I frequently hear OPSEC come up all the time as the solution, and it's clearly a good solution if you start at the beginning, but what if the cat is already out of the bag? At the extremes, some say they'd turn them all away, I've seen others who say they couldn't turn away family members or a hungry child even if it meant dooming themselves. I'm somewhere in the middle of that spectrum (as I suspect are many folks), but I'm leaning a lot closer to the "turn them away" option.
Periodically I see this dilemma come up here on the forum. It's a dilemma I'm likely to face myself, so I thought I'd start a thread with how I'm trying to handle it. I can't honestly say I really like the plan I've come up with, but it's the best I've come up with so far, given the hole I'm in. I imagine I'll get some replies telling me how stupid I am and pointing out all the things I've done wrong, but I'm still putting this out there in case any elements of it are helpful to anyone else. I apologize in advance for the length of this post.
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My parents believe in preparedness. My brother and I listened, but he's a thousand miles away so we'd be unable to support each other in a major crisis, but at least each of us are doing something.
My sisters all seem to have ignored those parental teachings and have made it clear they think I'm a crackpot. They even declined the thousands of dollars in FREE long-term storage food that my dad offered to each of them when he and my mom moved into a retirement home and no longer had space for it. We live in a major earthquake zone but my sisters refuse to even make basic preparations for such an event. I had no doubt they'd expect me to bail them out if the worst happened.
In my family, OPSEC is out the window. It's always been a common teaching in our home as I grew up, so everyone pretty much knew who was following it and who wasn't. I can't unring that bell, so this is how I'm trying to handle it:
Phase 1 - I got the idea when my wife and I ran into a spot of trouble and were without any income for 7 months. During that time we had to live entirely off our food storage. Since I'm not overly close to my sisters, normally I'd just keep my troubles to myself and weather the storm, but it gave me some inspiration.
I "let it slip" at an infrequent family dinner how glad I was once we had finally re-established something of an income stream. I mentioned how lucky we were that we had built up some emergency food storage, because while in the end we ended up having to use it up, it had been there when we needed it. My purpose was twofold: both to show them that it doesn't have to be an apocalyptic catastrophe that can make a food supply useful, but also to show that we no longer had a supply that they could fall back on if the worst should happen.
Phase 2 - About a year later at a family Thanksgiving gathering I got the adults together for a small chat. This included my sisters and their spouses, along with some other extended family who I thought needed a wake-up call if they thought I was going to be their emergency plan. I reminded them of my previous misfortune during which we had to fall back on our food storage and in doing so, used it all up. I told them I had been working hard all year and had rebuilt some of that supply. My wife previously agreed to play devil's advocate and in that role, during this talk she said that she had drawn a line in the sand, and since purchasing these new supplies had involved a lot of sacrifice, she wasn't going to support me buying any more beyond this. We had no vacations of any type during that time, no movies, no eating out, no cable TV, no splurging of any kind, and Christmas that year was going to be very, very lean. She supported me in buying what I had, but that was the end of it.
I told them that the whole situation this year got me thinking, that if we did have a major earthquake, what if some of us had our homes collapse and needed somewhere to go? I said "if our home collapsed, I wouldn't feel right just showing up on one of your doorsteps, empty handed, expecting them to just take us in and be a total drain on their resources." So in anticipation of such a situation, I decided to divide up these new supplies into an equal share for each of us, and if they were willing, would they each keep a share of these supplies at their homes so our family wouldn't have to take food from their families' mouths if we had to stay with them for two or three days until we could get into a motel or Red Cross shelter. I said that obviously, if such an emergency did take place and we didn't need to go to one of their homes, they were welcome to use that food for their own families.
With some cajoling, I got each to agree to it, in part because of stressing to them (badgering them) how much peace of mind it would give me by dividing my supplies and pre-positioning it in different places so all my eggs aren't in one basket. So I gave them each two cases of MREs and two cases of water. I knew that to them, it would at least initially feel like a lot of supplies, but not so much that it was a hardship for them to store it.
Now, I realize this is probably a rather flawed plan and may not work at all. But it has several potential things it could accomplish, and if it even only accomplished ONE of those things, I'd count it as a win. These are the seeds of thought I hoped to plant:
- Minor emergencies CAN happen to anyone. It's not just TEOTWAWKI you need to worry about. Those supplies had immense value to my family during our financial crisis.
- I thought maybe, just maybe, in seeing those cases of MREs of mine sitting there in their home, maybe they'd start to feel just a tiny bit of comfort in knowing they are there for them to use in an emergency. If they do start to feel comforted by that, I think it's a win, because maybe they'd start adding to the stockpile.
- I chose MREs on purpose. I wanted a container that would clearly list how many meals were inside. Not servings (which is a vague concept to most), but individual meals. With a pile of canned goods, someone can delude themselves into thinking it'll last a lot longer than it really will. With that definitive meal number on the box, anyone with even the most minimal math skills can see that two cases would last a family maybe three days, or four at most if they only eat two meals a day. Likewise with individual bottles of water, instead of a barrel. If they do end up seeing ANY comfort or value in having those supplies around, they'll quickly see they need more than what I left them with.
- I gave them MY supply of food. I don't have any more than they do, so showing up here won't do them any more good than what I already left them with. They probably won't believe that's all I have, but I can hope, because they DO know how broke I am so maybe there's a chance.
- I planted the notion that in my mind, it is completely unacceptable to show up on someone's doorstep in an emergency, empty handed, expecting someone else to magically make everything better at the expense of their own family. Especially when they had been continually advised throughout their lives to prepare, but chose not to do so.
- Depending on your resources, it can take significant sacrifice to set up an emergency supply of essentials. You'd better realize what it is you're really asking for if you decide to go asking for a handout.
Now that I've set the stage I'm just waiting to see if it comes up again. If I ever get the sense that they still plan on expecting me to fix everything if there is an emergency, I'm going to be very, very blunt in reiterating to them the sacrifice that was required to put together the supplies I "pre-positioned" with family members. I'm going to point out the difference in our household incomes and give them a bill for how much they'll need to pay me so I can go out NOW, while food is plentiful, and buy the supplies that would be needed to feed their families. I don't mind storing it for them if they'll pay for it. They all have finances that are VASTLY greater than mine. There's no excuse for them not to contribute to saving their own butts. I tried handling this subtly. Next time it'll be a very different discussion.
So anyway, that's where I am so far. I'm sure if things get rough I'll still have some familial deadbeats show up, but hopefully this will at least reduce the number. If it's just a localized crisis, like a natural disaster with an endpoint visible, I imagine I'll help them out. On the other hand if it's some kind of complete economic or societal collapse where food can't be replaced, they'd better bring an awful lot lot of supplies of their own or some VERY valuable skills to the table or there's no way I can take them in. While I do have more than 2 cases of MREs, it's taking a LONG time to rebuild my food supply on a very limited budget. I really don't have enough to spare for anything other than a very brief crisis. I used to. Maybe I'll get there again someday.
Family on your doorstep? My attempt to solve it.
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