The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Raising Values: The Family That Preps Together

Episode Date: February 18, 2024

https://www.facebook.com/RaisingValuesPodcast/www.pbnfamily.comhttps://www.instagram.com/raisingvaluespodcast/http://www.mofpodcast.com/www.prepperbroadcasting.comhttps://rumble.com/user/Mofpodcastwww.youtube.com/user/philrabWomen Who Prep Conference: Come See GillianSupport the showMerch at: https://southerngalscrafts.myshopify.com/Shop at Amazon: http://amzn.to/2ora9riPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/mofpodcastGillian and Phil sit down with Sara and Brock Hathaway to talk about making disaster preparedness part of the family's culture, and how the two couples found their way into this lifestyle.https://www.authorsarafhathaway.com/Raising Values Podcast is live-streaming our podcast on YouTube channel, Facebook page, and Rumble. See the links above, join in the live chat, and see the faces behind the voices.family, traditional, values, christian, marriage, dating, relationship, children, growing up, peace, wisdom, self improvement, masculinity, feminity, masculine, feminine

Welcome to the Raising Values Podcast, where the traditional family talks. You can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, and be sure to follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You can support the Raising Values Podcast through Patreon. Bill and Gillian are behind the mic morning like we usually are and i'm suddenly realizing that we have a desperate need for a raising values background from when we actually have a guest so we always have tons of black area on the screen but i don't like that i know it's one of those i'll do that today Now that you mention that. We have tons of black area on the screen. I don't like that. I know. It's one of those.

I'll do that today. But we do have to introduce our third and fourth co-seats for the day for the audio listeners who can't see what we're talking about. This is Brock and Sarah Hathaway. Yay! Who we know from Prepper Broadcast Network, and we've known Sarah as an author probably even before we were on PBN, and we've been harassing each other at Prepper Camp for, I don't know, three, four, five years now, Sarah? Four years.

Yeah, something like that. Four years. I think four years. Yeah, that's been my fifth, I believe. That sounds about right. Yeah. Well, it's not. So, welcome to the show. The topic was going to be the families that

prepare together, but first we have admin work to do. Yes. Okay. So we are 68 days away. The only reason I know that is because there's a counter from the Women Who Prep Conference. It is online. It's an online conference, April 20th through the 23rd. You can go to our Instagram and our Facebook feed and the show notes. Yeah, pretty sure. And the show notes. It's always a question if Phil has put stuff in the show notes. To go on to the link to purchase your tickets. Again, it's online, so you don't have to go anywhere. You can stay in your PJs. And Phil and I will be discussing incorporating your kids in the prepping lifestyle for the Women Who Prep Conference.

And then I'll be joining some other women doing a... Q&A? Yes, it's a Q&A, but it's also, we're going to do a little session about prepping in urban and suburban areas. And then we're going to do the little session about prepping in urban and suburban areas. And then we're going to do the live Q&A after that. So people that come to the conference can log in, and we'll see your comments and questions in real time and be able to answer those.

So April 20th through the 23rd, get your tickets. There's prizes. Let's see. I'm going to read this off really quick. So before you talk about suburban prepping, do we need to discuss the booby traps we're going to set up in the front yard or leave something to the imagination? Maybe we just leave that off. Maybe we don't tell all of our secrets on a live conference. So, yeah, so there's going to be a mix of live and recorded sessions, community groups just for attendees, pre-conference live chats with the community, giveaways, and then you get recorded access through July 2024.

So it's not so bad. All right. Anyway, so that's our only thing we needed to talk about this morning, except that we're super happy that the Hathaways are here. Yay. That's it. pathways are here yay that's it yeah so so for our listeners i think it's appropriate to start off with like an origin story like y'all are superheroes like where y'all came up how y'all met how y'all got into preparedness and what brought you to today because like i i feel like i only know about half of this story. Fair enough.

Probably. So Brock and I were wild and crazy kids. No. Doing the wild and crazy kid thing. We all had one of those days. Right? And I was getting off work one day, and I didn't have a ride home. I picked her up hitchhiking the first time we met.

Wow. Okay. And that didn't end in you getting a, you know, getting your smile elongated. So that's a positive. I made him drop me off at the entrance to the subdivision. I wouldn't even let him like drop me off at my house. I was like, no, no, that's not cool, man. He's like, are you sure?

I could just drop you at your house. I'm like, no. No, I don't really want you to know where I live. Right? Yeah. We live in a small town where everybody knows everybody. But I don't want you to know where I live. So, ever vigilant, you know. And then he would come into the gas station that I worked at with his shirt off, you know, looking all manly.

Uh-oh, Brock. So, I actually had this weird guy weird guy like stalking me at the time and uh one night he was in the gas station the weird guy and brock was in there too and so i was like oh no haven't you met my boyfriend brock and brock's like all all right. Yeah. That was easy. Yeah. So there's some other tidbits to the story that probably aren't for live camera. But we were going to go in the Air Force together. And so we wanted to have base housing together.

So we got married. And then we decided we're not gonna put our well when we learned she had education so she'd probably be an officer and i had no education and i wouldn't there yeah you guys will never be like yeah so uh we can't live without each other um i was good i was also training to play olympic ice hockey at one time and found out that it's 11 months out of 12 that I would be playing ice hockey instead of with Brock. And I was like, eh. And Fletcher was around by that time. Wow. Yeah.

So that wasn't going to work either. So we've just always been together. We're just really good friends right off the bat. Yeah, this year we'll be 26 years married and 28 years together. We're just really good friends right off the bat. This year we'll be 26 years married and 28 years together. Wow. I was married when I was 19.

Thank you. Especially nowadays. I was going to say, especially nowadays, it's quite the accomplishment. It's getting even weirder to say that I've been with Phil for 20 years. In today's generation, that's in today's, you know, our generation, that's not a thing that happens much. Had no idea you'd make it this far.

Next year your guys' marriage will be drinking age. Next year I will have been with Phil longer than without Phil. Right. That's when I got together with Brock when I was 17. So I was like, well, now he's raised me more than my parents have. Right? Don't say that. No, she didn't mean that.

You didn't raise me. I'll make claim to that. And then as far as like the preparedness lifestyle, both of our family, like his family is. Yeah, my grandparents were farmers in north dakota my grandma actually lived to be 103 so like listening to stories of her from when they'd get ice delivered by wagon oh my god you know i mean they had nothing the family took care of the farm and all that all the way up to her doing emails like 12 kids one house when that tornado hit yeah um so they you know today's day and age we call it prepping uh but like for them it was

daily living right so i'd have to go work out on the farm every summer and so i've been canning and i've been doing that kind of stuff since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Yeah. And then same, like my family always grew up, we were more urban than that, but we always had the family garden. We grew up trap shooting and stuff like that. So it was just part of life. So as soon as we got our own place, it was like, oh, we've got to have a garden. You know, I mean, that's just how it is.

Right. And then when I published the first book everybody's like oh you're a prepper i was like what is this you know i'm a what okay all right whatever that was actually going to be my next question was like at what point did because like gillian and i've talked about the fact that like a lot of the, some of the things that we have integrated into our lifestyle kind of came to us for by way of the preparedness community. But then there are a lot of things like getting ready for natural disasters that we just grew up doing.

