The Survival Mom

Not All Refugees Are Created Equal

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A reader, Lucas, posted a question that has crossed many of our minds.  What do you intend to do if, or when, needy families or individuals come to you for help?  As Lucas puts it, do you take them in or turn them away?  You can read the debate here.

What if my own family were stranded somewhere with no hope of getting home.  Would we have to resign ourselves to being part of the early die-off or might there be a way to increase our chances of survival? I think I might have the answer to that question.

Imagine that the S has indeed hit the fan, several weeks have gone by, and your family has adjusted to this new reality.  You’re thankful for all the preparedness steps you took and keep a very low profile in your town.

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One day you see a family approaching your front door.  Through a peep-hole you spot a dad, a mom, and two teenagers.  Your first instinct is to fire a warning shot, but something tells you to go out and hear their story.  Here is what you learn.

Refugee Dad was a former executive with an insurance company and made quite a good living at one time.  Refugee Mom had been a legal secretary but became a stay-at-home mom once her two children were born.  She kept herself busy with various charities in their hometown and was active in Junior League.  Their teenage daughter had been on track to receive a scholarship to a prestigious university based on her soccer skills, and her brother showed some real promise in his favorite sports, skateboarding and snowboarding.  The family seems healthy and has lived an active lifestyle.

While talking with this family and hearing their tales of difficulty, you spot a second family approaching, again, a dad, a mom, and two teenagers.  You’re already out in the open, obviously your home is occupied, so you have no choice but to talk with them as well.  They have quite a different story to tell.

This second Refugee Dad is a plumber and an apprentice gunsmith.  Although the family is stranded far from home, they don’t seem too much worse for the wear, and you learn that they have always enjoyed roughing it in the wilderness.  In fact, they are all expert marksmen and have some formidable hunting and fishing skills.  Mom is an RN and a certified Master Gardener.  The two teens were both good students and were active in 4-H.  Mom and Dad have volunteered with the American Red Cross for the past ten years and taken every CERT class their community offered.

Which family will you take in?  Which will you turn away?

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In the case of the first family, they had been living the typical American lifestyle.  That’s no criticism, but neither had there ever been much of a preparedness mindset.  In a true SHTF scenario, this family brings no value to the table, so to speak.  I might be willing to provide a few provisions, but they would add four more mouths to feed and not much else.  Harsh, but true.

On the other  hand, the second refugee family would definitely be welcome.  Are you kidding?  What a package!  A nurse, master gardener, 4-H members, and a gunsmith to boot?  Wow!  I’d share my buckets of wheat with them any day!

These examples, and the questions I’ve posed, illustrate the importance of moving past the buying mode of preparedness and into the areas of skills and knowledge. Often, these come free of charge.

Even the best and hardest working families are being hit with long-term unemployment and financial hardships.  This makes it difficult to purchase extra food and all the other supplies you may need, but that doesn’t mean you have to accept your fate as die-off victims.  Seek out free training, volunteer to work alongside a master of a particularly valuable skill.  Be purposeful when choosing your kids’ activities, sports, and hobbies and how your family spends its free time.

If you do ever find yourself in the unfamiliar role of a homeless refugee, your bank of skills and knowledge may open doors to you and your family that would otherwise remain closed.  It’s worth investing the time and effort.

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The Survival Mom

I'm the original Survival Mom, and have been helping moms worry less and enjoy their homes and families more for 9 years.

Comments

  1. Well said. I definitely need to spend more time developing and improving my skills. I'm in good shape on all the homemaking activities, cooking, sewing, canning, pickling and gardening, but am ashamed that I've never taken a single Red Cross or first aid course of any kind. Now that summer is winding down and I have a little more time I'm going to get right on that. Thanks for the prod.

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  2. @SurvivalMom makes a good point. Some folks are more welcome in an emergency than others. But I'm not a trusting person. And I would imagine that many folks would be very suspicious during/after an emergency.

    Training certificates might serve as a "survival passport" during these times. It wouldn't be much work to add a couple more pages to your emergency binder.

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  3. Being from DC and inherently worthless, I'll probably be shot on sight. 😉

    But I have RN and trauma surgeon friends so will try to grab them along with my Gransfors Bruks axe collection and Cody Lundin books — which I would study intently. Being a refugee on foot certainly would limit the usefulness of all the camping-survival stuff I've acquired. Couldn't carry much of it, even in my bike trailer.

