Hello Mommies and Daddies. Thank you for joining me! I created happyhealthychildren.org to provide parents with information they need to raise happy, healthy children naturally and holistically. Today’s post is part one of a series on prepping for your family. It will explain what it means to prep and why prepping is important. Next week we will address how to prep.
What does it mean to prep?
According to Wikipedia, preppers are “individuals or groups who proactively prepare for emergencies, including natural disasters as well disruptions to social, political or economic order”.
Why is it important to prep?
Making sure that you, as parents, can meet the most basic needs of your children is one of your chief responsibilities. If your situation changes drastically tomorrow, will you be able to feed, clothe and shelter your family?
My personal testimony about the importance of prepping:
I will share with you a personal example that taught me the importance of prepping. In 2017, my family was living in Southwest Florida when level 4 Hurricane Irma struck. One of the nicer things about hurricanes, compared with other natural disasters, is that current technology provides us with several days’ advanced notice that a hurricane is coming.
“No problem” one might think. We will just go to the grocery store, buy enough food and clean water for the next two weeks and wait it out at home.
The problem with this plan is that, at the same time your family is hearing about the big storm, every other family in the affected geographic region is also hearing about the storm and heading to the store to get their 2-week supply of food and water. Unfortunately, grocery stores do not have that many supplies available. So, by the time most people get there, the store shelves are empty.
This same scenario can play out in other geographic areas where people get advanced notice that a storm is coming. For those of you who live in an area affected by blizzards, you have probably had the same experience. You hear about the coming storm and arrive at the store, only to find the shelves empty. What’s worse are the types of storms for which you get no advanced notice, like avalanches or tornadoes. Any significant natural disaster will affect your ability to obtain basic goods and services.
Why is prepping more important now than before?
Now that we have covered why prepping is important in relation to natural disasters, let’s look at other scenarios in which your family may need a stock of emergency items.
You probably do not need me to tell you that we are living in unusual times. Never before during my lifetime have there been the shortages that we are now seeing in our country. If you haven’t noticed these shortages, next time you go to the grocery store, really pay attention to the shelves. Each time I go to the store nowadays, more and more shelves are bare. In fact, there are entire sections of shelves at the grocery store that are completely empty. We should all realize that these shortages of basic goods may get worse before they get better.
To make matters worse, there are mainstream news outlets, such as CNN, politico and the Guardian, talking about a second American civil war brewing. While none of us can truly imagine this scenario, it is a possibility. Historically, many well-established republics have fallen due to the social and economic unrest that is currently present in America. Again, we hope nothing like this happens and that the state of our nation improves. But how can we be prepared for these things if they do occur?
Getting started on your preparations
What are the basic items that your family needs to survive for at least 2 weeks? We are going to delve more into this topic next week. For now, I would encourage you to think about this question, first on your own, and then with your spouse if you are married. The good news is that, with preparation comes peace of mind. If you know that, regardless of the situation, your family has the basic supplies they need to survive, your stress levels will be greatly improved.
Thank you for reading with me today! Please enter your email address below to subscribe to my blog, which will allow part two of this series and all of my future posts to come directly to your inbox. Also please share my Gettr account, Facebook page, YouTube videos and Instagram with your friends and family. My goal is to help parents raise happy, healthy children!