Cause when you live in North Louisiana, ice storms happening when you live in South Louisiana and the Gulf coast, like you get, you get hit by a hurricane every, every couple of years. It's just a thing. So there was a certain, there was a certain element of the way we live, where it was like, well, this is just what you're supposed to do. There's no mystery here. And then there were things I brought in more, I guess, based on like my military experience and my experience during Hurricane Katrina, just seeing societal breakdown where I was like, there's these other things we need to discuss while, while we're at this juncture. But I guess my question to y'all was,

at what point did you realize you were kind of in a community you may not have intended to be in, if that makes sense? You grew up doing these things because it was y'all's family's way of life, but then you realize there's family's way of life. But then you realize there's this other community that sees what you're doing is unusual. I think it was probably after you published your books and you were really doing the book tours and trying to put that out that you really started doing reaching out to other people. You started your podcast and you started having we

started doing the survival training with doug yep and the amount of wildfires that we had around our house in california really gave us that sense of urgency yeah and our survival instructor was like five minutes five minutes you gotta be in the house we We're like, what? That's unheard of. Like, do you know how much stuff we have? He's like five minutes. So we really worked towards that goal. Um, I think that's what gave it like, like I say, a sense of urgency. The community definitely came through the podcasting. Like, have I ever made a dime off of podcasting? No. Have I made just invaluable amount of network and friends and relationships that I value way more than any bit of money? Yes. Hands down. Yeah, we feel the same way. There's no money in this podcast. There's no matter of facts. I've had people actually like beginning brand new podcasters. You reach out to me. They're like,

Hey, how do you make money at podcasting? I'm like, if my name was Joe Rogan, you'd be able to ask me this question. But I, I don't, I'm like, to me,

it's, it's a win. If a podcaster can just make the hobby sustain itself financially, making money on it is like, how do you, how do you make a million dollars podcasting? Start with 2 million. Yeah. Very true. It's like, how do you make a million dollars podcasting? Start with two million. Yeah, very true.

It's so true. I agree with you, though. Like, the families, we don't joke about it because we mean it when we say, you know, when September rolls around for Prepper Camp, we're going to see our family. It's like a family reunion to us. And I agree that it is. With people you actually like. Yes. And want to sleep in a tent with and sleep down the street from

or see every day for four days kind of thing. You better like them. Especially when we all stink. I mean, that's what I'm saying. You better like the people you see at Prepper Camp because you are going to smell them. You're going to use the bathroom next to them. You're going to shower right next to them.

We are all going to get very, very familiar with each other very, very quickly. It's really not that bad. We don't go out there and become homeless. I mean, isn't that what camping is? Well, the girls have their own stalls in the shower, I found out. The boys were all like, I don't want to take a shower. I'm like, what is your problem? They're like, oh, no.

Wait, you don't have stalls? No, no, no. Hang on. Hang on. It's all grouped together. No, no, no. So there's an explanation here. So in the men's bathroom, and I'm not shy about this at all because I enlisted when I was 17 years old

and did like the whole group showers with 13 other men at a time. So all my modesty was ripped right out of me. group showers with 13 other men at a time so all my modesty was ripped right out of me but in the men's it up there on that hill there is there are two stalls for the showers but it's a communal dressing area so you if you happen to be coming out or going in at the same time your your stall mate is coming in or going out you're gonna you're to get to know each other really well. Wow. No. Again, fortunately for me. Yeah, it's totally private. Yeah, it's private for the women. Yeah, 17 years old, showering, you know, 13 shower heads in one room.

Like, you were just lucky not to bump butts with somebody. Wow, you might as well just go take a dip in the lake. I would do that too. I don't mind shy. I didn't realize that. That's interesting news. That's what I found that too. I don't mind shy. I didn't realize that. That's interesting. That's what I found out too. That's when you have little boys, they tell you those things.

Right, right. But yeah, I love going and spending time with you guys and, you know, the whole community that we've come to know through these podcasts and in the prepping community and all that stuff. So I agree. I agree. Yeah. these podcasts and in the prepping community and all that stuff so i agree i agree yeah and to me like i guess the thing since we got on the subject of prepper camp but like the thing i love so much about prepper camp is like i've heard variations of different people saying basically the same thing of like this must be like the safest place in the United States of America this weekend.

Alternatively, I've heard people ask like, how many AR-15s do you think are within like a 200 yard radius around us right now? And I was like, that's why it's the safest place, right? But it's also the vibe, you know, like people have their kids, people just let their kids run loose all over the place. And like we go the extra step of setting our daughter up with a radio just so that we can get in touch right until our come home. I don't think the first year, maybe we did, but I remember the first year Piper and I went, we would just walk down the line. Have you seen Piper?

Do you know where Piper is? Yeah, I think she's on a boat fishing or something. I was like, okay, great. boat fishing or something i was like okay great it is so refreshing because there's not any other place where you can now be that confident with your children anymore right and uh yeah i even got a little bit of a reprimand last year for you know oh you shouldn't be you know he's coming down here at six o'clock in the morning by himself and i'm like yeah isn't that okay you know so yeah well people that love you they're gonna look out for you right right and of course no we don't know everyone that's there but we do know a good amount of people that that are there that know our kids that i felt pretty confident that my at the time

what she was nine she was nine nine when she went the first time and so it was like yeah Piper I mean that's what we did when we went camping I mean there's a story of me and my cousins we went camping this one year in Arkansas and we went we started on a trail we didn't end on a trail and six hours, all of the rangers were looking for us because they couldn't find the little, you know, group of kids that went for a hike that morning. It's a miracle any of y'all lived to adulthood. The stories I heard. We got in a lot of trouble that day, but I didn't feel like, you know, like one of the trails led right by our tent. So if they were on the trail, we would have seen them or heard them.

Yeah, I just don't feel like it's a place that Piper just can't go and explore and be a kid without the supervision of her parents. And I think that that's what kids need. And that's what they don't get a lot of the time is just the freedom to be a kid and explore and do. You know, she's not a strong swimmer. I don't remember who she was with. Christian, I think, wasn't it? Well, yeah, she was with Christian, but she was also with a man. And I don't remember.

Maybe it was you, Brock. No, it was James. That had him in the boat. Yeah, they all went fishing. Yeah. And so when I heard, yeah, she's with James and Christian fishing, I was like, oh, well, she's good. Like, you know, and in the back of my head going, does she have a life and Christian Fishing, I was like, oh, well, she's good.

And in the back of my head going, does she have a life jacket? I go into that mom mode. Does she have a life jacket? Blah, blah, blah. But the lake isn't that. But then you're like, oh, but it's James. But it's James. And she'll be fine. And let the girl catch a fish.

Well, not just that. But in this community we've become part of, not just PBM, but like the broader preparedness community, like I would expect a random man seeing a child in the lake in distress, about 85% chance they're just going to frigging shuck their shoes and jump in after the kid. Yeah. Because that just, that tends to be what this preparedness community has really cultivated. Like we've drawn people towards us who have come to us because they want to be able to provide for themselves and want to be able to take care of their families. And people who are motivated by those things tend to, like you see a woman or a child in trouble and you just, something in your brain switches and you go. Like there's no debate here.

