Estate Planning: Your Final Responsibility

Estate planning is really your final responsibility to your children. American’s like to guard their children. I like to guard my children. It is really true that there is no scorn like a woman’s scorn. You can insult me, and I will quite easily forgive and forget, but don’t take on my children, you will have an enemy for life. Just ask David Letterman about a woman’s scorn. I’m sure he has told any number of Sarah Palin jokes, but once he started in on her daughter, things became really ugly, and I think most American’s were disgusted with Letterman’s joke no matter which daughter it involved. With Letterman’s apology the whole incident may be ended, but I’ll bet Sarah Palin won’t easily forget, after all it was her daughter that was insulted.

It is interesting to me that with all the time and effort we give to our children, many of us neglect estate planning our final financial responsibility to our children. As an estate planning attorney, I often see real family tragedies involving children whose parents have not taken the time to protect them before they were orphaned.

If you have children or grandchildren, take the time to protect them. The problems and pain that are caused when you neglect making a will and appointing guardians just aren’t worth it. If you carefully do your estate planning, you will have a great deal of control over what happens to your children after you die and serious court battles will be avoided. The judge handling matters for your children will appreciate every word you write to give him direction. After all, these are your last words concerning your most precious earthly possession- your children. About 95 percent of the wills that appoint guardians fail miserably to adequately protect the children and give parents a clear shot at influencing a judge. The wills simply aren’t written well. My book Protecting Your Financial Future walks through the provision that you need in your will to adequately guard your children.