There are two kinds of fathers.
The first kind coaches the games, makes it to the school plays, stays up late helping with the projects, and loves his family in every visible way. He thinks about what would happen if something happened to him: maybe during a long drive home, maybe after a close call, maybe in a quiet moment watching his kids sleep. He thinks about it and then moves on, because the day-to-day of being a father takes up almost everything he has.
Father’s Day tends to celebrate the first kind. The presence, the showing up, the love that fills a room.
The second kind does all of that and also answers the question.
The fathers who’ve truly done right by their families, the ones who’ve given their children something that outlasts them, are the ones who made a plan. Not because they expected the worst, but because they understood that loving someone means protecting them even when you can’t be there.
If you haven’t answered the question yet, this is where to start.
Why the Answer in Your Head Doesn't Count
I ask this in nearly every planning session I do with families: if something happened to you tonight, who would serve as legal guardian for your children?
Most fathers have an answer. It lives in their head, maybe in a conversation they had with their partner years ago, maybe in an understanding with a sibling or a close friend. The right people know what they’d want. It’s not a mystery.
Here’s the problem: that answer doesn’t exist in the eyes of the law.
Without naming a legal guardian, the decision about who raises your children doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to a judge who has never met your family. That judge will hear competing petitions from people who love your children: grandparents, siblings, close friends, each one certain they are the right choice. The outcome is not guaranteed to match what you would have wanted. And the people you love most are left to fight through a court process during the worst weeks of their lives.
I have watched this happen. The conflict that can erupt over an unnamed guardianship is one of the most painful things I see in my work, and it is entirely preventable.
The bottom line: A conversation isn’t a legal document. If you haven’t named a legal guardian in writing, you haven’t actually answered the question, which means you haven’t actually protected your family… yet.
The First 72 Hours Nobody Plans For
Most fathers, when they think about guardianship, think about the long-term question: who would raise my children through childhood? Almost none of them think about what happens in the first 72 hours after an emergency.
Who has legal authority to pick your children up from school tonight if you were hospitalized? Who can authorize emergency medical care if your child is injured before anyone has had time to call a lawyer? Who can step in immediately, not after a court hearing, not after a probate filing, but right now?
This is the gap I close with families upstream, before the crisis, while we still have time to design around it. Standard legal documents don’t close it. A will names a legal guardian, but a will only takes effect after your death, and only after it clears probate. It does nothing for the hours and days before any of that happens.
The families I work with leave our planning sessions with something most attorneys don’t talk about: a Kids Protection Planning process, including documents that give designated caregivers the immediate legal authority to step in if something happens to both parents. Not eventually. Right away.
A family with a Personal Family Lawyer® (PFL) relationship has someone to call. Someone who already knows the plan, knows who you named as legal guardian, knows what you wanted, and can help your family activate everything you put in place. The grandparents who arrived in the middle of the night don’t have to figure out what you would have wanted. The named guardian doesn’t have to wonder if anyone has the paperwork. The plan is known, the lawyer is reachable, and the family is not facing any of this alone.
The bottom line: The legal guardian question has two parts: who raises your children long-term, and who is authorized to step in right now. Most families haven’t fully answered either, or built a plan that will actually hold up when you need it to.
The Part of the Plan Most Father's Skip
Guardianship is only part of the picture. The other part is what your children actually inherit, and how.
A will passes assets to your children, but without additional planning, those assets may pass to a minor child outright and be managed by the court until they turn 18. At 18, your child receives everything at once. No structure, no guidance, no protection from their own inexperience or from others who may take advantage of it.
Without a trust, your estate may go through probate, a public and potentially lengthy court process that reduces the amount that actually reaches your family. Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by beneficiary designation, outside your will. If those designations don’t match your plan, they can undo it. Most fathers have a lawyer handling the documents and a financial advisor handling the investments, and no one whose job it is to make sure the two connect. That is a gap I close in every Life & Legacy Planning® Session.
The fathers who’ve thought this through aren’t just thinking about who gets what. They’re thinking about how their children receive what they’re given, and whether the structure around that inheritance sets them up or sets them back.
The bottom line: A will is a starting point, not a complete plan. Without the
What You Can Do Right Now
Without a plan in place, the question of who serves as legal guardian for your children, and who has the authority to step in the moment something happens, is not yours to answer. It belongs to a court, and the people you love most are left to fight it out at the worst possible moment.
A Life & Legacy Plan is how I help families answer that question. I don’t hand my clients one-size-fits-all documents. I take the time to understand your family and your specific situation, then design a plan that actually works when your family needs it to. That includes naming a legal guardian, creating immediate-access documents that give caregivers authority right now, and building the longer-term structure of trusts, beneficiary designations, and healthcare directives. The relationship doesn’t end when the documents are signed. When something happens, your family knows to call me.
You can also read more about how I help families plan ahead on the Debbie Babb Law blog.
Father’s Day is a good day to start building that.
Schedule a discovery call with our office. We’ll talk through who you’ve named as legal guardian, whether your immediate protections are in place, and what steps you can take right now to make sure your family is covered, no matter what happens.
This article is a service of Debbie Babb Law. We do not just draft documents. We help you make informed and empowered decisions about life and death, for yourself and the people you love. That is why we offer a Life & Legacy Planning® Session, during which you can become more financially organized and make thoughtful decisions for the people who matter most.