Well, and I also- A lot of sheepdogs. Yeah, it brings out the sheepdog in a lot of men. Yeah. You got to take care of everybody around you. And I love the fact that we, I feel like we all kind of go, the adults kind of go, you know, the old ways. Like if Piper was doing something, I know that Brock and Sarah, y'all could reprimand her the way that we would, you know, I, you know,

I get that. And I would hope that that is what would happen with this community. I remember walking up the hill. We were done with classes for the day, and Tommy had Piper with an axe in her hand chopping wood. And I was like, who is this kid chopping wood? And way to go, Uncle Tommy, for teaching her how to use an axe. I mean, it was an axe. It wasn't like a little hatchet. It was a splitet it was a

split it was a split and i'm like all right my nine-year-old's now splitting wood with another man that i you know met just a few years ago through this podcast the first year we took christian to prepper camp we were like well you know you can hang out with us or whatever you know because we do a lot of booths uh for the book sales you know like well whatever you want to do that kid was in every class he was doing glass with him but not only that he was doing like um dutch oven cooking classes and things like that and i'm like what what is this kid you know he was just all over the place talking with all the vendors. He knows everybody. Now, you know, Christian's working for Prepper Camp.

He's got his own Prepper Camp sweatshirt. Oh, I didn't know that. We get up earlier at Prepper Camp than we do at home. That's why we had to do the late show today, right? But he's up at like 6 in the morning. He's drying off the chairs. So everybody's got dry chairs to sit down on. He goes out and does all that, and he just eats it up.

I love it. And he actually missed them. There's an academic decathlon at his school, and he was like, man, I really want to be able to do that, but every year it's the same time as Prepper Camp, the tryouts. And I'm like, well, you know, you can miss Prepper Camp. And he's like, not for anything in the world. He loves it.

I was going to say. I definitely think it's a great place for your kids. I do, too. Something else I was going to say about Piper at Prepper Camp, but now I can't remember. I think that's great, though, that Christian's working for Prepper Camp. I'll have to remember that. They got recruited. Fletcher does the have to right you know remember that they got recruited uh fletcher does the parking lot you know parking everybody so he's out there with the cones

super early in the morning this started selling me this started sounding like i got the better deal i just sit in the vendors area and like make you know eat eggs and sausage for breakfast light up a cigar and pour some booze into my coffee at like you know seven o'clock in the morning and just sit there and greet people and say hi and hang out yeah that's what i was gonna say about fletcher last year you know he was slightly hung over on saturday that's why christian went up by himself at six in the morning yeah i was about to say i over here i do remember uh friday night flip i could read the writing of the wall and i looked at your son and i was like oh you're gonna have a really rough night the next morning

because he's he does not have enough meat on his bones for a hard night of drinking no no and he's he's really good he's such a um fantastic young man. It's moderation. You know, he's 23. I know what I was doing at 23. And it certainly wasn't being as good as he is. Yeah. Same thing most of us were doing at 23.

Yeah, let's not go back there. Well, actually, by then... We probably didn't have phones that recorded. Thank God. Because my husband was 21 when we got married or when we got together. So we had already quit drinking by the time I turned 21. So that shows you. Yeah, that was that was me as well. But, you know, it was like a lot of walls being held up when I was in my twenties.

Right. Yeah. Yep. All right. So I am kind of curious. Cause like, this is something that comes up with me and Gillian a lot, but like, even though I don't think y'all would consider a lot of the, a lot of the things you do as a family to be preparedness related, like, how do you bring preparedness into the family dynamic, the dynamic between you and your kids, daily life? Like I think there's this misconception outside of the preparedness community that it's like it's an activity you do separate from adult things or that it's something weird that like not everybody gets involved in.

And I do think, unfortunately, there are a lot of families out there where there's one person that's focused on preparedness and the rest of the family just runs around like ducks. But I mean, I don't get the impression from having met either one of y'all that this is not a group activity the whole family is involved in. Yeah, we do pretty much everything as a family. I mean, with any dynamic of the family, you guys got to all be a team. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's the only way that in my opinion, it truly works out. And one, prepping to a lot of work. I got two able bodied little boys that can haul vegetables can shuck vegetables, you know, they take care of chickens, take care of chickens. I would say peaches when we try to make peach wine,

which ended up being peach vinegar this year. But yeah. Hey, first time we learned how not to do a lot of things this year. We are going to see if we can distill it for canning later. But, yeah, they help when the stuff comes in. We stand for hours and hours. We were doing every song in chicken language when we were peeling the peaches. So it was like, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop.

And, yeah, laughing and giggling. One of the biggest, like, yeah, laughing and giggling. One of the biggest like daily routine, not daily, but, you know, whenever we do big shopping, it's the pantry shuffle. Like Fletcher is super tall and everything, right? I'm like, you're the pantry man. You're on it. So the pantry shuffle and go bags, you know, making sure that Christian's go bags getting updated. Fletcher hasn't taken everything out of his using it at something both of all of us, you know, that. And then just really the outdoor activities big time.

I mean, they can help out so much that. And and it's actually just kind of the way we were when we before we moved out to Texas, we were living on 40 acres. Wow. And we were out in BFE. I mean, we were in the sticks. It used to take us about 40 minutes to drive to the grocery store. So when you're living that kind of life, I mean, everything we did together was as a family. Yeah.

Firewood, because we couldn't afford to heat our house. So it was like, man, everybody's out there humping firewood all day. You know, go get the, run the quad around, you know, bring it up, do all that. It was a major activity. Wildfire area. You got to have 200 feet defensible space around every structure on the property. So if we all didn't put in together, it would just be overwhelming. So we've always kind of been in that teamwork fashion. And the more and more we got into

the prepper community, it just all kind of flowed and just wasn't ever really a hiccup. We just all worked together on it. And we're a big believer of treating your children like people so right now some people are like oh well they have to be a child and experience their childhood and and you shouldn't have them out there doing whatever you know they can be out there dragging they can be out there doing their thing and especially with young men, when you give them that sense of being strong, being confident, being capable, you know, even if there's things that I could do that I'm like, oh, you know, oh, you got to do this for mom, you know, so you can help out. Oh, yeah, yeah. You know, I'm a help mom. I'm big.

You know, it gives them that real big sense of accomplishment and understanding that they can do that. They are people. And now, you know, Christian made us dinner last night. Yeah. And I'm not going to, like, get too much into it because that's one of the things I'm going to talk about during my session with incorporating kids in the prepping lifestyle is as a teacher, I see it every day. So in the classroom, we give our kids jobs. So today you might be the line leader, you might be the door holder, you might be the mailman, whatever. And it doesn't matter what the job is. It could just be, you know, you get to empty the trash can today. They

are so proud to do that job because that is that I'm going to accomplish something today. I'm going to show my classmates that I can do this. Look at me. I'm the line leader. I mean, they fight over it. I'm the door holder. And it's like, calm down. There are four doors to the gym. You will get to hold the door.

But I agree. I think, you know, giving our kids, especially boys, that sense of accomplishment that they can do those jobs is so, so, it's just so important for them growing up to be the kids that we can let run free at prepper camp kind of thing. Right. Empowering. Yes. Thank you.

That word. Empowering. And it is for girls too. I see it with our youngest at school who get to do whatever jobs they want, but then I see it with our daughter. She's preteen now, so you give her a job and she grumbles. Yeah, pray for Phil. She doesn't have teen boys. He has one teen girl, but she grumbles at jobs. But you do get to see this accomplishment that comes and this empowerment that comes when she can accomplish those things and get those jobs done. Or, you know, shows that even making dinner.

Like now she is the. She's the designated ground beef cooker in the house. She's got her own little recipe for how she likes to season it. And I'll be the first to admit, it's really good. Yep. And don't you dare season the meat, Mom. It's good how you do it, Mom. But I'm going to come do it.

