We’ve been thinking about guardianship for our sweet son, should anything ever happen us. We have discussed our family options, but our parents are aging, and we would like to see our little boy raised with siblings close in age. Every time our conversation returns to this topic, your names come up. And the more time we spend time with you, the more confident we are that your parenting styles, faith, personalities, family values, and home life are exactly what we hope our child would grow up with if the need for guardianship ever arose.
To my sweet friend,
Your mothering is so loving. Your discipline is gentle but consistent. You teach your sons consideration and respect. You provide so many opportunities for them to learn, play, and grow – experiences that are building a solid cognitive foundation. You teach them life lessons naturally and purposefully. Mommy “with-it-ness” comes naturally to you, and you provide a safe environment for your own children and for anyone else in your care. Your home is clean, warm, and welcoming, and you are teaching hospitality through that already. And you are a constant example to others of what a kind person, loving wife, and godly woman should be. A man will oftentimes marry a woman that lives the way his own mother did, and we believe you model what we would want for our own son in that.
And to her husband,
You are an active, involved father. Your positivity and excitement for life are contagious and you live a life that shows your sons that a father can be outgoing, fun, and silly while still working hard for and leading his family. You also model for them that a man can show love and affection in both words and actions. You are teaching them how to explore the world. You model gratefulness and a desire to help others. Men learn how to treat their own wives and children by watching their fathers, and we believe you would be a good example for our little man in both of those roles.
To both of you,
We respect your faith – your willingness to live it, teach it, model it, and discuss it. We admire your desire to deepen your relationships with God, to serve others, and to become more Christ-like. We believe you will encourage your children to develop their own relationships with God, but will also allow them the freedom to fall in love with God and find their faith on their own terms.
We believe that you will always reflect God’s love to your children, showing them mercy and forgiveness when they make mistakes, while still gently reminding them of your hopes and God’s plans for them. We also believe that you will earn and deserve your children’s respect by setting and enforcing appropriate boundaries and natural consequences as they grow.
We love that you serve each other as husband and wife and that you will model for your children how a husband and wife should respect each other and live life together, truly enjoying each other’s company. You model love, but not perfection. We believe you will also teach your children that relationships take hard work and that conflict is inevitable, but that there are healthy ways to resolve it.
You have good relationships with your own families, which will no doubt have an impact on the family values that your children will form. We also know that if it came down to it, you would selflessly and consistently pursue opportunities for our son to spend time with his extended family as well.
Because you love people so much, we know that you will encourage and help your children build friendships. We believe you will teach your children how to choose good friends and how to be a good friend.
We love that when you are together, you are TOGETHER. You don’t let yourselves become distracted by the many tempting distractions in this world. You value quality time together – games, adventures, conversations, books, family dinners. You are living life together to the fullest.
You take good care of yourselves, no doubt influencing how your children will take care of themselves one day. Already we see you modeling good physical fitness and nutrition. And you continue to model a life-long desire to learn and challenge your minds, evidence of your value for intellect that will influence how your children feel about education.
And last, we love that you’ve both found joy in your careers. Your children will grow up knowing that work is not just a necessary part of life, but that your career can enhance your life. It is much more than a paycheck. It can be rewarding, it can be used to help others, and it can be fun.
We pray that you will never be in the situation where you need to step in to raise our previous child, but we also know we couldn’t ask for any better substitutes should the need arise.
Love,
Us
