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When I was a kid, my parents — both of whom had grown up working-class — didn’t have a will. They weren’t thinking much about what would happen when they died. There was no plan for their bodies, no plan for what would happen to me. We lived in a rent-controlled apartment in New York City and didn’t have much money. Still, I remember that before they traveled without me, my dad would sometimes type up a letter and read it aloud before they left. Even as a child who knew nothing about the world (and certainly nothing about estate plans) I could tell this little ritual was mostly theatrical. A placeholder for the real planning they didn’t know they needed. Or felt they couldn’t afford.

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I wish I could tell you I learned from my parents’ lack of preparation. But I have not. I’m now a mom to two young kids, and I do not have a will or a trust. I don’t even type up a dramatic farewell letter and read it to my children when I travel for work. I just stroll through life pretending I’ll live forever, despite knowing that, historically speaking, the likelihood of that is fairly slim. Maybe even zero.

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“It’s a bad idea,” said Sarah Sliwinski, a paralegal who works with FeedingBird, a new app that specializes in creating estate documents like wills, trusts and powers of attorney. “If you don’t create your own plan,” she told me from her office in Virginia, “the state will.”

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I asked her what would actually happen if someone with kids died without any plans in place. “Best-case scenario,” she said, “a very good friend or family member shows up and says, We’ll take care of them until a permanent guardian is assigned. Worst-case scenario is that Child Protective Services shows up and says, We’re taking these children into temporary custody until this gets sorted out. Even if it’s only 24 hours, that’s pretty traumatic for your children.”

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Upon hearing this, I sheepishly admitted that I do not, in fact, have a will. I told her my husband and I own an apartment, we have two little kids, but we don’t have much money. Her response was immediate and firm: “You have children. And that’s more important than any amount of money.”

A lot of people think like me. They think estate planning is only for the wealthy. “It’s a misconception,” she said. “People think you need a certain amount of money or assets to need a will. But even if you have very little, something has to happen to all the things you own when you pass.” And, even more importantly, something has to happen to the people and animals you leave behind.

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Life circumstances can change quickly. We all know that in theory, but no one wants to sit down and plan for their own mortality. “I think the hardest part,” said Ms. Sliwinski, “is that it forces people to think about what will happen when they’re gone. I get it — that’s really scary. Nobody thinks, I’m going to die tomorrow. Everyone assumes they’ll live a long time, so there’s no urgency. Oh, it’s fine, I’ll do it next year. I’ll do it in a couple months. And thankfully, for most people, that’s true. But you never know. So why not just do it?”

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My parents didn’t know what they didn’t know. But now that I understand planning isn’t about money, it’s about making sure the people you love aren’t thrown into chaos on the hardest day of their lives, it feels like it’s finally time for me to sit down and, well, just do it.