I'm like, hey, that's fine with me. And some people are like, oh, they can't do that. They're just kids. They shouldn't have a knife. Why? What is going on when are they supposed to magically develop these skills it's our job as parents to teach them how to be adults later in life yeah for a couple years now i've been like really big on whenever piper would want something in the kitchen she'd be hungry i'd be like why don't you come to the kitchen and you and i will make it together or if she was like hey dad i don't know how i remember we went through this

whole thing she had a little bit of a fear about turning on the gas stove i don't know why i thought i think she thought it would explode but i would sit here microwaving things oh yes microwaving things oh christian's had his share of microwave fun that's for sure yeah piper left a spoon in a bowl one time and that light show we were doing the microwave for a while after that just like he's he got like a stye on his eye and my mother-in-law gave him like a bosh and loam like little eye thing you could put on. We had jumped in the shower. He's like, well, I'll just warm it up in the microwave. It's supposed to be like 10 seconds or something.

He did 10 minutes. Oh, no. We're getting out of the shower like, what is that smell in the house? He's just like, I don't know what happened. I'm like, you don't know what happened? It's melted everywhere.

Oh, my gosh. And then Nina in the comment is saying that her daughter lit a plate on fire. He put one of the Tupperwares. He's like, oh, I need to warm up water. So he takes the Tupperware and put it on the stove. Oh, no. Oh, no. He's like, no, no, no no no no we're not doing that like it still has

like the you can see the where it hit it but here's the thing i i see in my travels on social media reddit will make you question the trajectory of the entire human race by the way if you ever just want to like really feel good about yourself but But like I've seen like people that are like 19, 20, 21 years old asking questions about like, why can't you put metal in a microwave? And how do you cook? How do you cook food? And all this stuff that I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, we learned this as kids. Like you're, by the time, by the time you move out of your parents' house,

you were supposed to know how certain things work. And it scares the crap out of me when I hear somebody say, well, let your kids be kids. I'm like, you can let your kids be kids. But when I wasn't running around with my idiot friends when I was like six, seven, eight years old, I was passing my dad tools or I was learning how to do woodworking or fix stuff around the house. Like, you know know there's time to the difference between me between when you're a child and when you're an adult is that when you're a child you're not most children's natural proclivity no not upset with them for this

is they would rather goof off and have fun than do work when you reach adulthood whatever age that happens at for some of us it's fairly young for some of us, it's fairly young. For some of us, it's like, you know, 60. But when you, yeah. But when you, when you reach adulthood, you reach this point where like, you just naturally understand, I have to do this. I'm going to goof off later. Like I said, for some people that, like Brock said, sometimes that doesn't happen, but that's where adulthood starts. It's not at 18. Well, and that's why I say like, when are you supposed to magically develop those skills if you're not there? And you know, kids are going to make mistakes. Like as a parent, you just have to understand that. I think what happened was we made society really easy to live in. And so taking away so many of

the chores, and then it became easier for parents i i think it's really the easy way out they're like well i could have my kid just in front of electronic device i'll just take care of it myself because that way i don't have to worry about teaching them i don't have to think about off the waste time i don't have to get frustrated i don't have time to do that right right so but then the kid never understands how to do that they think their life is just going to be handed to them and then they just get to sit there and play video games i mean i do think that's like an aspect of laziness though because you know like i agree i i understand i understand but i don't agree with the idea that

let kids be kids i understand but don't agree with the idea of like i want my kids to have an easy life. That's making their life easy is not my job. I've literally told my daughter on several occasions, I'm like, I love you dearly. I want you to be happy, but making you happy is not my job. It's yours. Making your life easy is your job. It's not mine.

My job, and I've told people time and time again, as a parent, my first and last job is to be their teacher, is to teach you stuff. My job's not to make you happy. You get married one day, have a husband, it's his job to make you happy. But it's not mine. My job's to prepare you for a life where you're going to have to act like an adult and exist in the adult world and things are going to be expected of you. I bought a book a few years ago. I had to go to a conference for work one time and it was for the, when I worked at the children's museum. So it was all about children and all that stuff. And there was a special guest speaker. His name

is, you may have heard of him, Gever Tolley, and he's an author and he wrote the book, 50 Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do. And it goes from things like piecing fireworks together and letting them light them and placing pennies on railroad tracks and microwaving a spoon to see what happens and things that not necessarily are going to hurt your kids, but things that we did as kids just because there was no adult supervision and we just wanted to do those fun things right yeah you know you're a rogue last rogue generation right yeah so I mean sun came up on the weekends or during the summer we were off on our bikes and didn't come home literally I know it sounds cliche now until the street lights came on and we lived in um a small town it was a small town but we lived in the town so if we weren't

home my mom would go stand on the front porch and scream our names and i swear you could hear her all the way down to the middle of town where we probably were and we were like oh we're in trouble like get home my mom had this whistle yeah Yeah. Oh, she would whistle too. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But those are the things that we were doing. Like, there are times where I think back to those days where I'm like, I really don't know how we survived.

I mean, teeth were knocked out. Arms were broken. Collarbones were always broken. Somebody was always in a cast. Somebody always had like bruises somewhere. We were raising wild cats, like in a fort. I don't know if y'all built forts, but I mean, we had forts all over town and we had to go ride our bikes to go check on the forts and feed the cats and how we didn't die of some crazy disease. I don't know. But that's when it was really good to be a kid. And that is, that is like how I want Piper to grow up. There's a

picture and a video of Piper. And I think she was probably around eight, maybe eight or nine. We may have just come back from prepper camp. And I told her, I said, go outside. She just got a new ferro rod. And I said, go make a, you know, a bird's nest and light it on fire. I want you to go start a fire in the front yard. Really, mom? You want me to? Yes, go out there and practice using that thing and light the thing on fire. And the, you'll have to go back and look at it but the picture and the video when that bird's nest lit up she was i don't think it was a core memory she will never ever forget you know but and that was when we did the survival school fletcher was like 13 12 13 then and uh we were out in the rain one time and we're always like well, where did Fletcher go?

And here he is out on the beach starting his own fire. You know? It was just great. And, you know, for him, that was his first moment when he was, like, old enough to be part of, like, the adult team. Right. And, oh, man, that was, like, the best. Yeah. right and oh man that was like the best you know we were team carnivore and he had his role his position his you know deal and he was capable of doing it and uh so really just working with him

all the way up to that point creates that where where they have those skills to be able to do it um also one of the scariest things for me in my book and day after disaster, the first one, Erica rescues star, right? And day after disaster was really just a thought process for me about like, what if I was away from the home when stuff went down? And then how would I approach certain situations? Like here's this woman getting violated. Do you put yourself at risk to go and help them? You might never see your family again. They'll never know what happened to you.

Or do you just, you know, do you just slink off into the night and whatever, lady, you know, sorry for you kind of thing. Right. So it was really that thought exercise. you know, sorry for you kind of thing, right? So it was really that thought exercise. And then with introducing Star's character, here's this little girl, eight years old. Now her parents are both dead.

She has no other recourse but to rely upon the person who saved her. Now, granted, it was Erica. Great, you know, great fiction. Always good to be saved by the heroine. By the heroine of the story, right. But what if you weren't? What if your kid had to rely upon some 40-year-old pervert who came along and was the only person that, you know, said, hey, kid, I'll take you and take care of you.

