He’s safe.
There’s a certain member of my family that HATES it when I write about him in these posts. So I won’t name him here. I’ll call him “He Who Must Not Be Named” instead. [Thank you, Harry Potter.]
But many of you have inquired about the safety of “He Who Must Not Be Named” on his current Spring semester study abroad.
“He Who Must Not Be Named” is safe, having left a certain country with potential security issues this weekend. He flew to another Eastern European country to finish his semester abroad with online classes. At least that’s the plan.
I’ve been asked frequently if I was worried about him studying in this particular now-heavily sanctioned country.
No, I really wasn’t.
Perhaps it was blissful ignorance. I stopped watching the news five years ago and it has helped my mental state tremendously. There is not much that I worry about now. And hey, if something big happens (like what’s happening over in Eastern Europe right now), I always hear about it (thanks, Mom) and can choose to follow whatever “it” is more closely.
I also wasn’t particularly worried because “He Who Must Not Be Named” was “boots on the ground” so to speak and I wasn’t. He was in a better position to gauge the situation than I was. Although still young, he’s now a worldly traveler (much more so than Andrew and I, although that will change over the new few years), speaks a second language common to that part of the world, and he’s fiercely independent and resourceful.
Do I feel better knowing that he’s safely ensconced in another country away from the conflict? Of course!
I help parents design estate plans for their young adult children that range from the “hands off” approach—“Hey, they may still be young but just give them their inheritance and I trust them to figure it out”—to the more tightly controlled grip from the grave—“I don’t trust them with money. Give it to them when they’re 70!”
Most parents choose a median approach to leaving an inheritance to a potentially still youngish adult child. “I want them to have what they need for their education and medical needs but I also want them to establish themselves first and gain some financial and life experience before turning everything over to them.”
All estate planning approaches are valid and there is no right or wrong answer. You know your children better than I do (in most cases, I don’t know them at all!) and you have your own value system that affects how you want to approach your estate plan.
My role as an estate planning advisor is to help my clients formulate the end-result they want to accomplish and work backwards from there.
My estate planning approach is to keep all of my clients’ estate plans as simple and practical as possible while still helping them achieve their estate planning goals. It’s always a personalized, rather than cookie-cutter, approach with estate planning at My Pink Lawyer®.
Will Andrew and I be paying a visit anytime soon to Eastern Europe like we had planned to do over the holidays? Probably not.
Andrew and I HATE cold weather and will be visiting warmer climates soon. Hello, Zihuantanejo, Mexico in a couple of weeks!
Kristen “Aspiring to Chase an Endless Summer” Marks
P.S. Is it time to get your estate plan in order? You can schedule a consultation with My Pink Lawyer® here.
P.P.S. If you know “He Who Must Not Be Named,” PLEASE for love of the universe, do NOT mention this post to him. Feign ignorance and just ask him how he’s doing. 😘
