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My Best Friend Refuses to Be My Kid’s Designated Guardian
Dear Care and Feeding,
I’m a single mom of an amazing 6-year-old boy. I asked my best friend if she would be his guardian if anything happened to me, and she said no.
She’s always said she didn’t want children, but she’s so great with my son that it really shocked me when she turned me down. I’m not close to my family, and I wouldn’t want them raising him because of our different values. My son’s father has never been in the picture; he would have absolutely no interest in raising my son, and I wouldn’t want him to. My friend has babysat my son and even had him for weekends, so I know how good she is with him and he loves her. She is a great person, but not conventionally attractive, and she’s never been in a relationship. I think she’s always said she didn’t want children because she knew that wasn’t in the cards for her. Maybe it has become such a habit that she actually believes it now. I think she would make a wonderful mother.
She’s the only person I want to raise my son if I’m not around, so I’m thinking I have two options: 1) Work on convincing her. She always comes around if I keep at her long enough. Or 2) Drop it for now, and express my preference in my will and leave a sealed letter detailing why she’s the only person I trust with my son. Which option is best? Or is there a better way to convince my friend that she should take my son? I’m not ill or dying, I just want this sorted out for my peace of mind.
—Please Be My Son’s Guardian
Dear Please,
Both of these “options” are absolutely appalling! Don’t attempt to pester or guilt your friend into changing her mind, and don’t just make her de facto guardian without her consent! NEITHER. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I think you might be working from a very strange definition of “friendship”—perhaps it’s worth stopping to ask yourself whether you’re really this person’s friend. Do you respect her and what she says? Do you genuinely value her as a person and care about what she wants? Or are you only interested in getting what you want from her?
I’m not even going to go into your bizarre, condescending theory that she only said she doesn’t want children because … she’s not conventionally attractive??? Instead, let us focus on the actual facts: Being good with your kid, babysitting him on the occasional weekend, even caring for and loving him, is not the same thing as being his parent. Your friend has told you that she doesn’t want to be your son’s guardian. Even if you are right that she would be a wonderful mother, that is not what she wants. You asked; she said no; that should be the end of it. Respect her, respect her decision, and make a different guardianship plan.
I’m a single mom of an amazing 6-year-old boy. I asked my best friend if she would be his guardian if anything happened to me, and she said no.
She’s always said she didn’t want children, but she’s so great with my son that it really shocked me when she turned me down. I’m not close to my family, and I wouldn’t want them raising him because of our different values. My son’s father has never been in the picture; he would have absolutely no interest in raising my son, and I wouldn’t want him to. My friend has babysat my son and even had him for weekends, so I know how good she is with him and he loves her. She is a great person, but not conventionally attractive, and she’s never been in a relationship. I think she’s always said she didn’t want children because she knew that wasn’t in the cards for her. Maybe it has become such a habit that she actually believes it now. I think she would make a wonderful mother.
She’s the only person I want to raise my son if I’m not around, so I’m thinking I have two options: 1) Work on convincing her. She always comes around if I keep at her long enough. Or 2) Drop it for now, and express my preference in my will and leave a sealed letter detailing why she’s the only person I trust with my son. Which option is best? Or is there a better way to convince my friend that she should take my son? I’m not ill or dying, I just want this sorted out for my peace of mind.
—Please Be My Son’s Guardian
Dear Please,
Both of these “options” are absolutely appalling! Don’t attempt to pester or guilt your friend into changing her mind, and don’t just make her de facto guardian without her consent! NEITHER. NO. ABSOLUTELY NOT. I think you might be working from a very strange definition of “friendship”—perhaps it’s worth stopping to ask yourself whether you’re really this person’s friend. Do you respect her and what she says? Do you genuinely value her as a person and care about what she wants? Or are you only interested in getting what you want from her?
I’m not even going to go into your bizarre, condescending theory that she only said she doesn’t want children because … she’s not conventionally attractive??? Instead, let us focus on the actual facts: Being good with your kid, babysitting him on the occasional weekend, even caring for and loving him, is not the same thing as being his parent. Your friend has told you that she doesn’t want to be your son’s guardian. Even if you are right that she would be a wonderful mother, that is not what she wants. You asked; she said no; that should be the end of it. Respect her, respect her decision, and make a different guardianship plan.
no subject
But I guess I just wanted to point out that there's a tendency in childfree-related discussions to focus on people who either absolutely do not ever want children, or who have circumstances in their life that they don't think will ever allow them to have a child. But there are also lots of childfree people who just feel equivocal about having kids and don't think feeling equivocal is a good enough reason to create a person, and those people can get excluded from discussions and communities by people who think they are supporting childfree.
And there are also lots of people who do have kids already who wouldn't take in someone else's, and that's also valid, and often a very good choice because they wouldn't have the capacity to do right by them. Whether you want to, or feel equipped to, have kids of your own is not really the determiner in whether you can, or want to, take in someone else's kid who needs help. I think both LW and the original answers were ignoring that.
The question of foster care is very complicated and very dependent on individual circumstances. And the percent of foster kids who are abused in placements is much higher than the percent of foster *parents* who are abusive, because the bad placements tend to have much higher turnover (and also a fair amount of abuse of foster kids happens at the hands of older foster kids, and abusive kids also tend to cycle through a lot of placements instead of being helped.) But there are very good reasons why most systems try very hard to keep kids with family or friends when they can, even if the family/friends need more in terms of financial or social assistance.