Could You Survive the Apocalypse?

We just recently downsided into a one bedroom apartment. Our previous resident was a two story 3 bedroom house with a nice size garage and a laundry room. Most of our belongings are in two storage units because clearly the one bedroom is much to small for everything we own. 

In moving into this apartment I had to find a space for all of our necessary kitchen appliances; the rice cooker, breadmaker, blender, coffee machine etc. The one thing we are lacking is a microwave. The microwave died many years ago and was never replaced. Well, in looking in our kitchen after creatively finding space for everything we need including our food we have no space for a microwave. So we have to go back to the 70's before microwaves existed to reheat our food. 

We also have no room for our washer and dryer and there isn't one here in the complex. So we must go to a laundrymat like countless others, but wait, money is really tight so we don't have money to go to the laundrymat. If you haven't been to a laundrymat in awhile, I can tell you that the laundrymat can cost you a fortune to wash and dry your clothes. So we must go back to the age before washers and dryers existed and use our bathtub and shower rod to do laundry. This got me to thinking. If the world was coming to an end and the zombies roamed the earth could you survive the day to day without the modern conveniences of our world? For that matter could your kids?

If you were raised in the 70's you probably would do OK, provided your parents taught you how to take care of yourself. I started cooking when I was seven. I don't remember how old I was when I started doing laundry but nonetheless I was taught how to wash my clothes by hand and hang them out to dry. I learned how to warm my food up on the stove because there were no microwaves back then. We barely had internet and home computers so occupying your time took more than just watching television or doing social networking. How would you fair or your kids fair if all these things were no longer at your disposal?

I have decided while I am here in a position of having to live a small part of my life at the moment back in the seventies, I will begin to teach my daughter how to survive without the modern conveniences. I think it would be good for her to know common survival. She may never need to warm up her food on the stove instead of a microwave or wash her clothes in the bath tub, but if I teach her how to do so, if she needs to, she will know how to handle herself. If she never needs it she will at least be in a position of appreciation for not having to live her life that way. 

Though she has a DS and we have internet on our televisions, iPad and computer, I will still be requiring her to read a real book and not just a book on the iPad. We will still walk into Barnes & Noble and buy actual books. We will play board games and make our own bread, tortillas and soap. Point is, we need to all make sure that though we rely on such conveniences we should prepare for a possible life without them. What would we ever do without our smartphones? These things are great to have but are we preparing our kids to live without? I wonder! There is a book on this very subject. I haven't read this book yet but I thought I would mention it just in case any of you were interested. The book is called: Back to Basics: Raising Self-Sufficient Children by Barbara Frank. You can pick it up on Amazon or download it from Amazon's Kindle section. I have it in my queue and just haven't had time to download it yet.