Teach Your Children Crosby, Stills & Nash You who are on the road Must have a code that you can live by And so become yourself Because the past is just a good-bye. Teach your children well, Their father's hell did slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams The one they picks, the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry, So just look at them and sigh And know they love you. And you, of tender years, Can't know the fears that your elders grew by, And so please help them with your youth, They seek the truth before they can die. Teach your parents well, Their children's hell will slowly go by, And feed them on your dreams The one they picks, the one you'll know by. Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you will cry, So just look at them and sigh and know they love you. Songwriters: Graham Nash Teach Your Children lyrics © Spirit Music Group Well, that is a first for me! Yesterday I spent an hour writing a blog post and it was unfortunately deleted. I guess I was destined to rewrite it, so now I am. What are you teaching your kids about strangers? Are you teaching them "stranger danger" or are you teaching them to blindly trust others (strangers)? Are you simply avoiding talking to them about it, altogether, until they are older? Maybe your kids are older and gone, and you already taught them everything you knew to teach them. I'm not going to judge you for something you might or might not have taught your kids. I'm only bringing it up as a segue to talk about estate planning. By now, you may be wondering what this has to do with estate planning. I'll explain. When I was growing up in the 1980's, there were pictures of missing kids on all the milk cartons. There also seemed, due to constant reporting about it via various news outlets, to be what seemed like millions of kids a year abducted from their families. Kidnapped. It was a crime wave of abductions and people were worried. So schools and parents and various levels of government did everything they could to publicize the "stranger danger" saying and programming. Kids (including me and my sister) were trained that the world was teeming with people waiting to abduct us, that all strangers were bad, and that people should not talk to children they didn't know. I don't want to say there was a wholesale panic--we still lived a pretty normal childhood--but we were trained on how to evade kidnappers, seek help, fight back, etc. Come to find out, this was a nationwide phenomenon. From a Wikipedia page: The notion of "stranger danger" has been criticized for positioning children as passive objects of potential threat which allows adults to justify their means of controlling or isolating children. Gill Valentine argues that producing misleading or exaggerated messages about "stranger danger" results in the notion that public spaces are naturally adult spaces where children must be constantly protected.[18] Exaggerated fears of "stranger danger" have caused many parents to limit children's ability to be physically active, such as by exploring their neighborhood unsupervised; for example, fewer parents allow children to walk to school alone than in the past.[10] This increased tendency to keep children indoors has resulted in an alleged nature deficit disorder in children I dont want to talk about the social effects of the moral panic that was present in the 80's, and the ramifications of these things today. The crazy thing is, there was no spike in the number of kidnappings, crime against kids is very rare, and the moral panic of "stranger danger" was not really necessary. [This is not to say that kidnappings of kids is not a problem. It is, and it is a serious one. But overreaction to a "crime wave" of stranger abductions was not a good thing for society].
In response to this issue, we had a family talk when I was a kid, and we came up with a system where, if someone came to school to pick us up, or a stranger approached us and said something like "your mom or dad is hurt, come with us" that we were not allowed to go with them until they provided us with a password. A "code word" that they knew. It was brilliant, really. My sister and I never had to use it, but God help you if you tried to take me and didn't know the code word! In talking with a friend of mine recently, I discovered he is worried about what to teach his son about "stranger danger". Well, I am too, because I have two young daughters! We both knew the 80's "stranger danger" maxim was not statistically a problem. BUT, since we are dads, we care about our kids. I told him I had a code word. He thought that was a great idea. Then he asked me what our code word was. I exclaimed "NO WAY am I giving you my code word. Classified top secret. And you can call my mom or sister and they wont give it up either!" Keep in mind my sister is almost 40. Hey--we were well trained and I cant compromise this type of sensitive info! All joking aside, we then talked about how, as part of your estate plan (will, trusts, and powers of attorney) that our kids have to be taken care of in the very short term, if both parents were to be killed at the same time. My friend sort of scoffed at this suggestion, then I walked him through these logistics:
Sound familiar? Your daycare should have an emergency contact on file. Who is it? Can they really react in an emergency? And if they show up to the daycare to get your kids, because no one showed up to get them and the daycare called the emergency contact, will your kids know that going with that emergency contact is safe (and what you wanted them to do)? Does the emergency contact have your house keys (so they can get in and get all the kids stuff--think medicines, car seats, clothes)? How is your executor notified? Other than the emergency contact who picked your kids up, who legally can take care of your kids long term? When can they get to the kids? Look, I'm sorry to be morbid or disturbing. But as a parent you MUST think about and plan for these things. Even if the situation is not as bad as presented in the lists above, think about what would happen to your kids if you wound up in the hospital overnight. I know many reading this have family close by or trusted neighbors that would swoop in and take care of the kids in an emergency. Many of us, myself included, really don't. This type of planning is something I want to talk to you about. To me, your estate plan is more than just what happens to your house and car. It needs to incorporate what happens to your minor children too. Because if you do not plan for it, and memorialize your plan, the Commonwealth (or city) will make sure the kids are taken care of through the foster care system and various child protective agencies. Why have your kids go through all that? And if you come up with a good code word, make sure your kids know it and do some practice with them on situations where they need to use it.
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AuthorJeff Sodoma, MPA, Esq. is a lawyer based in Virginia Beach, Virginia Blog!Hello, there! Welcome to my blog. I will use this blog as a platform for my writing. I will write about topics in the legal world, certainly, as well as everything else under the sun, because I have many interests (and viewpoints). All views expressed in this blog, unless otherwise noted, are mine alone. One of my interests is music--my wife believes that I should go on "Beat Shazam" because I know so many songs--and I will be, from time to time, analyzing song lyrics and how they relate to the legal world.
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