What To Tell Family Members Who Dont Prep

[Bradj]

I am impatient with laziness and can be pretty blunt when confronted with it. And yet the blunt approach is not always the best approach especially when family is involved. That said, it is IMPERATIVE that you work this stuff out NOW, not when TSHTF. It is also imperative that you dispel beliefs and manage expectations NOW. If people think of your place as a bunker or retreat or food factory that needs to be managed NOW. Without managing it now when food becomes scarce they are going to be sure that you have extra..you do now so why not then? AND they will tell other people and that will bring more mouths to feed and that word will spread like wildfire.

Like many families most of our extended family does not prep. We have tried to get them to see the logic many times to no end. Therefore I wanted a last time “on the record” treaties of where they fit in. Had it been solely up to me I would have sat them down and told them that our place is not a hotel for lazy asses so don’t show up. But yet they are family and I have a wife more tactful than I so we came up with a letter that we hand delivered to them. It does not preclude them from showing up and us making the decision to accept them even unprepared but I hope that it has tactfully told them the ultimate truth that it is NOT the responsibility for other people to do their work for them.

The letter follows, constructive criticism welcome and if you feel that replicating parts or all of it for your situation would be helpful be my guest with no need to attribute it to me.

[Bradj]

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this letter finds you well.

We are very fortunate, blessed if you will, to live in such a prosperous and peaceful time. There certainly are many examples around the globe where things are not prosperous or peaceful but in all of our day to day lives things are pretty good. That said, a student of history or a student of the Bible will tell you that the history of mankind on this planet is not a story of peace and prosperity. Rather there are pockets of peace and prosperity that have punctuated poverty and conflict.

The events of 9-11, hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake are recent examples of how quickly an orderly society can transcend into chaos. Those events also pointed to the fact that the people caught up in them where, to varying degrees of time, completely on their own. And in the case of Katrina and Haiti, in the early stages the governmental entities that arrived to “help” initially made things worse and added to the chaos.

There is no question that the relative peace and prosperity of our lives could be shattered temporarily or permanently, as we said, history, the Bible and recent events tell us this. However, nobody knows what will or won’t happen or when it will happen. But we do know there are some pretty disturbing things transpiring in the world we now live in. The Middle east, always a powder keg but never more so than today, the fact that many millions of muslims want us all dead or converted, a level of debt and spending in Washington that boggles the mind to name a few.

Because of the uncertainties of today’s world, the concept of being self prepared to face any disasters that life throws at is in now main stream. Every state and county office of emergency management, every fire department, Red Cross, FEMA, homeland security, even insurance companies are telling Americans to be prepared.

In “our county” on the emergency services building at the corner of blank and blank there is a banner that says, “Are You Prepared” with a link to the web site of county emergency services.

Best selling books such as “Patriots” and “One Second After” as well as television shows such as National Geographic’s “Electronic Armageddon” as well as movies such as “Testament”, “The Day After”, “The Road” and “Children of Men” detail the value of being prepared. Additionally such figures as Newt Gingrich (who wrote the forward to One Second After) gave a lengthy speech to the Heritage Foundation about the risk of an EMP attack (The speech can be viewed on YouTube). If you’re not aware of EMP there is plenty of information on the web about it. A blue ribbon panel of scientist, academicians and military men was commissioned by congress to study EMP and their report can be found here; www.empcommission.org

The short of their report is pretty sobering. For a glimpse of what life would look like after an EMP attack read “One Second After” written by a well known college professor and personal friend of Newt Gingrich. We have attached a press release by US Senator Bartlett regarding EMP. It is most certainly not the lunatic fringe of society talking about these issues. And we would encourage reading these works and viewing the shows as while there is no way to know what the odds are of events of this nature it is not pie-in-the-sky science fiction by any means.

Being prepared for an uncertain future is a choice. Some choose to do so, other choose not to, however let us share a couple of beliefs about the subject.

1) It’s a good idea to be prepared. (pray like everything depends on God, act like everything depends on you)

2) If you don’t prepare and life throws you a curve ball, its not the responsibility of the government to prepare for you and its not the responsibility of other people to prepare for you and its not the responsibility of God to do your work for you. That just becomes the reality of the choices you have made.

What does the Bible say about being prepared?

I Timothy 5:8

But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Proverbs 6:6-11

Go to the ant, you sluggard! Consider her ways and be wise,
Which, having no captain, Overseer or ruler,
Provides her supplies in the summer, And gathers her food in the harvest. How long will you slumber, O sluggard?
When will you rise from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to sleep—
So shall your poverty come on you like a prowler,
And your need like an armed man.

Luke 22:36

Then He said to them, “But now, he who has a money bag, let him take it, and likewise a knapsack; and he who has no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.

Don’t get us wrong, if anyone receiving this letter got into a bind and we are in a position to step up and help, if we can, we would do so in a heartbeat, as we know you would do the same for us.

Yet, in any scenarios that occur that are not regional or short term in nature such as portrayed in “Patriots”, “One Second After” and the National Geographic special, we would not be in a position to help out those who are not prepared.

