In my work with divorce clients, I’ve had several people ask whether in their will they could leave their kids to their parents rather than have their kids go solely to their ex (the children’s other parent). Their reasoning goes something like this: I think my ex is a bad person (usually because they cheated and therefore they can’t be trusted and/or must be wholly immoral) and therefore why should I trust them to take care of the children.
While I understand this line of thinking, sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Your ex is going to get the kids if you die unless for some reason a court decides that your ex is unfit to be a parent, which is pretty difficult to prove. I represent people who are accused of being incompetent to parent and, let me tell you, the standard is ridiculously low. The courts don’t take away parental rights unless there is an obvious and usually repeated reason.
Now, if you and your ex die at the same time, say in a car accident, then your will naming your parents to care for your children would be helpful. But, how likely is it that you and your ex are together in the same car or plane or boat or whatever? That’s the question. It’s not likely.
On the upside, Minnesota law does allow grandparents to petition the court for grandparent parenting time in the case that their child (the parent of their grandchildren) dies while the grandchildren are minors. See Minnesota Statute 257C.08, which provides that the court will consider the best interests of the children (and think, the court is likely to encourage continued contact with grandparents). The court will consider the contact between the grandparents and the children before the death in making it’s decision. Of course, the visitation cannot interfere with the still-living parent and the children, but as long as the contact is reasonable, I doubt grandparent visitation would be deemed by the court to be interfering with with the parent-child relationship.