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    • Practice living for a weekend on what you CAN carry on your back or panniers for your bike… then stretch it to 3 days, 4 days, etc. The more you know, the less you need.

      Cody is a great teacher – take his lessons and apply them – they will serve you well.

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  4. This has been a great topic to let bounce around in my head. There is one thought that keeps coming up: who I help depends less on them and more on my resources. Four mouths are four mouths regardless of how skilled they are or aren't. You have to take care of yourself first. You touched on that, but I think it needs to be emphasized.

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    • That's a valid point, Josh. Our first responsibility is to provide for our families first, but I tend toward the belief that in a true SHTF scenario, no individual or family will be able to survive long on their own. Also, this blog post focuses on the importance of skills, but another factor in deciding whether to "take in or turn away", is the trust factor. Is this a person or family we can trust? Frankly, that factor would trump even the longest list of skills.

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  5. Practice – live in your backyard (or even in your living room with JUST your preps) for a weekend… then take it to a local park/forest to do it again. Then do it when it's a little cold or rainy… keep challenging yourselves – skills are honed, not suddenly imbued on you by virtue of reading a book or watching a TV show.

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  6. I have a degree in behavioral psychology, but have earned my beans for years as a novelist/ writer. Sound pretty useless, don't I. LOL
    But I can hunt, shoot very well, dress and butcher game and livestock, cook (camp style or modern kitchen) home preserve (canning, dehydrating, root cellaring), master garden, properly prune fruit trees, sheer sheep, sew, knit, weave, and a dozen other things. Ok, I'm not much good at fishing, but I can produce a top-notch smoked salmon or trout once you've caught it. I can birth a baby (livestock too) and I know which side of a bandaid goes up.
    What I am to the world at large is not all there is to me, and most of us (preppers) too, I imagine. I can't hike 60 miles with a 60lb. pack anymore (actually, I don't think I ever could.). But I'm pretty sure we "Survival Moms" have always been multi-skilled kind of people.

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    • Well said Barbara! I've been a "Survival Mom" for a long time and hope that the skills I have learned and actually used will be of a lot more importance then how far I can hike!

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  7. My $0.02:

    No family is going to survive for long by itself. The workload, unless you're on a functioning homestead, will be staggering. Even then, there are the security concerns.

    If you haven't established a community of survivors (preferably in advance or shortly into the crisis) then investing in other people may be worth it. Then again, if you invest in the wrong people you may find yourself on the road with your own gun at your back. Tough choice between two sets of risks.

    What if you turn away a group that didn't fit your needs and they tie on with some rough crowd. They likely won't forget where you live. What then?

    Reply

  8. I've thought about this some and this was a good "food for thought" reading. It seems it is not often mentioned but trapping, hunting, and fishing are also valuable skills. A small fish net or well stocked tackle box, could prove invaluable in providing for your family. Traps or snares can also easily provide food in most settings and these are skills that you can take into many envriorments. I also consider our family dog a survival resource, he can pull a sled, track, retreive and is a good watch dog.

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  9. I really need to look into First Aid training in my area. The rest we have covered. My husband is a Electrical Contractor and can build or repair just about anything and an avid hunter and fisherman. He really is more deadly with his recurve (traditional bow) than he is with a gun. Both of our children 12 and 9 are spot on with a compound bow and not to brag but old moms not to bad herself ( I came in 1st beating 24 men in our last archery league). Our 9 year old little guy has already harvested 3 wild pigs and 2 deer since the age of 6. Our daughter, not so much, but she likes to help in the garden and canning and she is our 4-H horse girl. If the cars are of no use then we go horse-back. I CAN NOT SAY ENOUGH about 4-H!!!! Get your children involved. As a 10 year member myself it is a WONDERFUL learning experience! Things you will use for a life time!

    Reply

    • Joy, we live nearly parallel lives! My husband is also an electrical contractor! My kids have been on an archery team, but this year we had to set that activity aside. I would love for them to get into 4-H, but as with anything, it's a matter of, "What else can we cram into our lives?" :o)

      Reply

      • I know!!!! We are the same way! We do not have time for one more thing. I Love my life but it is run, run, run ALL of the time. Is your husband staying busy with work in your area? We are hanging in there but not near the work we had a few years ago.