So I wanted my kids to, from the time I raised Christian, he was from birth. And then pretty much from the time Fletcher was five years old, I wanted them to have self-defense skills. I wanted them to feel confident being able to defend themselves against anybody who came to assault them or take them. And then I wanted them to have the skills to go, you know what? Stuff just went down. I don't have mom and dad, but I know how to do this. I know how to do this yes i know

how to start my shelter i can start a fire i can gather i don't need that adult food so if that's the only adult that's coming along and i don't trust them i don't need them right and i can do it on my own and so that that was really the biggest thing to me was to give them those tools to be able to go take care of themselves to have me in their heart and not have me there i mean i can remember having conversations with piper probably as young as four maybe five conversations about like being aware of her surroundings um you know one thing that me and my co-host on matter of fact are really big on is war gaming which is you're given a scenario think through all the pros and cons of whatever actions you have at your disposal disposal and it always

goes back to like the way i was taught in the military of you make a plan you might have to abandon the plan but a plan is better than no plan and i talked i used to talk to piper about hey if this happened like god forbid you know dad gets in a car wreck, dad's knocked out. What do you do? Or I used to, like, every now and then there'd be this scenario where she and I were out shopping by ourselves and I would have to put her into a car seat. And I told her, I'm like, if I'm putting you into the car seat, you see somebody walking up behind me, just let me know.

And she was like, why? Now she's five. I think she was younger than that right yeah it's like three or four okay but i explained to her i'm like well you know what if there's like a little old lady walking behind me trying to get to the front door i don't want to back into her and bump into her knock her down her little old lady so just you know be my eyes that was not the reason why i wanted her to watch behind me i wanted to watch behind me because i was trying to belt these four scrabbling limbs down into this car seat and I couldn't watch my back. It was one of the few

times when she and I were out shopping together when Gillian was working where I was completely vulnerable because I didn't have my head watching my surroundings. I was focused on what I was doing. And when she got a little older, I told her the reason why I wanted her to do that. But it came to pass one time because somebody was literally just trying to skirt between two cars, you know, right behind me to get to the front door. And she told me, hey, there's somebody behind you. And I snapped my head around, reached my hand down to my belt just in case because I didn't know what was going on. And it was literally a little old lady but to me it's yeah you know well to me it's

one of those situations where like you know I feel like there is a proclivity within the preparedness community of like we don't want to scare our kids we don't want to scare our spouses we don't want we want to take that burden upon ourselves because again I think I think that is kind of a personality thing with people that fall into preparedness of being willing to take that burden upon themselves for other people. But I always try to impress upon people. I'm like, you know, there was a time in our family where I was the only one involved in preparedness. Yeah. Gillian hadn't bought in yet.

Piper hadn't. She was too young. She was too young. And it was all on me. And I feel like now, all these years years later we have a much more well-rounded preparedness viewpoint our plans are much more well-rounded our preps are so much so much more three-dimensional and deep than what I had envisioned because I only saw things from my point of view and I couldn't think of all the things that Gillian can bring to the table and

Piper can bring to the table so like that's always been my encouragement to other people is, like, if you involve your families in preparedness, you might have to meet them where they are. Like, Gillian is not going to, I'm not going to fit Gillian for a plate carrier and teach her, like, you know, small unit movement tactics. Oh, you're missing out, dude. That's not her bag.

But here's the thing. If she came to me and said hey these mushrooms and these things you can use to make tinctures to heal diseases my eyes are gonna glass over like i get it it's interesting but it's just eat this mushroom but it's not but it's not don't ask questions but it's not my wheelhouse and it's hers so that's why i always tell people i'm like you might have to meet your family wherever in preparedness they are find that find what interests them or find what they fall into and meet them there but involve them any way you can well and that's what prepper camp prepper camp brought to our family we were able you were talking about how Christian was going to

all of these different classes I have pictures of Piper's first year there. She's taking notes. She's in fourth grade, fifth grade, fifth grade, taking notes at, you know, how to clean a hide. And I'm like, you will probably never, ever do that. But you know what, babe, you take those notes and you learn how to clean a hide, you know? But she did it in every class that she attended. The two of us, I think, have a lot of the same passions when it comes to prepping. But the other thing that I was going to say was we live in a time, and you had kind of said this earlier, Sarah, we live in a time now where we just want our kids to be happy.

We just want our kids to have a know, have a childhood and, you know, blah, blah, blah. Well, we are raising adults, you know, and that's something that we always say on this show and on Matter of Facts. Where did you hear that from? Well, I just said, we say that on this show and I just gave you the credit. Yeah. The, um, they're, my opinion is, you know, they're going to be adults a lot longer than they're going to be children. Right. So, yeah, let them have the childhood. Yeah. Of course.

But teach them to be an adult, for goodness sakes. Yeah. What do we have in this world right now? Right. We have these adult children, you know. Sissies. Yeah. And that's, so I was going to say, well, I told you I was training ice hockey back in the day.

Right. And when I gave up on that dream because I just knew it wasn't going to fit with my family, I'd always wanted to do martial arts. Right. And Brock wanted to do martial arts. And it was our date night, so to speak, that we started martial arts classes together. And, uh, we found a school where it was like weapons and the physical training and all everything, you know? And so that was really how I started my martial arts adventure, which now I teach self-defense and anti-kidnapping and anti-sexual assault, you know, and I have all these skills, but it was our relationship together and really

wanting to share that together, have that activity that we do together. Yeah. That, that started us down that path. And then it fed right into our children because now our children are in martial arts, you know, and they're also learning the skills. And Christian started when he was like four and Fletcher when he was like five. And, you know, Fletcher is not much of a fighter, but he's got all the skills and Christian started when he was like four and Fletcher when he was like five and you know Fletcher's not much of a fighter but he's got all the skills to defend himself right and that was a really really awesome experience for our family um some of our best

family photos are all of us you know we're all black belts now and uh you just develop this family at the school and then you know it's just so such a pure fun experience to do together really yeah not to mention uh sparring is actually some of the best marriage counseling that you can do i was just about each other in the head for an hour and then go out to dinner and then go out to bed let me start googling the nearest in a controlled environment we used to pull just about honestly yeah we were some of the only ones that were doing sparring at the school we were at for a while and it was a little strip mall place and we had several nights that uh people came in like off the street to just watch us fighting in the in the dojang and uh yeah i mean we've we built so many memories and so many cool experiences

through martial arts yeah and then you develop the martial arts family as well just this awesome sense of community many people that are doing martial arts are like-minded. They are into preparedness. They are into, you know, knowing how to defend yourself. The discipline and respect and honor and everything that it teaches your children is just amazing. So I would really say, you know, that was great for not only our relationship, but our family togetherness. And then giving everybody those skills that they needed to like okay bring it on to the halfaways good luck yeah I um sparred with Phil when we first got together in our 20s after he had just come home from Iraq and oh yeah no no no no that wasn't fun at all it wasn't

cute or romantic or anything else because he was still in that mindset of kill. And I was just dead. I mean, I was like, no, I don't think this is something that we're going to do again. Apparently, I'm a lot stronger than I look. Apparently, yeah. I mean, it was not fun. There was nothing fun or flirtatious about it. Unfortunately, I never learned to fight in all my time in martial arts.

To be fun and flirty, I learned to disassemble people. Well, I was a 21-year-old. Yeah, it was ridiculous. But we never did that again. Well, that's why you have to start from ground zero with an appropriate partner first. I was just trying to... Before you work up the pill mode. I was just trying to flirt with my boyfriend.

