Why do presume to think it’s insincere? I was a “you betcha”, and I’m stunned that you see it as a negative response.
The children of my closest friends, and of course the children of my nephews, are dear to me. If I was needed to step into that role, I’d do it out of love and loyalty, regardless of the challenges. The question was not if it’d be hard- the question was if you’d do it. For me the answer was easy.
Nobody’s saying that raising kids - yours or anyone else’s - is easy, or fun, or inconsequential. It’s just that sometimes you have to do things you don’t necessarily want to do. Comes with being an adult.
my best friend’s kids are my kids as well!
Although I’d be a hilariously irresponsible & unreliable parent, I’d surely be much better than NO parent!
So, yes, regardless of how crappy my life was, I’d go a long way to raise 'em!
but IF the don’t obey to whay I tell them-hell-I’d throw 'em out of the window!
The only ones close enough to possibly ask us to take on that responsibility are my brother-in-law and his wife. As far as I know, though, they have friends lined up for that job - we were never asked. Seems fair, as those friends have kids already and would likely be less overwhelmed by the addition of two kids to the family as we would be by suddenly becoming parents. Still, if asked, I would drop everything to care for my niece and nephew. No hesitation. Family is family.
As for friends… several have kids, but are surrounded by supportive families who would be happy to take over. I highly doubt the situation would ever come up. If it did, I would feel obligated to take the kids in, because if the alternative is foster care, I just couldn’t let that happen.
It’s a topic I’ve thought about a lot lately, what with Junior on the way. Who would I ask to raise him, if anything happened to us? And I just don’t know.
I’m in nothing like a stable enough situation to take on a kid, especially at short notice. Fortunately though, I can’t see any non-apocalypse like situations where I’d be asked to do so.
The only friend who’s even possibly close enough, who has a child had her in a poly relationship- the kid has 3 parents and two step parents, who live in three differnt cities.
I certainly wouldn’t rush into it anyway, my parents were actually faced with a similar dilemma when I was 21; my mother’s half sister killed herself, and her husband had a mental breakdown. They had two boys, age about 4 and 8. The 8 year old was already seriously disturbed, and had made multiple attempts on his little brother’s life (leading to hospitalisation at least once).
My mother didn’t really know her half sister, but I know my parents were seriously discussing offering to take on the younger boy, as he had no other family in a situation to do so. Eventually though, they decided that both kids really needed more care and attention- given how messed up they were- than my parents would be able to give. They both went into foster care, and you know what? It was the best thing for them.
They both got brilliant foster parents (they were seperated, for fairly obvious reasons), who were stable, and great at dealing with difficult kids. The older boy was the only genuinely scary 4 year old I’ve ever met, now he’s just a little odd as a 19 year old . The younger one is reckoned to be unusually sensible and responsible, for a 15 year old boy. They’re far closer to each other now than they ever were as kids, and they’re also pretty close to their Dad, who did not attempt to regain custody, seeing as he’d always worked on the oil rigs, months away at a time, so he’d never been exactly in normal custody of them. He kept in touch, they stayed with him somtimes, but he wasn’t the best person to have them full time.
I know there can be major issues with foster care, but sometimes it really does work out well. It’s not a horror to be avoided at all costs.
I have two best friends and am signed up to take their kids if anything should happen to them.
I consider it an honour to be asked and since I already have two kids, what’s a couple more?
But, seriously, I am already a mom, I am pretty competent. I could do with more kids in the house.
My wife and I agree to do just that for my best friend who I had known since 5th grade. This was back in 1990.
They asked us to do so stating they look at everyone in both their families and could not come up with a single person they trusted for the task. They asked us to consider that and get back to them in a month. We took a week and said yes.
They arranged a meeting at their lawyers office to accomplish this. When we got to the conference room there was the guy running the camera, 3 lawyers and 3 other witnesses. The lawyers read the will and other documents, then my friend explained on camera why he wanted this then his wife did the same. Then we did the same, both of us in the same order, that we accepted this responsibility. Then the documents were signed and witness by all there.
Never seen so many signatures on a legal document again, ever in my life.
In 2008, after 18 years, they changed the will and all that was deleted.
As of tomorrow my wife and I will be accepting that responsibility. Our closest friends have one child and they do not want her raised by his alcoholic siblings or her fundamentalist sister. Their lawyer was very upfront about the legal battle that would ensue by choosing a lesbian couple over blood siblings; but they have a ton of life insurance and their executor/lawyer has been charged with waging that battle should the need arise.
So far the only arguments have been about if the new foster parents are willing and able.
I’d say that it greatly depends on how well you and the kid gt along. Even at five, my sons playmates, nieces and nephews have distinct personalities. Some I’d be most happy to have, some…not. Nothing wrong per se with those kids or with us, but we just would never get along.