The busy season is here. You’re resetting your family for fall.
School is back. Daycare schedules are changing. Sports and activities are starting. There are carpools, babysitters, playdates and afternoons at friends’ houses.
Some days, it may feel like your kids spend more waking hours somewhere else than they do with you.
As you’re filling out school forms, updating calendars and getting everyone back into a routine, there’s one more thing worth adding to your Back to School checklist:
Do you know who would care for your kids if something happened to you? Even right away?
You’ve most likely heard about the importance of choosing a guardian to raise your children if you die. And long-term guardians are incredibly important. They are the people who would love, raise and care for your kids if you weren’t here.
But there’s another question that doesn’t get nearly as much attention:
Who Cares for Your Children in the Meantime?
Imagine something happens to you while your children are at school, daycare, practice, or a friend’s house. Your long-term guardians may live nearby—or they may live several hours away. Either way, they may not be able to get to your kids immediately.
Who would care for your children in those first few hours or days?
Your Emergency Contact Isn’t Always the Answer. They May Not Have the Legal Authority.
Every September, parents fill out forms asking for emergency contacts and authorized pickup people.
Maybe you list Grandma. Your sister. Your neighbor. Your best friend who lives five minutes away.
That’s important information to provide. But there’s an important distinction:
Being listed as an emergency contact or authorized pickup person does not necessarily give someone the legal authority to act as your child’s short-term guardian if something happens to you.
A short-term guardian is someone you have intentionally chosen and legally authorized to step in temporarily—providing care for your children until their long-term guardians can take over.
That distinction matters because the person who is closest or easiest to reach in an emergency isn’t always the person you’ve legally designated to care for your children.
What Could Happen If You Can’t Pick Them Up and You Haven’t Named Guardians?
- The school starts by following its procedures and contacting the people you’ve authorized as emergency contacts. But if you’re unable to care for your children for an extended period, simply being an emergency contact may not give someone the legal authority they need to care for your kids.
- If you haven’t legally named guardians, the authorities could take your children into the custody of the Department of Children and Families.
- Ultimately, a judge may need to determine who should care for your children.
- The court’s job is to make a decision based on your children’s best interests. But the judge doesn’t know your family the way you do.
- The person the court chooses may not be the person you would have chosen.
And even if you have legally named long-term guardians, there’s another practical question: How quickly can they get there?
If your brother in New York is your chosen long-term guardian, for example, he can’t necessarily be standing at your child’s school in Massachusetts that afternoon.
Naming short-term guardians addresses this gap and ensures that your children are always being cared for by people you (and your kids) know and trust.
At The Parents Estate Planning Law Firm, we focus on helping young families create a plan that includes both long and short-term guardians. We create a unique Kids Protection Plan so you can have peace of mind knowing your kids will always be taken care of by people you know.
Who Should You Choose?
This is often where parents get stuck. Thinking about who will take care of your kids if you can’t is one of the hardest decisions a parent can make and it’s often a barrier to getting this important planning started. There are so many questions:
- Who should raise our kids?
- Should we choose family or friends?
- What if our first choice lives far away?
- What if my spouse and I don’t agree?
- Who should we choose as our child’s short-term guardian?
- How many short-term guardians should we have?
Here’s the good news: You don’t need to have all the answers before you start planning.
Helping you work through those questions is part of what we do. We will walk you through these decisions and help you make the right choices for your family.
As you reset your family for Fall, add one more thing to your Back-to-School checklist:
- Purchase school supplies.
- Update the calendar with schedules.
- Make sure there is a plan for the kids – no matter where they are.
If you don’t have an estate plan yet, or you’re not sure whether your current plan addresses both short- and long-term guardians, we’re here to help.
Call us at 978-263-6900 or book a complimentary 15-minute call to get started.
