Pioneer Living Survival

There is something that has been bothering me since it`s air date. Doomsday Preppers. You know, trying to get people interested in being prepared for the smallest incident has become next to impossible. The very mention of a food & water stockpile, and having a flashlight & batteries on hand can make many people give you the weirdest looks. The fact is, being prepared for a disaster, no matter how small or large is just common sense. Let`s face it, if you`re planning on letting the government take care of you in the face of a disaster, even they will tell you to be ready to be on your own for the first 3 days. And if they tell me 3 days, I believe more like 3 weeks before any real help arrives. Why would I not be ready to feed my family, keep them warm & secure when the unexpected happens? Isn`t that what being a parent is all about? Doesn`t it just seem to make sense?

There has been a trend in the prepper community lately, and if you are a regular visitor to the blogs, forums & sites then you have probably noticed it. Television wants to become prepper aware. There have been a few shows looking for preppers to appear on television to show how they prepare and what they are preparing for. But there seems to be one issue for them. Preppers don`t appear to want to cooperate and no wonder. Many of you have seen Doomsday Preppers and if you haven`t, lookit up and give it a watch. After that, you will no longer wonder why you get strange looks for being a prepper. Shows like this do NOTHING to help with a common sense approach to being prepared. With the worst of the paramilitary wingnuts they can find and staged midnight food deliveries, it`s no wonder. No doubt there are some extremists out there holed up in a remote bunker with a stash of beans & bullets, protected by a booby trapped perimeter, but this is a vast minority. The likes of which have become the stereotype of preppers across the world.

I contacted one such show and at first they were very interested in traveling across the country to have me on the show. When I began to voice some concerns about how the show would portray it`s subjects, suddenly, they were no longer interested. This can lead me to believe only one thing. They are interested only in the most extreme subjects to film. To those responsible for these shows, I have only one thing to say...THIS IS NOT WHAT DOCUMENTARIES ARE ABOUT. If you want to show what preppers are all about, then get ready for the mundane. We are not a bunch of radical paramilitary fenatics waiting, no hoping for the end of the world. So stop moaning & groaning about why no one wants to be on your shows. Show us ONE EPISODE where preppers are shown to be the caring family types who live right next door to you, and you, and you. We are the average blue collar, white collar, students, whatever that walk our dogs in the morning, drop our kids off at school on the way to work and mow the friggin lawn on the weekends. If you stopped going for rating and sensationalism for one minute and tried to produce a true documentary, then you may not come upon the brick wall you seem to be encountering now. Until you can find some way to assure us that we are not going to be portrayed as nut cases, then you will never be able to find anyone willing to fill your precious air time and be able to produce a show, let alone a series.