Posted on 06/22/2012 2:26:35 PM PDT by blam
David Nash
June 22nd, 2012
Shepherd School
(This article was originally published by David Nash of Shepherd School at The Survival Mom web site.)
Any person who has begun to seriously prepare has had to make compromises between current wants and future needs, how much to spend on preparations, and how many people to stock supplies for. If you’re married, you need to have a spouse that shares your concerns or you’re going to fight over every #10 can the mailman delivers. I don’t need to go into detail on how much you should store, how to store it, or what makes the cut on your List of Lists. The purpose of this article is to help communicate the need to prepare with those in your family that you want to help without alienating them or downgrading your own preparedness plans.
I am a professional firearms instructor and am also employed full time as an emergency management planner. Due to my job, my hobbies, and my personal beliefs, my former mother-in-law delighted in trying to insult me by calling me “Sgt. Tackleberry”. She was unreachable, and I didn’t spend a lot of time trying to convince her of the importance in prepping. She would rather buy timeshares of vacation property than spend money on a basic 72 hour kit. That works for her, and I cannot judge her, but she would not be invited to,“come live with me if it ever did happen,” as she believed.
Other members of my family have thought my preparations were a, “phase”, or some harmless idiosyncrasy. Those family members did not have a negative view of my preparations. They mostly looked at my preparations with amusement. They tolerated my teenage experiments with wild foods or earthquake kits. As I have grown older and they have seen things on the horizon that will personally impact them, they have begun to ask me for my opinion on coming winter storms or whether they should buy gold or guns.
It’s like being a firearm instructor and people asking you which gun to buy. If you do your homework and build credibility, people respect you more. If you take the long view and work diligently. these members of your family might be “converted” with patience and work. While I cannot assume responsibility for them and make them prepare for disasters, I can be a role model and sounding board to help them understand the issues at play so they can build a plan that works for them.
If the world as we know it collapses, it’s not only about survival. Once your survival needs are met, you’re going to have to rebuild and continue with your life. Having your loved ones with you makes that a lot easier. The problem is that each person I add to my retreat lowers my safety margin IF MY SUPPLY AMOUNTS REMAIN FIXED, but if those people I add to my retreat bring their own supplies, it dramatically increases my safety margin. To me it is definitely worth it to help your family prepare.
I have a few precepts that I use when dealing with family or friends on this subject.
My first precept of dealing with family is not to preach. My preparations are based on my needs and the things that I believe are important. Each person has their own priorities, and preaching that you are right and they are wrong only pushes them away from the direction you need them to go.
My second is never to prepare for a particular event. I am sure there is still a lot of rotting food out there that was bought in bulk specifically for Y2K, and some of those that bought it are convinced it was a waste of money.
I tell my family that my food storage can be used for Y2K, Armageddon, TEOTWAWKI, Pandemic Flu, Nuclear Winter, Job loss, or when I just don’t feel like cooking. By having an all-hazards approach and building capability and skills rather than building for specific events, my planning work gets more bang for the buck.
The first time I read of the “Deep Larder” was an “ah-ha!” moment for me, and changing my terminology has worked well in changing the response I get from my close loved ones.
My last precept of helping my loved ones see the need to prepare is to foster an appropriate mindset instead of concentrating on gear acquisition. I could buy my mom a Springfield Armory M-14 and 10,000 rounds of match ammo, but it would be much more effective to get her to go with me to the range a couple times and practice with a .22. This would likely foster a desire to shoot, and then I could help her choose a firearm that fits her needs and desires.
Whenever the family conversation gets around to disaster preparation I bring up concepts like:
“Buying car insurance is considered a responsible action, but you don’t have any tangible benefit from buying it, if you never get into an accident.”
“With having a deep larder, even if zombies never attack, I still have the food.”
Or as Dave Grossman has said, “You never hear of elementary schools burning down but they all have fire extinguishers.” My favorite is, “Noah built the Ark BEFORE the flood”.
I try to break everything down into manageable bites rather than cram it in and have them tune me out.
The best case scenario is that your loved ones will see the need to prepare for themselves and begin planning and preparing on their own, therefore augmenting your plan. You cannot out-argue someone into adopting your position.
As Dale Carnegie said, “Those convinced against their will are of the same opinion still.” What has worked for me is a quiet and consistent approach.
I love my family and want what is best for them. The best way I know to do that is to help them become more aware of the need to prepare. My goal is to foster a sense of self-sufficiency and personal responsibility, and to help mentor them through the beginning steps of basic preparedness.
