Celebrating 10 years of service

I am amazed at how quickly this year has flown by. It seems as if we were just saying Happy New Year and now we are Decking the Halls with Boughs of Holly!   I am not sure if it is just that my age is catching up to me and I am unable to gracefully appreciate the flow of life or if time really is moving that quickly. As an Estate Planning Attorney, I recognize the distinctive considerations through the stages of life are a part of the estate planning world.

I celebrate the blessings of the new life of children. I appreciate the important responsibility parents have in creating the support systems that we need to build for our children. As we know the difficult responsibility and many times the great strategic thought we put into whether or not to become parents, the role is not taken lightly. We should also give great thought in deciding who should take care of our children if something should happen and we are not able to take care of them. I encourage new parents to look beyond the great weight of the immediate life change with lack of sleep and always managing the needs of their little ones but also give thought to planning how to support their children to achieve their dreams. I encourage you to be thoughtful about building the capacity of your children while still allowing them to struggle enough to gain muscle and problem solving skills.

I marvel at how quickly childhood and adolescence turned into young adulthood. College was a blur when I had the authority but not the wisdom. I needed more help than I realized in making the decisions that would impact the rest of my life. Now in hindsight I encourage parents to exercise the leverage the purse allows with incentives and value driven support that compels the young adult to build his or her best future while having the safety net in place. I encourage parents of college students to use their leverage to encourage their student to complete the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which will enable them parents to have access to their children’s educational records.   There is a lot of information that the school can acquire including health records that could support children to be most successful.

Turning 18 takes away the blessing of childhood in the eyes of the law. Unfortunately, turning 18 does not provide us with wisdom irrespective of the intelligence. Sometimes we need help to make decisions. We have the right to privacy at the age of 18 and we must be of sound mind to waive that right.   At 18 each one is officially an adult. “Adulting” has a bunch of responsibilities with it. Many of us “adults” choose to add to our level of responsibility by becoming responsible for others. If we become sick, our adult responsibilities don’t disappear. They will have to be handled by someone else.  One component of “adulting” is thinking through the process of preparing for possibilities. We must prepare for those situations in which we are unable to care for ourselves or for the people we care for. We should take the time to determine who would take care of us if we couldn’t take care of ourselves. 



Time flies and with the change of the time and the circumstance we must be thoughtful of how to make the best decisions for ourselves and our loved ones. With the passing of time comes the change in dreams, goals, visions and desires. While it isn’t required that we make the adult decisions to plan, it is in our best interest and the best interest of those that we love to make the adult decision.

Time flies quickly. Let’s enjoy the passage of time with preparedness. We can choose to be subjected to time or plan the time.