are 2 completely separate things.  If something should happen to you and your spouse the kids don't automatically go to the God parents.   It needs to be in writing who they'd go to because they can, in fact, become wards of the state if it's not legally documented.  Talk about it again and discuss it with your sister if that's who you really want amd get your wills drawn up.

Do you have a plan on who will raise your kids if something happened to you and your partner?

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