He was trying to kill me. He's like, I'm gonna destroy you now. Yes. Finish her. Way to go, Phil. That's really encouraging. Flip the switch. Way to teach her some self-defense there. This is how you get destroyed, honey. Right. No, go cry in the

corner, bitch. I wonder if she doesn't want to put the jacket on. Come on, now. In my defense, I think the problem was I might have got smacked in the face and that was what flipped the switch. Like, I was trying to take it easy on her and then, yeah. Then she gets one

and it's like, oh, now you're dead. Oh, yeah, now you're mine now. That's the way we're going to do this. Okay, game on. That's called emotional control. Well, I didn't injure her. It wasn't? Yeah, you did.

No, you were fine. You didn't have to go to the hospital or anything. It didn't have been that bad. You stuck around. I remembered it. That's what happened around i remembered it that's that's what happened i remembered it so but now him and piper kind of not squabble but they squabble at night like for some reason it's like right before bedtime that's when piper's energy level gotta get her

energy out you know before dinner and before bed yeah well and so these two are like slapping and punching and kicking and headbutting and all this other stuff from our bedroom to hers, which isn't that far of a distance. But I get to the point now where I just lay in bed and just listen to the ruckus coming from across the hall, the chaos. And it's like, I'm wondering, like, oh, was that her being slammed onto the bed? Or was that him being like punched in the wondering, like, oh, was that her being slammed onto the bed? Or was that him being, like, punched in the gut? Like, what was that? Yeah. With Fletcher, you know, now Fletcher's that big. And so there reaches a point where, you know, for him to advance his skills, he can't be sparring his mother anymore.

There's a line there, right? Like, okay, when they're so big right but then when they're there for him to really advance he now needs to be sparring somebody else like i say other than his mother because he can't go hit his mom on accident and then he's like feeling horrible or whatever you know so but like we on accident yeah well like we're the best tag team partner like anybody tries to attack me and fletcher we're like the best tag team so there is that um i i know what phil's saying there's there's certain um sparring partners that when you do get that one hit on then they want to elevate it then they want to elevate it then they want to elevate it. Then they want to elevate it. Then they want to. So it is something that you, through years of sparring in a controlled environment, you learn to work on those things and get that under control. Understand the appropriateness of your partner. Understand that everybody wants

to go to work on Monday. We're not here to actually, you know. Without a busted lip. Yeah. So that's, and training with my family, that's definitely something that we've come to is Fletcher and I used to be able to go, you know, hard together, but you reach a point where it's like, no, we can't anymore. Because if we push past this line, right, then we're into everybody's getting upset or things like that. Again again super cool experiment to do with your family though because now you understand when we're in a survival situation and i see that look in your eyes i'm probably not going to keep poking at you anymore because we've now reached the we need to cool down we need to take a break moment you. You know, we can't one up and one up and one up.

And that, you know, right. So, again, I think that it's just a fantastic family experience to train together. It does kind of get me thinking, though, because you mentioned, like, recognizing that look in the other person's eye. Like, there was a point, because, again, like, I was kind of the first one in the family to dip my toe in preparedness and coming from the military like we kind of already had trained into us this idea of like you know like assessing threats and looking at your environment and I always had like Gillian noticed I don't know what point in our being together you noticed it but like when we would sit down I would, my eyes would always be scanning the environment.

I would never totally disengage or totally relax. I think I noticed that from the time you got home from Iraq. But you expected it to fade over time, didn't you? No, I never did. Okay. I knew who I was getting in a relationship with and I figured that it was probably gonna stay um I mean and even now I know my place is not my place is with my back to the door when we go places like I just know that and there's nothing wrong with it because

I'm like I'll cue you up yeah I'll cue you up with my back to the door yeah and you know I'm like, I'll cue you up. I'll cue you up. He's probably with my back to the door. Yeah. And you know, I'm watching the kitchen or I'm watching the back of house and he's got the front of that, you know, the door. I've always, well, I can't say always. I haven't always. But that is something that being with you has taught me. Like I am now more aware of my surroundings. I walk through school or I walk through campus or anywhere really and just assess my surroundings and where are your exits and where are the entrances and where

someone who's wanting to hurt other people or control a situation, where are they going to come from? What are they going to do? You know, most likely they're not going to walk through the front door. Yes, sometimes they will. But for a lot of reasons they won't especially you know i hate to say this kind of stuff but especially on a school campus they're probably going to find the easiest way in that's going to be the less detectable and it's commendable too because a lot of people don't even think about that gillian they don't want to know walk through life they don't even want to think about that, Gillian. They don't want to. No. Walk your life. They don't even want to think about that. Yeah. They want to stare at their cell phones.

Yeah. Yeah. They want to put their head in the sand and not look up and not be aware of like, oh, Phil's got this side. I've got that side. Yeah. It's like, you know, when we do the drills at school of Intruder on campus, the first year that we did it, I went straight to admin. I was like, look, we're dead. Like, this is not going to work. Like, we're all going to die here. Like, you're locking the doors with one bolt, and we're covering the windows. And, you know,

now we do have some, I think, some better safety measures in place of course i don't think it's i don't think any school is going to be um the safest place yeah i've offered to take a day off work and do a penetration test on the school but i i do think that we're we are in a little bit of a better place and a lot of the things have changed like um you know it's no longer just hide in the corner if you can get your kids off campus, get your kids off campus. And I, cause I told him, I was like, I'm busting out a window if I have to, and I'm taking my class. Like we're not going to be sitting ducks, you know, kind of thing. And so, but yeah, but I do, that's what I do. And so I'm, I'm always thinking that I, I think a lot of times because I worked at the front desk of the school, so I was

the first person somebody saw when they walked through the door. And we kind of joked about it, although it was kind of not a joke, but I always told everybody, well, I'm the first one dead. Like, if they come through the front door, I'm it. Like, they're going to shoot me first because I'm the first person that's going to see it. And so, yeah, just, it was kind of a morbid thought, but it's true. You know, you have to think about those kinds of things. But anyway, went down a road. Yeah. Went down a really dark road there. The insurance situation in California is like rapidly unraveling. And boy, we got some angry people oh my gosh like with good reason like a lot of people's bills have doubled yeah and things like that so you're paying

you know two hundred dollars one year now you're gonna pay five grand the next because that's not a happy call right yeah and um i'm not in the office i work remotely but i'm like uh people in the office you might want to be aware of like how ticked off people are getting because they're like maybe more left-leaning okay and they're like oh everything's sunshine and roses and we're having unicorn farts this morning and i'm'm like, does anybody have a knife? Or, you know, they're like, well, a firearm, what? You know, I'm like, I'm just saying like, somebody might want to think about it as something.

You have your COVID plexiglass. You might want to have like bulletproof plexiglass. I have told my administration, i am willing and able to carry i will be one of those teachers that right you know if they would allow it but that has not come to pass but yeah yeah and on like i used to carry but i know nobody in there does and i just i worry about them you know it's yeah it takes one moment for somebody to go postal over that stuff. I do keep screwdrivers at my desk. I am the technology teacher, so it works.

Improvise. That's right. No, but what I was going to say before we chased the rabbit down the hole was, like, you've learned over the years that when i get that look in my eye like some something has elevated my attention beyond the standard i'm just looking and checking people out like somebody has done something or somebody is presenting themselves in such a way that i'm suddenly like the switch is flipped and i'm like something about this guy gives me a bad vibe,

and I'm going to be very, very focused on him for a minute. And, like, you've noticed that. You've asked me, like, is everything okay? And I'm like, everything's fine. Or what are you watching? What are you seeing? Yeah. But I think that, like, the family being engaged in preparedness

and situational awareness together, Gillian, I mean, it doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that side of me come out. It's pretty obvious. But for Gillian to not immediately jump up and swerve around and look at whoever I'm looking at and then alert them that somebody's looking at them. She has that cognizant of mind to know that something has my husband's attention. And if I need to get on the floor, he's going to make that loud.

