As a mother of two teenagers, I ran into the age-old conversation parents often share with their children: “When we die, can you promise us that you will do this for us?”
Except, these parents told their daughter when she was very young and repeatedly told her that If anything happened to the parents, she would be her sister’s guardian.”
Her disabled sister is 33 and in a group home. She has two older brothers who are married and in established careers. Jane has a job she can do from anywhere and wants to travel.
For the sake of this story, we’ll call the now 23-year-old daughter Jane who visited her parents and again reminded her she would be the guardian. Her parents are healthy but have had recent scares.
Jane offered another option, telling her parents they could completely cut her out of their will and remove the sister’s guardianship as her responsibility.
That upset her parents, and her brothers called Jane to say she was being greedy, trying to keep them from getting any money from the parents after they passed.