When you are in high school, clearly, you are growing up, and you are not necessarily going to be extraordinarily mature. Some people grow up more quickly than others, but there are different stages of life that are inevitable.
Once you enter college, you may begin to take certain things more seriously as you enter another phase, but some adult responsibilities will be off your radar.
As you enter the working world and you ultimately fall in love and get married, things get quite a bit different. Suddenly, someone else is relying on you, and you are involved in a life partnership. When children enter the picture, the responsibility factor expands exponentially.
Even though just about everyone would say that they would do anything for their families, there is a very disturbing statistic that applies to the realm of estate planning. The vast majority of people who are under the age of 40 are going through life without any estate planning documents.
Obviously, most people don’t pass away at this age, but there are absolutely no guarantees. Anything can happen to anyone at any time, and you are putting your family in a very vulnerable situation if you have not thought about the position they would be in if you were to pass away suddenly.
Estate planning is quite important for younger adults, and there are those who have made the argument that it is more important for younger adults than it is for older people. There is a logical rationale behind this line of thinking.
When you are in your seventies, your children are probably in their forties or fifties. These are people who have children of their own, and they are going to be fully self-supporting. They are not looking toward their parents for food, shelter, and an education. Yes, estate planning is important for senior citizens, but their family members are not relying on them.
Things are quite different when you are a young parent with minor children still under your roof. If you were to pass away leaving your spouse as a single parent, where would your family be financially? This is a profound question, and you should certainly take it seriously if you are going through life without an estate plan.
Child Guardianship
There is also the matter of child guardianship. Who would take care of your children if you and your spouse were to pass away together simultaneously in a tragic traffic accident? Clearly, this is not a very pleasant thought experiment, but we all know that things like this do happen.
If you were to be proactive about the implementation of an estate plan, you could nominate a guardian to care for your children if a guardianship was ever to become necessary. It is likely that the court would honor your nomination, and there would be no need for disagreements among your surviving family members, because your wishes would be stated in a legally binding manner.
We presented an example that involved two parents, but single-parent households are not uncommon. It is easier for one person to pass away than two, so the guardianship question is even more significant for single parents.
Attend a Free Estate Planning Seminar
A lot of times, when you are young and busy, you may recognize the need for estate planning, but you may not really know anything about how to proceed. Months pass as you sit frozen with inaction, and they turn to years. All this time, you are gambling with the well-being of the people that you love.
We understand the fact that it can be intimidating to sit down and discuss personal matters with an estate planning attorney that you have never met, especially when you don’t know what questions to ask.
To account for this, our firm has implemented a proactive community education plan. We offer estate planning and elder law seminars on an ongoing basis, and these information sessions are held at various different times and locations throughout the greater Grand Forks area. Because of the diverse opportunities, you should definitely be able to find an information session that fits into your schedule.
These informative planning seminars are absolutely free to attend, but space is limited and they fill up quickly, so we do ask that you register in advance. We should also point out the fact that people who attend our seminars are qualified for a free one-on-one consultation.
To obtain more details and registration information, click the following link: Grand Forks ND Estate Planning Seminars.
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