After Us

Parents of a child living with illness or disability eventually encounter a question they would rather postpone.

What happens when we are no longer here?

For families with wealth, the immediate answer appears reassuring. Money can be set aside. A trust can be established. Property secured. Medical care funded. Professionals appointed. The family office can ensure that the child will never lack anything materially.

But perhaps that is the easier part.

Who will know what makes her happy? Who will notice when something is wrong? Who will distinguish between what he cannot do and what everyone has simply stopped allowing him to try?

There is a danger in planning exclusively around protection. A life can become perfectly funded and excessively managed.

The family office therefore faces an unusual planning exercise. It is not simply calculating how much capital will be required over a lifetime. It is helping parents translate love into an arrangement that can survive them.

That means thinking about money, certainly. But also housing, companionship, work, independence, decision making, advocacy and the changing needs of a human being over perhaps fifty years.

And it means resisting one comforting assumption: that another child will naturally take the parents' place.

A brother can remain a brother. A sister can remain a sister. Professional support can carry responsibilities that affection should not be forced to carry.

The real legacy is not ensuring that a vulnerable child is permanently protected from life.

It is ensuring that, after the parents are gone, there is still a life to live.

W.