And he's going to make that very apparent very quickly. But like there have literally been times where I've told Gillian, I'm like, I, this is what I'm seeing. And if I tell you do X, Y, Z,

don't think just grab Piper and run. And like, you know, we will very quickly just sit there and put together a really quick little plan and be like i've even told gillian that you remember the time we were we were on a date chips and sauce at the little mexican food place i wound up burning down and i saw in the next parking lot over there was a man and a woman obviously having an argument i say man woman they're probably in their 20s But it looked like the guy was trying to shove the girl into the backseat of his car.

I do remember that. And, like, Gillian, she saw the look of mine and asked what was going on. And I'm like, I'm not getting involved because so far it's just an argument. But if he tries to put her in that car or if he hits her, I'm going to get up and you call 911. And tell the operator my husband is getting involved he is armed because i want them to know there's a man on scene who's a friendly and i want them to know that friendly has a gun but i wasn't going to sit there and watch a potential abduction or an assault take place right just sit there and let it happen yeah but at the same time i told

gillian i'm, I guess this also goes into that whole conversation about the family being in preparedness. Like, I know enough of the law and the use of force rules to know at what point in this escalation I can get involved as a citizen and not put my own butt in a sling.

But, I mean, I just I don't know how we got to this point in the conversation. I don't either. A lot of squirrels. A lot of them. But, yeah, I think it's just super important to have a whole family involved in preparedness. I think y'all probably see preparedness the way we do.

We came to this lifestyle because we want to be able to take care of ourselves take care of our families like i don't do i don't do any of the crazy stuff i do because i mean some of it's fun genuinely but most of it right do with a sense of camping yeah that's just fun but the majority of it is done with like out of a sense of duty to my family these are things that i think need to be done so that I can take care of them, they can take care of me. And I feel like there's this huge Venn diagram overlap between caring for your family and preparedness. And sometimes I struggle with how to communicate that to people outside of the preparedness community. Sarah always had a good analogy, you know. You always carry a spare tire in your car,

right? Why? Because you're a prepper. You're preparing yourself for if you get a flat tire, you can keep going. And that's kind of what us in the prepper community do is we're just trying to prepare ourselves for whatever situation comes up. It doesn't have to be natural or anything it could be you lost your job but hey i got three months worth of food in the pantry um i don't have to worry about food for a little bit when your hips went down and we had all of our food because you you he wasn't working now how are we gonna buy groceries you know so there's nothing we could do he couldn't barely move you know so um yeah i mean there's times when those stores have come in like hanny's so big time and that wasn't you know our house didn't burn down or we weren't in war we weren't going

into a long-term survival situation you know it was just he couldn't work for a while. Yeah. And that's what people, they, I mean, we always talk about, I mean, even with y'all and at Prepper Camp is, you know, there's such a stigma around preppers. But kind of moving it back to how Brock started this episode was that's just the way things were. We're doing exactly how people lived 100 years ago. And it wasn't so uncommon because if you didn't do these things, you didn't survive. Well, now we've got electricity and phones and all these different distractions, which I put my tinfoil hat on there, but all these different distractions of today's world that we forgot all those things. And you see a comeback. And I think it's great. I think some of it is, you see it on social media a lot. And so you see all these women who are

making gardens and learning how to can and they're romanticizing it and all that stuff. And it's like, okay, that's great. I'm glad you're prepared with all of that stuff but when shit really does hit the fan are you really prepared kind of thing you know it's are you doing this for views and likes or are you really trying to prepare yourself and so I think it I think what we've talked about on this episode is great because there is so much in the nitty gritty of prepping, and it's not always a romantic garden with your flower dress on and loving on your goats and your chickens and everything. It's not always fun, but just having that, help me with my words, having that knowledge that you are taken care of. If your hips go out, if you lose your job, if, you know, a hurricane hits or a fire, you know, is destroying your town,

just knowing that you are taken care of, that you've already gotten, you know, all those things thought through and planned and ready to go. It, you know, You're not standing there like a deer in the headlights going, which way do we turn? Which way do we turn? Now what do we do? Now what do we do?

You know, when the trees fell on the house during Ida, there were obvious holes in our preps. Chainsaw. We fixed those things. We were able, thank God, they weren't life-threatening enough that we weren't able to fix those things. But we did fix those holes in our preps that we figured out the hard way. But we also had the comfort of knowing, okay, we have no water.

There's no water pressure because the tree fell on the whatever that is out there. The holding tank that serves the—so we're on city water, but the holding tank that serves this whole subdivision is about 75 yards that direction and a pine tree landed on it so yeah so we had no water no power obviously trees are on the house and it's august heat in south louisiana but we knew and we couldn't walk out the front door because like it was just yeah when we when we opened the garage door part of the tree that had fallen down had jumped through the garage door at us. Yeah. It was a mess.

But we knew, we had the comfort of knowing we have the water, we have enough in the garage or all of our preps for food. We knew we had enough propane to cook with. We were good. Plus, our house has gasane to, to cook with. We were good. Plus our house has gas. So we knew for those things, they were good. And luckily the holes, like I said, weren't life-threatening enough, but prepping isn't, um, rainbows and unicorns. It's, and it's not for the weak of heart. It's, it's thinking about really, really hard topics. It's thinking about what happens if my husband is no longer here. It's thinking about, you know, what happens if I have to leave my home and bug out in the woods for a couple of days, or, you know, it's not always fun topics to think about, but it's,

I just think it's so much more refreshing to know that we've thought about those things, you know, it's not just, and you have that plan and you have the plan, you know, it's like, you know, we, I don't, I would assume that parents still do this. I don't know if they do, because I see my students sometimes when we have fire drills and it's like, what is that? What do we do? We had the fire alarm go off in our house a couple of years ago and it was me cooking where there's smoke there's dinner but no question asked and i knew what was happening and me and my brother and all were in the kitchen piper ran it like she she heard that fire alarm go off and she knew exactly what to do and she wasn't sticking around to see if it was mom's cooking or if there was a real fire and she ran that drill and it wasn't a drill but she ran it but me and my sister were in

the front yard and like we heard the fire alarm and then about six seconds later the front door opens up my daughter sprints to the mailbox and that's i'm here and well but that was she didn't stop turn around or slow down until she got to the mailbox. She didn't even ask, Mom, are you okay? Deuces, y'all. She was out. I'm good. I know what my role is, and my role is to not ask questions and to get out of this house.

Screw you, Mom. But here's the thing. When she and I discussed that years ago, she had asked me, shouldn't I make sure you and mom get out of the house? And I've told her very to the point. I'm like, it is your mother's responsibility to get her out of the house. It is my responsibility to make sure y'all both get out of the house. It's your responsibility to get your own self out of the house.

Like, don't stop and wait for me or mom. We're both adults and we're both capable of busting out a window if we have to. And we're going to get out. I'm like, your job is to get to the mailbox so that when I get me and mom to the mailbox, there's one less reason I have to run back into the house to go looking for you. Because if you're looking for me and you're not out here, then you're not safe. I just think that we're growing up. We're in a time where people just don't want to think about the hard things. They don't want to think about the sad or those scary things, and that's why we're in a lot of the situations that we're in in this country.