Think about how overwhelming it was when you first began to prepare. There is a LOT to learn and even more skills and equipment to acquire. We know that we cannot stock everything needed or prepare too much. The process of preparing is every bit as important as the items you acquire.
Researching and prioritizing is mental prep work so that when a large disaster occurs we are not comatose with emotional overload. If I coddle my loved ones and try to remove their responsibility to prepare by doing it for them, then I am doing them a disservice. When hard times come, they may not be emotionally ready to deal with the collapse.
What’s worse is that making them dependent on my charity would cause strain on otherwise healthy family relationships. Because of this, I feel it is worth supreme effort to work with my loved ones to prepare so that we can grow together in adversity and make our family bonds stronger.
This year I had my breakthrough. My parents asked me what they could do to prepare. We had a very long discussion and came away with a workable plan. At the time of our discussion their location was more favorable for a long-term retreat than my own, and they are going to provide the location and storage space for most of my preps.
We both win in the end. Shortly after that discussion our town had an unusually long cold spell. In the days before it we talked more about our short term plans and communication protocols and procedures. While we did not have to evacuate to my parents, it was nice having all the details ironed out in the event we had to.
Disaster preparedness is not a fad or a short term race to buy a lot of cool gear. It’s a lifestyle choice, and one that has a lot of benefits. However, it comes the necessity of taking off the rose colored glasses. Not everyone is ready to do this, but if you want to set an example and truly influence others, you must understand what you do is much louder than what you say.
An experienced prepper will go through these lists and nod agreement (or, on occasion, scowl disagreement.. ;)) - but for someone just starting out, these ‘comprehensive’ lists can be intimidating, or even off-putting...
For the most part, every single one of us started out from ‘the basics’ - food, water, light, heat, defense - and it’s easy to lose that emphasis when confronted with “Lists of 120”....
/rant off
Yes “But to finish, one must first start”.
Piffle. A serious prepper will not assume that an emergency fund will do the job, if the shtf. You don't know what cash will be worth or what alternatives might be acceptable.
Instead, a serious prepper will find a property they can afford to pay cash for now, while cash is still good. Such properties are not hard to find. If you have $10k or even less you can buy a place, clear title. At a sheriff's sale in the right area you can find one for $1k -- or less.
Happy hunting. :)
You do make some good points but I will expand that. If they are serious, they will use any list as a guide like I did when I started. Crossing off what you felt did not apply to you.
But even the the “basics - food, water, light, heat, defense” as you call them are not set in stone because what food do I need? How much water and where can I put it? What gun should I buy?
If you are the type to let these kind of questions trip you up, then most likely you are looking for excuses NOT to prep in the first place. I know cause I saw it with co-workers and friends I tried to get interested.
Actually, he does make good points. Everyone doesn’t have the cash you talk about, but the system may only fail so far and bill collectorsa will still operate.
You could say the depression was a SHTF moment but society kept going and bills still had to be paid. Its better to pay off as much as you can now. Being debt free is one of the better preps.
” If you are the type to let these kind of questions trip you up, “
I started prepping long before I knew there was any such thing as a “Prepper Movement”, with the wealth (sometimes drowning flood) of information it brings...
I had these questions answered to my own satisfaction (after, admittedly, a number of false-starts and changes-of-direction) as well as many others - it’s an evolutionary process, which starts with the first extra can of beans and bag of rice I bought on my weekly shopping, and, eventually gets me thinking about how to best organize my community if/when “The Day” comes...
The thing that I realized early on in my association with the Prepper Community is that there is no ‘cookie cutter’ solution - that everybody’s circumstances are different, and preps need to be as personalized as your toothbrush...
And if you’re not thinking for yourself at this juncture, you’re gonna be pretty much lost when you really are on your own....
Ping!
I notice that the word ‘fitness’ does not occur in this article. I think physical fitness is a very important part of prepping - if the grid goes down then only the strong are going to survive. Also, fitness is on measure that everyone can start immediately.
I spent 3 years working for my County OEM. It paid for my degree in Emergency Management and I’m grateful for all I learned. I have to say the “All Hazards” approach is in my opinion the way to go.
I just think that makes the most since for my family given where we live.
I have also ceased discussing our plans and preps with anyone outside a very close circle of people. Period. I will make suggestions and sources for some items on this forum, but no others. Period.
If nothing bad ever happens, great. But if it does, depending on the scenario of course, we are prepared to hunker down for 3-4 months fairly comfortably. You can’t prepare for everything, but taking the all hazards approach will do well for most situations most of the time.
FWIW. YMMV.
COPY & PASTE FROM MY POST ON THE SAME SUBJECT ON SUNDAY, JUNE 12, 2011 FOLLOWS. FIGURED IT WAS WORTH REPEATING.
