“Guardianships” Can Be Tragic If Established “After The Fact”

One of the most gut wrenching parts of being an estate planning attorney is when someone doesn’t have a plan in place for “guardianship” of their children. It is the one area that is heartbreaking when I see it happen. When it isn’t dealt with before the fact, the “after the fact” situation can be downright tragic.  What brings me to tears is that it doesn’t have to be this way and the ones that suffer are the children.

I have my own personal side of this as well that you might have already read about in “my story” about why I started this blog and about my own story of being an orphan. If you read about my background and why I became an estate planning attorney you will understand my passion for this practice area.

Sadly, I recently read the account of exactly my fears for people coming to reality, “Oregon Couple Swept Out to Sea After Picnic with Their 10-Year-Old Daughter,” in People. This is about a couple that was out for a family picnic with some friends at the ocean in Oregon. Apparently they were walking along the rocky shore and even doing some fishing along the way with their friends and 10 year old daughter. As someone who has spent (and still spends) a great amount of time in Oregon, the coast and ocean can be very unsuspectingly dangerous. One minute it is calm and serene and the next violent and unforgiving. It is the ocean after all and very powerful.

Apparently, while the couple was heading back up from fishing and playing near the water and some rocks, the couple, Miaochan Chen, 49, and Wenjun Zhu, 41, of Lake Oswego, Oregon were swept away. They were found by the authorities a little later and pronounced dead at the hospital, immediately leaving their 10 year old daughter orphaned.  She is orphaned because there weren’t any estate plan documents in place for this vital contingency.  No one can know now for certain who will raise this child, most children end up in at least temporary foster care.

THIS DOESN’T (SHOULDN’T) NEED TO HAPPEN TO ANY CHILD.

I wrote an article, actually a self-administered checklist and guide that EVERY PARENT should download and work through to ensure something like this doesn’t happen to their children. The article, “You’re Gone…Who Get’s the Kids?,” can be easily downloaded from my blog site. I can’t emphasize this enough…get the article and make sure you have the proper strategy (personal and legal) in place so this never happens to you or your loved ones.

As a side note, I urge you to please share this with any other families you know with minor children. Give them the link to the article and have them download it. If we all help each other out, none of us will ever have to go through this horrific situation of having our children orphaned because the proper planning wasn’t done up front. When you have gone through this checklist/guide and have put everything in place, you, too, can make it much more likely that you will have NO. MORE.TEARS.