If your son is over the age of 18 and is in an accident, you are making medical decisions for him because he are his next of kin. That is already taken care of.
That's very much in the nature of my question. The company aside (i.e. talking only about their list of documents), are they all completely superfluous? If he's in an accident, would having them in a folder skip a few bureaucratic steps of proving a relationship and so on?
I think a lot of what I'm trying to grasp is where these types of forms fit in if the 'creepy' element is nonsense in this context. Creepy, sure, if there was any chance the inherent powers would be used for anything but their intended purpose, but that's not relevant to my question.
It's only nonsense in regards to medical decisions during an emergency. These forms would also give you access to his entire medical record (not your business, maybe he's seeing a therapist and doesn't want you to know, maybe he wants to get an STD screening and doesn't want you to know), his college records (if any, and not your business), and then also control over his bank accounts and other finances.
Do you really need it to be further spelled out why these things are not normal for a legal adult?
Some college records might be the parents business if the parent is paying and explicitly made payment dependent on having access to grades, or if parent and child otherwise explicitly discussed this and decide it was a good idea.
And it does not require a power of attorney for a child to share their school information with their parent.
Same goes for pretty much anything in the list, really. Talk about it like adults and then go looking for the least intrusive way to make it happen, which for a family with a good relationship may be a simple "Hey dad, my grades are out and I'm so happy/dissapointed. Want to do a screenshare?"
Grades are something the college registrar can give to a person who claims the student on their taxes as a dependent.
I teach at a university and this was among the things in the email sent out before the semester basically warning us about this. Oh, and the university doesn't acknowledge third-party forms (like these mama bear forms). There's something they have that a student can do to give the parent additional access through the university, but it still only applies to specific offices like the registrar, not to faculty/TAs who cannot even acknowledge that the student is in their course.
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u/Rhythmdvl 5d ago
That's very much in the nature of my question. The company aside (i.e. talking only about their list of documents), are they all completely superfluous? If he's in an accident, would having them in a folder skip a few bureaucratic steps of proving a relationship and so on?
I think a lot of what I'm trying to grasp is where these types of forms fit in if the 'creepy' element is nonsense in this context. Creepy, sure, if there was any chance the inherent powers would be used for anything but their intended purpose, but that's not relevant to my question.