Monday, March 19, 2012

Taking Care of Business

Every now and then, parent have to do something responsible.  Well Demi and I covered that and then some today.  We update our estate planning.  Update is the key word.  We acted responsibly years ago and created an estate plan.  Admittedly, we were long overdue to review it and make updates.  We took a good hard look at it.  We met with our lawyer and reviewed our options.  Then we chose a path, laid out the critical data and elements, and started forward.  Today we took a big step towards finalizing the new plan.  It felt like closing on a house.  In fact, I think we signed more documents today than we have in either of our mortgage transactions.
One more round and we are done.
     I would urge all parents to enact some kind of estate plan.  If nothing else, devise a list of guardians for your children.  Now is a good time, since new laws were enacted to cover guardianship for our kids in a variety of circumstance.  You can now name a temporary guardian if you are out of the country, or otherwise temporarily unavailable.  You can designate a guardian in case you are temporarily incapacitated.  I do believe it is a parents responsibility to provide that security for your children in the event of unforeseen circumstances.  That means providing financially, physically, and emotionally.  Do you really want to leave it in the hands of strangers and the courts?  Do you really want your surviving loved ones to have to deal with endless amounts of red tape? Wouldn't you rather dictate the terms of these things?  Protecting your kids from beyond?  I know my answers to these questions.  Do you?

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