“Life as We Know It” …or More Fitting, Life As It Hopefully Never Happens?

Movie Review: “Life as We Know It” …or More Fitting, Life As It Hop...

By: Darylnn Morgan

The movie Life As We Know It came out in 2010 and while it turns out to be a sweet romantic comedy, you have to ride out the first 20 minutes. If you have kids, you are in for some heavy duty stuff… I was crying my eyes out! The movie is extremely sad before it turns to happy, but hopefully leaves viewers introspective because it has an important message for parents.

The movie starts off with a couple (Peter and Allison) and their respective best friends (Holly played by Katherine Heigel and Messer played by Josh Duhamel)… who, of course, they are trying to set up. After a horrible blind date, Holly and Messer, decide to just passively hate each other while their respective best friends Peter and Allison progress with their relationship into marriage and eventually parenting.

Spoiler Alert: the movie then takes a serious turn with Peter and Allison dying in a car accident leaving their 1 year old daughter Sophie orphaned. The good news is that Peter and Allison had been supremely responsible and had prepared a will and named legal guardians for their child (Holly and Messer). The bad news is that on the night of the accident, there was no family emergency plan in place and Sophie had to spend the night in Child Protective Services (Foster Care) until the next morning.

Imagine a young child’s parents die and then they are ripped from their own home, their own bed and instead of being comforted by someone who loves them they are instead placed into the cold state system until the authorities can figure it out. This was the “height” of sadness, especially because I knew it should never have happened. Sophie’s parents had done their estate planning and probably thought they had it all taken care of. But their plan failed. With proper Kids Protection Planning in place, there should be no risk of a child ending up in Child Protective Services, even for a minute! But sadly, most law firms really don’t plan from a parents perspective and these kinds of “gaps” in planning are very common.

Obviously this is Hollywood so the movie plays out, after numerous funny moments of brand new “parents” being thrown into it literally overnight, Holly and Messer become decent parents and fall in love with each other…which ironically is what Peter and Allison wanted in the beginning.

Yes this movie was entertaining…but at the end the hubby and I still had this lingering sadness of “what if that happened to us?” What if that was us who died in that car crash and somebody else had to raise our kid? Of course most days we are in denial of the reality that something so tragic could happen, but in actuality, we are all vulnerable. At the time we saw the movie our son was an infant, and we were very much attuned to just how vulnerable he was and how we were the ones responsible for ensuring his care every minute of every day. We had already chosen our guardians and had everything in place, which was comforting. But the movie did make us think, “what if?” Leave it to Hollywood to make you sit back and really think when you least expect it!

If you don’t yet have your plan in place for the protection of your money or legal guardians named who can raise your kids if something tragic happens to you… Not to worry!  You can learn how by joining me for one of our upcoming Fall Kids Protection Workshops.   

These workshops are FREE to attend and filled with other young families…just like yours!  Simply choose an upcoming date and time that works best for you and reserve your seat at no charge at www.kidsprotectionworkshop.com:

September 29^th at 9:00 am

Xpecting, Inc.

369 E. 17th Street, #20
Costa Mesa, CA 92627

September 29^th at 2:00 pm

Granola Babies

3315 Hyland Ave., Ste B
Costa Mesa, CA

These aren’t your typical, boring legal seminars, either. They are fast, fun and offer critical information in a way that’s easy to understand, empowering and broken down into action steps that you can implement right away.   I know you’ll find it to be an hour well-spent and that you’ll leave with incredible peace of mind about your future.

So don't wait one day longer to build a firm, unshakeable foundation under your children and your family’s money!  Spaces are limited, view the agenda and register now at www.KidsProtectionWorkshop.com to learn how to fully protect yourself and the people you love.

Darlynn Morgan is an estate planning lawyer at Morgan Law Group, a unique law firm that she created to truly make a difference in the lives of her clients and their kids.