We hope that some or all of the information contained in this letter inspires you to learn more or do more to ensure a safe and prosperous future for yourselves. If you have any questions regarding the content of this letter of course we would welcome dialogue about it.

With Love

Brad and Wife

[Belle]

That might work for some people, but most will just ignore it, especially if they're struggling with finances. For most people I've found that telling them that buying sale foods by the case will save them a ton of money is a better way to go. Even if they don't end up well-stocked, they'll have some food and be better off than most

[Bradj]

The last piece of this is that I have been asked what do you do with “slacker” members of the family that you may need as part of the group. One woman wrote me and said she has married adult children and when speaking about her children’s spouses she said, “They love a person that I love but I don’t trust them”

My answer to them was to put everyone on notice like my letter above that THEY are responsible for themselves. Even if this is a reversal and they know you are a prepper and have extras, blame it on the economy, a change of heart..a young family at church lost everything in a house fire so you gave them a bunch of your preps..they were going bad so you gave them to the food bank and cant afford to replenish now..whatever.

If you do that and TSHTF you are in the drivers seat and these possible strategies are available to you.

1) TSHTF and you can let them in but it is clear that you are in charge as YOU saw this coming and acted, you counseled them and why didn’t you follow my advice as since you didn’t you are now a burden to us all. AKA hold it over their heads to keep the ones you don’t trust in line.

2) You can say nothing and just let them in but hold that card if you need to play it.

3) You can deny their entrance based on not following your advice and the fact that you “don’t trust them” with good conscious as you fairly put them on notice.

4) For the slackers, unprepared or people you don’t trust..You could have a list ready to go of how they can earn entrance since attempting to show up with nothing but mouths to feed a shotgun and one box of bird shot is not acceptable. You have cash and small denominations of silver and or gold on hand and you give them the list. We need propane we need kerosene (you can put food on the list but that will be the most dangerous assignment as everyone is going to be scrambling for that) we need this and we need that. Here is a list of locations that stock that stuff (think mom and pop, feed and seed stores, etc not big box). “IF you do an adequet job of gathering the goods we need to sustain us as a group you can join us otherwise you need to find someplace else to go". Council them to not be afraid to knock on the back door of businesses and lay it out frankly to the business owner; You wish them no harm, you are willing to pay more than the sticker price for goods, it is TEOTWAWKI and it aint coming back soon so they just as well get some cash or silver for their stuff as it is only a matter of hours until they get looted and loose it all. This could go on for as much as three days IMO.

See how they do, maybe they come through, maybe they are shown for their true colors to everyone. Maybe you had in mind that you would let them in all along but whatever they bring back is bonus as its more than you had previously. Is there danger in sending people out to hunt and gather as society collapses? Yes but leave that in God’s hands you are already being more generous than you are required to be.

[goatlady]

You're much more trusting than I, Brad - sending out "slackers", un-trustables" and most likely DGIs with a list and YOUR silver and/or gold. YOu really expect them to return - with or without any goods on the list and change? It may be worth the loss of $$ to weed out those that will not fit, I guess.

[Oscar Wilde]

.... you can lead a horse to water .... Keep it simple .... talk about normal everyday things .... "hey, what do you guys think about about those silly death panel provisions in the president's health care plan" or "hey, what do ya think about this recent food safety bill thats intended to appear to address commercially processed food safety but will quickly put a real crimp in the home gardener's style". Keep the conversation simple .... but thought provoking.

O.W.

[BugoutBear]

There's too much information.
Disinterested people will not read that much.
Afer years of trying I've stopped giving advise.
I was just recently rebuffed by someone I have a great deal of respect for. They do not want to hear it.

They will not prepare, but they'll remember you do.

Send this out to everyone and have a clear conscious that you tried:
http://www.fema.gov/areyouready/
Are You Ready?
An In-depth Guide to Citizen Preparedness

[Alder]

Just keep quiet and lock the doors. Tell 'em all that you ate up the food years ago.

Look hungry.

[joyfulheart]

forwarding doomy type news reports, with a "wonder what we should do to prepare against this...." question is about all I'm willing to do.

I'm surrounded by family members who think "from scratch" means a package of instant potatoes and a pre-cooked chicken from the deli dept.

[bbwx]

We have tried to get them to see the logic many times to no end.

Stop trying, they don't want to hear it and they will get angry with you for trying to wake them up. No matter how much you try you can't care more for their lives then they do themselves. If they are at all open to the idea or see any need for it then they would of already of woken up and be asking you questions about what to do. They have already told you that they are not interested. All your pounding away at them will do nothing but drive a wedge into your relationship with them. But I do think you need to find a nice way to tell them that you have tried to get them to see the need to get ready to take care of themselves but because they have rejected your advice that when the bad times to happen you will not have sufficent to take care of them. While they have been spending their money on vacations, cars, trinkets and toys they don't need you have been watching your pennies and putting away for the future. The reality of the situation is that you can't do for them if they won't lift a finger to do for themselves. In order to make yourself feel better put away a pallet of basic foodstuffs for them and when the bottom drops out give it to them and tell them they are on their own.