Guardianship Planning for Divorced and Blended Families

If you are a divorced parent of a minor child (or thinking about divorce), you want to be absolutely clear you know who will raise your child(ren) if something happens to you. 

Absent unfitness of your ex-spouse and termination of parental rights, chances are that if something happened to you, your children would go to live permanently with their surviving parent.  It is still critically important to engage in guardianship planning for your child’s ultimate protection in case your ex-spouse is out of town, unfit or happens to be in an accident at the same time or shortly after you. 

If your ex-spouse is out of town and something tragic happens to you, who would take temporary guardianship of your children until your ex-spouse could arrive to take permanent custody?

If you have not named temporary guardians for your child, she could end up in the care of strangers or someone you would never want until your ex-spouse can be located.  To ensure this never happens, your selections for temporary guardians should be memorialized in writing so that the authorities would be able to honor your wishes as quickly as possible.

If by strange circumstance, you and your ex-spouse should perish or be in an accident within a short amount of time of each other, you will need to have both temporary and permanent guardians named in a comprehensive Kids Protection Plan® for your children to ensure their care by the people you want. 

Generally speaking, the documented guardian nominations of the last parent to die would be honored.  In the case the order of death cannot be determined, it is of some importance that your guardian nominations are cohesive with your ex-spouse to prevent drawn out litigation between your individual nominees. 

And here’s something to consider … there’s a good chance your ex-spouse has not named guardians, which means your decisions would control if you do it and your ex does not, so to make sure your wishes are honored, be the one to take action.

Finally, if your ex-spouse is an unfit parent and parental rights have not yet been terminated, you should memorialize the reasons that your children should not be placed with your ex-spouse (i.e. circumstances that may warrant Child Protective Service’s involvement).  This way, you can let the court know that your children may be placed in harms way if given to the other parent and ensure your children will be raised by people of your choice. 

Guardianship nomination is one of the most important actions you can take to ensure the well-being and care of your children by the people you want and great care should be taken to be sure this most important issue is handled correctly.  Traditional estate planning attorneys simply do not think through all of the planning issues that arise with young children in the home, so be sure you are working with an attorney specifically trained in meeting the needs of families like yours, such as a Personal Family Lawyer®.