If you have a family and you’re preparing for a SHTF scenario, it is important to be mindful of several things. Your family’s safety and security is paramount, and when you survive and make it through to the other side, your legacy as their protector and essentially their life saver will never be forgotten.
Many preppers have a family, and their spouse and children might not have the same enthusiasm for survival as they do. Some might even think you are crazy for strategizing and preparing for bad things to come. This is unfortunate, but its important to not let it bother you. Don’t take offense or feel shunned by them for their feelings about prepping. Just know that they will be incredibly grateful to you when you effectively save their life and that you will then be a hero.
Your Spouse’s Role In Preparedness
Some spouses will be glad that you are taking measures to prepare, but will want to leave everything up to you and won’t take much interest in the process. You shouldn’t be bothered by this, and you should be glad that your spouse is fully supportive of the measures you’re taking. I’m trying to refrain from using gender terms here because sometimes it is the wife who is the prepper while the husband takes a more passive role in this area. Most times however, it is the husband who is proactive in prepping while the wife doesn’t show much interest. If your spouse doesn’t show much or any interest in your strategies for preparation but they support your initiative to do so, consider yourself lucky.
If you have a spouse who is not supportive of your sense of purpose to prepare, for financial or other reasons, you need to have a plan for how to continue your preps without causing trouble in your relationship. One option you might consider is renting out a storage unit, preferably very close to your home. Many relationship experts would advise against keeping a secret like this from your spouse, but what other choice do you have? It’s probably not the best alternative, but your storage unit could even double as a bug out location depending on the type of environment you live in. A storage unit will be a great alternative for a prepper who does not have the support of their spouse though. You can have everything stashed away and ready to go. Just make sure you can gain access to your unit no matter what. If the entrance gate is electrical, be sure to have a stepping stool or ladder to enable you to get over the fence to access the unit if the grid is down.
Preparing Your Children For Preparation
If your children are younger than teenagers, my advice would be to not discuss things hitting the fan, bug out locations, bug out bags, or anything related that they might consider scary. At a bare minimum, maybe only let them know that you are storing food because you worry about the food system being vulnerable and that food might become so expensive and hard to obtain that you want to ensure that your family has what they need. Beyond that, their young and innocent minds really can’t handle knowing anything else in my humble opinion. If you were 11 years old, you probably wouldn’t want to think of a calamitous situation where many people will die and you need to survive. It’s a very heavy burden that will weigh on their young and developing minds.
Once your children are teenagers, you can start filling them in on your preparedness plans and what you will do as a family if the SHTF. If you have a feeling of certainty and you feel it in your bones that something bad is going to happen, it would be best to play it down and act as if you feel its a slim chance, but you don’t want to take any chances. Being a teenager is a volatile time as I’m sure you’ll remember, and your children have a lot to worry about in general. Not only that, but it’s a safe assumption they aren’t as mentally tough as you are. You don’t want to burden them with constant thoughts of a perilous situation that they’ll need to fight through to survive. They are of the age though where they can be aware of what you’re doing, and should be aware of what their role will be when things go down. If you have children that are over 18 years old, you can effectively tell them as much or as little as you choose.
Here’s a tricky subject. What if you’re divorced and your children primarily live with your ex, and their survival is just as important to you as your own, as it should be. This is not an enviable position to be in, but measures can be taken and there are solutions. If your children are teenagers, one option could be to provide them with their own preps and to advise them thoroughly on what to do. If your children are young though, chances are you will have to include your ex when things go down. There might be considerable acrimony between the two of you. You might even hate their guts. You have to put that behind you though in order to save your children. It’s definitely not ideal, but it has to be done. For what it’s worth, your children will think the world of you when they realize the sacrifice you made and how you put your feelings for their mother or father behind you in order to secure their safety. They will never forget it and you will be a hero in their eyes for it.
In closing, if you’re not a lone wolf and you have family, there are a lot of things you’ll need to take into consideration. Their lack of interest in prepping should in no way be a deterrent to your mission as a prepper and the things you have to do to ensure you and your family’s survival.