Buy ammo. And, do it correctly.....I have a few friends who still don't get it, ie: when I ask, "how much ammo do you have on hand?" I get a few answers of : Got plenty, plus 14 guns in the closet. Have 3 or 4 boxes of 12 ga, a couple for my kids .410, couple of boxes each for my 6 rifles, and a bunch of partial boxes for all my hand guns. I tell them that's fine if they can stay in the house and shoot out the windows, B-U-T if they need to run outside and shoot from behind the car or garage, they may find themselves in the do-do. One can only carry a couple of long guns (of different calibers) and a couple of handguns while on the run, along with their ammo. You shoot up those 3 - 20 round boxes of .30/06, 4 boxes of 7mm, 3 boxes of .45 ACP and you no longer have 3 guns....just 3 clubs.
Designate one shotgun, one rifle and one handgun as your primary "social unrest" home defense weapons and load up on the ammo for them. Having 20 guns doesn't do you any good if all you have is a few rounds for each. Kinda hard to watch out the FRONT living room window where the armed looters are moving around and dig through the BACK bedroom closet for more ammo. ("I KNOW I have at least a half box of .270 somewhere from last deer season......where the hell is it ???").
If you can't afford lots of expensive high caliber ammo, get a few bricks of .22 ammo. 300 rounds flying out that window from your .22 rifle and pistol may not drop a 250 lb man, but a wound in the arm with a .22 will slow him down, take him off the attack and put HIM on defense. Plus, with a bucket of .22 ammo, your wife and kid can easily load one gun while you shot the other.
Don't forget magazines / clips. It's great that you have 1 EXTRA mag that came with your favorite deer rifle, B-U-T a total of 2 mags with only 5 rounds each isn't going to last long until you hear "click" and stop shooting to reload them. If you can't get oversize mags, get a sack full of the "regular" ones.
AND, as noted by another FREEPER after my post; Ensure you have slings on your long guns, so you will have at least one hand free when on the move. If you don't want to "mess up the looks" of your beautiful 375 H & H Magnum with swivels and sling, at least have some precut lengths of small size rope or strapping handy to use for an 'emergency' sling. You can always tie it around the stock and forearm (or barrel) and throw it over your shoulder. It doesn't have to be 'pretty', just a temporary jerry-rig that could save your life.
I am all for prepping, but seriously, some of that stuff sounds totally paranoid.
I am all for prepping, but seriously, some of that stuff sounds totally paranoid.
My son is an intelligent grown man and doesn't live near me. He rolls his eyes at my preps and we leave it at that. He is certainly welcome to come here if the need arises.
I have a sister-in-law and husband who are to the left of Stalin - seriously. The sister-in-law thinks preps are fun to talk about but has nothing that I didn't give her and she lives on the coast - she is a fruitcake liberal and I mean it and she knows it.
Her husband is a genuine genius but a fruitcake liberal as well. Because he is so bright, my preps confuse him. He respects my intelligence and can't figure out why someone as smart as I am, would prep. He's afraid to call it nonsense because he knows I'm not nonsense. If I'm doing it, he's thinking maybe I know something he doesn't.
On their last trip here, they had it all figured out. They say the real danger is global warming will prevent crops being grown in their area so they will move to California where his brother is when that happens. Then, they will be safe there, plenty to eat as global warming won't hurt that place.
I know, he is a genius, but really liberal stupid.
I love those two people and they will be welcome if they need to come here, however they need to be dipped in oil and French fried until the liberalism is gone. Did I mention they get their news only from Al Jazeera, as they say they are the only news that tells the truth. They tell me I should watch/hear Al Jazeera if I want the truth about Jews and everything else.
Some people are simply going to be better prepared than others. The better prepared one is, the greater the likelihood of survival. I reckon it depends on whether or not you believe a doomsday scenario is possible or probable. That’s not paranoia.
That was under $10k, and if one tries a little harder to find a bargain, even a $1k purchase is possible. I can't see how a prepper wouldn't have that. In gold! :)
I just find it ironic reading the above advice on a social media website!
Social Media is Facebook, MySpace etc. Unless you reveal yourself on FreeRepublic, we only know you as SamAdams76.
Social Media?
Except...they will be on their own in survival mode, in an area densely populated with terrified, possibly violent urban dwellers.
Seems to me if you're going to survive, your $800k residence in Outer Metropolis is not a good investment after all, and its "location, location, location" is going to have some stunning drawbacks.
I would say if you expect to be living in raw, rugged survivalist mode, get yourself a getaway home in a raw rugged place where you can expect fewer interruptions.
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