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  10. Oh, forgot to add that my son harvested the pigs and deer with his gun. This is the first year he can pull back enough weight with his bow to hunt.

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  11. Good post, but there are of course other considerations. Given that the 2nd family were kosher and willing to pitch in you probably made the right choice. Still I might consider the 1st family if they are willing to work and learn and they are good people.

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    • If I had the space and supplies, I'm willing to teach if they're willing to learn. Hopefully, by the time they find themselves to the point of wandering the roads, they've gotten past the attitude of entitlement that the world owes them anything and it's time to get their hands in the dirt and stop whining.

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  12. I've done a bit of travel overseas and one thing I've noticed is that there is alot of manual labor involved in running a low-tech household, not all of which requires advanced skillsets but some of which is extremely time consuming and hard. I see an extra few sets of hard working hands as a boon in times like this, so if I thought it prudent I would take in both families. However, if the father of the insurance company is sporting a 400 lbs. "successful life" body and the only thing that seems to be common in the family is collecting chins my answer would probably be different.

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  13. I have thought about ways in which I can improve upon my skills to be a more rounded individual. I have also thought about the same scenario that you present. I would soo choose the second family! If I had the means to give some food to the first family, I would do so, but that is all that would happen.

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  14. The big difference between stockpiling skills and stockpiling food is that your skills die with you while your food does not.

    In other words there is no point in killing you to get access to your skills- the same is not true of your stuff.

    I am fairly sociable by nature and do not like the idea of a crisis that is so bad that I have to turn people away. In fact I had an aversion to survivalism for a long time because I saw it as being anti neighborly. I created a 'survival C.V' section on my blog so that people can judge my usefulness in advance and know if I am worth knowing when they need me.

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  15. I wonder if my neighbors could survive a 72 hr crisis. I have warned them to stock up and be prepared, but I know they aren't really doing anything about it. These neighbors have been my friends for 20 years so it would be hard to turn them away, but aren't they the same people who didn't do their homework and wanted to copy off of yours cause you were prepared for the next day and they weren't?

    Oh, this is going to be hard, I never used to think this way, but only true friends and family will make it into the stronghold.
    A family or two in need of assistance is one thing, a gang or bands of people overpowering your house is another.

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  17. Many of us would protect our own and turn away those who did not heed the warning.

    My new concern is getting caught 20 – 30 minutes (by car) away and trying to get back home.
    Even being prepared, would I find people willing to help as I trek back to my home base.
    Hopefully my home base would be intact when I finally arrived!

    Reply

    • I keep my 72hour bag (backpack) in my trunk. If I cant get home in the car, I start walking and I know I have fuel, food and water to carry me the 30 miles home. Summer is a great time to practice this skill. My son and I routinely take our packs into GW Nat'l forest and spend days hiking and foraging. Did you know you can boil water in a plastic drinking bottle? many mountain streams have food in them, berries, pine nuts, etc. Learning how to use the natural resources around you and where to locate more resources than you have is vital.

      Reply

  18. WSHTF canned food in jars can easily be broken. During the flood in Idaho several years back one problem in clean up was dealing with the broken glass from food storages. Home canning is great just don't depend heavely on GLASS canning. Home can some glass canning jars but it's not that hard to can with NRSS cans. The Alaska website tells you how to safely do just that. Just my 2 cents.

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  20. If you invite strangers into your home sooner or later there will be a conflict or difference of opinion requiring that you go your separate ways. Do you really believe this family will just grab their bags and go? Of course not. They will either kill you and your family or force you out. It doesn't matter if you or your guests are of similar background, college educated, a doctor or mechanic or whatever. Sooner or later it will be them or you. If they figure this out before you do then it will be you that will die. Be helpful to strangers and even those who you know but do not take them into the fold.

    Reply

  21. This issue is probably one of the best reasons for vetting a group of "like-minded folks" before TSHTF. If you know whom you can trust and rely on beforehand a consensus can be arrived at about taking in strangers. Plus, there is strength in numbers so if turning strangers away is the decision you've made, you'll have the power to do so without 'going to the mattresses' over it.

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  22. Wowsers! You are totally right.

    I wonder, though, how many people would think "plumber has skills" instead of "white collar is better than blue collar."

    Maybe one way to do it (if you are blue collar) is to have skills (which you do) and then make sure you know enough about some white collar something to talk a good line. That way you could say you were a plumber as you worked your way through Yale and then became a Wall Street person, or something like that.

