"in case you die" video for your kids

For a variety of reasons I believe my husband and I should make a short video for our kids highlighting how much we love them, etc.

Anyone done this? What did you include in it?

Hi Elle;
Wow , that's some serious  planning. Would you need to update it every year that you don't pass on?
If the worst did happen , at least they would have a video of you. I have no doubt they already know how much you love them.
As to what to tell them.  I would just tell them about the current family life at the time of the video. A year later do it again.  
And 20 years from now you can all sit around and laugh at mom and dad and how they looked "back then".

The other thing I suggest is to take lots of photo's. Print the good ones out and start a photo album.  
Nothing beats being able to hold a real photo of loved ones with a smile on their face!

Please do this.  I suggested to someone that they do something similar about 15 years ago. They were offended. Within a year they were dead.

I would be dead and don't need or want a yearly memorial or even have a need to be remembered. To me whatever I didn't give/receive while I was alive, now that I am dead, it doesn't matter much to me.

Now for the kids/spouse/siblings/parents that is left behind.
1) Insurance policies/account/financial info/divisions of assets
2) Some indoctrinating tidbit like go to church, stay on the narrow path of being a permie
3) Let them know that I enjoy my time here, so they wouldn't be hangup on my lost of life/fun due to death
4) Let them know that I selfishly enjoy my time with them, with a slide show of things I enjoy doing them
5) Tell them to stop being greedy/selfish in wanting to keep me around, because what if it's nicer/the same not being around.
6) Let them know that it's okay for them to be sad, but to keep on living life to the fullest
7) Some word of encouragement for hard times in their life

I was concerned about this for a while, that I would end up dying before I could tell my daughter everything I wanted her to know, and I wrote a "list of things I wanted her to know". I updated that list every so often (this could be interesting for you-- to redo it every so often, which makes a fabulous video record of what your lives were like); now that she is 20 and off at college, we've covered everything that was on the list and it's not needed anymore (lucky us!) but I think at some point I might print it up nicely for her (if she ever has kids it would be a nice present). I still do have a document that she has access to with all my passwords, bank access info, etc just in case, and I`m trying to get into the habit of telling her something she didn't know about her young childhood when we spend time together.

Edited to add: you ask what is in it. I just spent the last half hour hunting, I know the list is around here somewhere but I could not find it. I put in my list everything that I wished someone had told me when I was a kid that I only had to find out through suffering (people lie, bad things happen, nothing good is easy--- but that for every liar there is a person who helps, for every bad thing there is a thing that can lift you up again, for every difficult challenge there is satisfaction, if you are brave enough to hang on). I also added info about our family medical issues. We are chock full of addiction, mental illness, and cancer, and I didn't want her thinking that her stomachaches and racing heart, her rosacea/dermatitis and all the rest were her own shortcoming. We all have anxiety, we all have IBS, this is the body doing what the body does, and not in any way your fault. We also have a distinct reaction to a certain class of drugs that makes their use very unpleasant (which is not something to be discovering as a teenager at a party surrounded by strangers, for example). Thanks to her ethnic makeup she also doesn't metabolize alcohol well, also not something to be discovering casually.
I told her the one phrase that I always call on when I'm scared: Be intrepid (yes, Julia Child talking about making omelets, but it works for everything). Life is too short to not try.
I also told her the things that made my life better when I was faced by challenges. Helping people always makes you feel better. Nature/God/Life is everywhere, and always emerges victorious. People, whether rich or poor or here or there, all put their pants on one leg at a time, all love their children, all want to be safe and loved, and when you remember that you can create connections.
About love, your children certainly know, mine knew. But it never hurts to say it again and in different ways.

Tereza et al, please find your lists and post it for us, and then we can all add to the "Living List".

Great idea, not just for children.

Thank you.

thomas rubino wrote:Hi Elle;
Wow , that's some serious  planning. Would you need to update it every year that you don't pass on?
If the worst did happen , at least they would have a video of you. I have no doubt they already know how much you love them.
As to what to tell them.  I would just tell them about the current family life at the time of the video. A year later do it again.  
And 20 years from now you can all sit around and laugh at mom and dad and how they looked "back then".

The other thing I suggest is to take lots of photo's. Print the good ones out and start a photo album.  
Nothing beats being able to hold a real photo of loved ones with a smile on their face!

Updating it yearly sounds like a good idea. Particularly since I can't tell Ripley she's smart and creative and etc because she's only 3 months old. Best I can tell her is she's cute.

I have been trying to get my wife to do this for years.  Especially when she is going for major surgeries or having a serious relapse of bone infection.  

She is paraplegic from an auto accident in 2000 and was given to about 2006 for a life expectancy, she is still hanging in there and it is 2020, but it is not a question of "if" this will kill her it is a question of "when".  I thought it would be great for her to do some videos for each of the kids when she is in the hospital or here at home on bedrest, but she just can't figure out what to say I guess.  I lost my mom a month before my fourth birthday and everything I have ever found from her was terrifically fascinating to me and has meant the world to me.  If it had been possible for my mom to record herself talking to me man what an impact that would have had on me.

Personally I think it is a great way to have an impact on your children, maybe even grandchildren etc after you are gone.  As I have found, life can be unexpectedly short, my mom died age 22, my little sister age 1 year, my little brother age 18 months, my first daughter age 2 months, my oldest son age 16.  My grandpa was raised by his older brother and sister as his father died in WWI when he was 5 and his mother died when he was 7.  Life is all too often unexpectedly cut short.  

What an incredible time to be alive as it is so crazy easy to record yourself now and pass that down.  Great idea and good thread...

My idea for the wife was to make a video for like their 18th birthday and what she would say...  Make a video for their wedding day and what she would say..  A video for first child etc etc etc..  She wants to see these things, but she is likely not going to be able to see a lot of these things.  She could still be there for the kids though...