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  23. History has shown us that burgeoning leadership squables very often lead to a lot of needless bloodshed where cooperation would better serve the general interests; however, as you state – the strongest will eventually assume power regardless of the advantages or disadvantages to the community.

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  24. Some of the commenters seem worried about how do you send off the family that doesn't make the cut. This is where your barter/charity bag becomes important. What does this family need to move on? A couple of silver dimes? A loaf of bread? 4 MRE's? A poncho? Have charity/barter items that you WANT to give to people who did not prep, but cannot become permanent residents/contributing members.

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    • That's a good point. We've had discussions about bartering and charity items before, and this is a good reminder. I've been thinking of stocking up on those little tiny bottles of rum, vodka, and the like. In good conscience, I couldn't hand a big bottle of alcohol to someone who is already under a lot of stress. However, a little swig or two of strong drink can be a good thing. :o)

      Reply

  25. For myself, apparent attitude would also count for a lot, indeed more than the skills they bring to the table.
    Someone that goes "look, I don't have any special skills, but I can work the end of a rake/spade/etc in exchange for shelter and provisions" and is otherwise willing to follow the major rule one ( my property, my rules), is in a TSHIF situation more attractive to me, than a person who has these nifty skills, but wants to do things his way, or just take off with your provisions on his way downrange.
    One thing that must be kept in mind though, a not-willing-to-contribute or a wannabe-Trojan with skills is a much larger threat than one without.

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  26. I am making bags for just type of thing,, bought cheap book bags on sale for 1.00 each,, went to dollar tree filled with items,, 1lb bag of beans, 1lb bag rice, bag of coffee, small first aid kit, sewing kit, a couple cans of tuna, a couple cans of roast beef,2 vienna sausage, tea bags, peanut butter crackers,, emergency candles,, matches fishing hooks and line and 2 2liters of water,, plan on handing these out to familes,, cost 15.00 to make and give me piece of mind that i dont have to turn away anyone hunger but also dont have to take anyone in,,, this is the best im willing to do,, sorry but everyone hears the same news we do,, and live in the same world,, if they dont perpare its not our fault,, and before i take anyone in they would have to have a skill that we can use,, a banker or carpenter,, which would add more to our community?? sorry the banker would add nothing,,,,

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  27. Before I would answer the basic question, I would need to know a couple of things.

    A: Do you have a starter community project, or are you planning on being alone indefinately?

    B: Do you know of, or have any land or buildings nearby that they could use as a home?

    If you are starting a community, these people (if willing to work hard and learn) might prove valuable. Even a bankers family can stand a few hours of night watches. His family can learn, and help farm. Can you trust them?

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  28. In the first family, I would be much more willing to take in their daughter if she wanted to stay. If nothing else, she’d be more of a help to the womenfolk and won’t eat too much.
    As for the second family, I might be inclined to try them out. But they might be criminals.

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  29. I have never understood the mostly American attitude of Shoot First. As much as you would like to think you can, you can’t survive alone very long. You will need those families who wander on to your property. If you shoot first you could be killing great allies. That being said, everyone must be willing to do their part, no slackers will be welcome. It doesn’t mean take in everyone who comes your way or that you have to give them food. Maybe they just need a quiet spot to sleep outside for the night and tell them to move on in the morning. Everyone thinks city folk are unfriendly. I found small town people a lot more suspicious and less trusting than city people. If the SHTF I think there is a great chance we will back to the Fiefdom way of life. You will need people to help you and although you and your survival friends would all like to be equals on the land you share it is not likely to happen. The first family will have skills as well. Does the stay at home mom sew? That is a skill that would help the nurse in an emergency , you will also need to repair or make clothes at some point. She also probably knows some laws being a legal secretary , the dad working in insurance would know what disasters are more likely to happen and may be good at running a business if he owned his own company. these are skills you will need down the road when trying to communicate with other survivors.

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  30. In your example I would welcome both families. I would hope the ones who know would teach those who do not know there by making us even stronger in the long run. Knowledge is power. I am not as young as I was yesterday so strong backs will be needed. I am smart but I don’t have all the answers; you might have a few answers too. There is a reason most sports are played with teams. Or instead of sports think in terms of the military we have many solders and not just one guy with a gun. War like survival is a team effort.

    Reply

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