But you have to. You have to think about those things because I, you know, a lot of them are going to come to fruition and you're going to see it at some point in your life. And don't you want your kids prepared? Don't you want your kids to be able to survive through those things? I would, that's why we do what we do, but I don't see that a lot in in families anymore i just don't say it a lot people look at you like you have six eyes because you've talked to your kid about the possibility of being abducted yeah like you know like why would you why would you scare him yeah no oh because if it happens i want him to know what to do exactly you know exactly these are these are real things that are out there and you have to be boogeyman about it but you know right yeah there's times we've been practicing

self-defense that christians you know teared up or whatever is it better for him to tear up with his parents or freak out when somebody else is trying to grab him we've had nights where you know piper was scared you know she couldn't go to sleep because of what we had talked about that day it's you know we live um what is this 12 interstate 12 interstate 12 yeah which goes across the entire interstate 10 interstate 12 because it's interstate 10 everywhere but from here to baton rouge. But the interstate goes across the entire country, and so we see a lot of abductions in this corridor of this interstate. A lot of trafficking, a lot of drugs. And my little brown-eyed, blonde-haired girl, we talked about a lot of things.

That's one of the reasons why her dad talked about always looking behind him. That's why she is to hold my hand. Even at 11 years old, she is to hold onto the basket. She is to stay with me and look and see if there's, I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've been followed in a store here. You know,

they just, um, even what, uh, Christian and I, when we were going to prepper camp last year in Louisiana. Of all places, yeah. Yep, we were at one of the truck stops, and it's just Christian and I.

And here's this big dude, starts following us. I'm a girl. He's got to go in the boys' bathroom. So we have to split. Yeah. Right? And I'm like freaking out. So luckily, Fletcher had come up behind me, and I'm like, you keep eyes on your brother.

That guy went in the bathroom. He only washed his hands. Yeah. And then we come out and we're all walking away from the store. Fletcher went to Arby's to go get something. So he peeled off of us. Here comes the guy again. Right up behind me and Christian. Yeah. i mean i pity the fool but he had no idea who he was following

you know that would have been fun to watch brock came up from the truck right then and here goes here there's the dude peeling off yeah i'm like uh-huh you know what just and then i was like it was a great teachable moment for christian though yeah right i was like see you're just mr aloof running around no big deal right well it could be right there yeah clear and present danger so yeah we have to just be alert and i've also talked piper through like all the classic bull bull that somebody might try to sell her like, oh, your dad sent me to come get you. And I've literally told Piper, I'm like, yeah, unless that person is a literal police officer with a badge, not a we have a code word. Yeah, we have a family code word. So if that person doesn't know our family code word, no, it was not.

Yeah, I haven't even gone to the route to go on the route of a code word no it was not yeah i haven't even gone to the route to go on the route of a code word because to me it's just like unless you're talking to a police officer i'm not sending anyone you don't know yeah they can dress up like police officers though true true this this was years ago when we had this conversation when that wasn't yeah as much of a thing right but i've also been but i've also been very very front with piper there have been times when like i had i i would leave her in the truck and i'd take the buggy like back to the front of the grocery store and then come back and i've always told piper i'm like lock the door unlock it when i come up make sure it's me before you unlock it like for me with the boys, mine is, they have a fake cast on, right?

Oh, can you help me get this out of the car? I'm trying to unload these books or whatever. Can you help me? Well, my boys would be like, sure, we can help. We're Mr. Helpful, you know, because they are. And I'm like, dude, you know, watch out for that because that, you know, you just never know. So that's why that that was the one i was really concerned about with them i think that was ted bundy's game for a while

right yeah i'm like not not to go down that road or anything but like yeah anyway yeah family code word it works good yeah we'll definitely have that by the end of the day uh huh make it a code word that's so freaking awesome you know what I got the perfect family code word no one will guess it and Piper will never forget it

uh huh that's same with us well it has been so much fun having y'all on this morning I miss you guys I can't wait to see you in real life That's ours as well. Sounds good. Well, it has been so much fun having y'all on this morning. I miss you guys. I can't wait to see you in real life in September. I missed you last year. I was like, where's Gillian?

Everyone asks me where Gillian is. I know. I've already got a substitute lined up for next year. She kind of looked at me a little crazy, and she's like, really? You already have those days? I'm like, yes, please sub for me because I'm not missing it. When they found out at the school, because we go every year and they always, unexcused absence, unexcused absence. You guys are going on vacation. We're always in trouble with the school. Yeah, right. So we're

always in trouble. And this year we had parent teacher conferences like right after we got back from prepper camp and we're talking to the teacher about you know yeah we go out to prepper camp or she thought it was just so cool she's like man i would go to that all this somehow magically the absences were excused this year ah there you go uh Uh-huh. I was like, sweet. Nice. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Well, thank you guys again. So totally appreciate it.

We'll have to do this again. This was a lot of fun. Right? Is this a Sunday morning ritual? I know. Now we got to go record some lines because I think we're still behind. So I was like, yeah. You're at the first.

Okay. So I am so excited. Don't so excited so am i and i love it that actually makes me feel so much better brock i am so excited for season four of the changing earth audio drama i almost have it all written already i literally have like five more episodes to write and the all 16 of them are done I love it you guys this has been so much fun so fast no I think this has been so much fun to do and the um I don't know if you've listened to my last lines and I won't say anything I haven't I was talking to you Gillian to Sarah in these last lines and I I, you know, it was part of the recording, but

yeah, I think it's been great. And like I said, when we were on your show last time, my kids searched up, they Googled my name and like, you're on IMDB. And I was like, yeah, yeah. I'm a voice actor. don't you know? Yeah. And now you're finally out from, oh, no. I'm not giving anything away. You can't give anything away. I told you I've been writing too much. I've been writing too much.

Spoiler. You can't have the author on the show. I know, right? Well, it has been. It's been a ton of fun yes it has um really finding myself I'm so um so I was just thinking about this the other day because uh you know I listen to everybody's voices like I'm working on the audio drama pretty much every day at some point because it takes like two hours of audio editing for every minute that you hear so i am pretty much just continually every free moment that i have i'm working audio drama and i get to listen to all my friends voices all the time like i hear phil all the time i hear gillian all the time i hear d Doug all the time. I'm like, oh, I wonder what they're actually doing.

It's cool that way. Making lunch, making dinner, making breakfast, TJ. Yeah, right? I don't know. Poor TJ. That's just the way it is with TJ. Nothing you can do there. The only place we missed out on being part of this audio drama is that I don't have a villain voice

because if I'd have been TJ and you would have been what was your character's name? Teresa. God, we could have played that up here at the house. No, I'm glad that you weren't TJ. I'm glad that we didn't get to play that up at the house that was some of those be the good guy yeah yeah i i don't have a villain voice i will just say i will say that the um the last uh the last little bit of lines that we did last week for you

i was um screaming through the walls in the office going, I knew it. I knew this was the one. I knew this was the one she said. Bill's like, is everything okay in there? I was like, yes, it's fine. Everything's fine. Just recording my lines. Sarah, gosh. I know I'm always like, with new female role, Gosh. I know. I'm always like, with new female role, with new female performers, you know, I'm like, so, you know, do you mind like getting captured and beaten on for a little bit?

You know, that's kind of a thing. Can you throw your voice in such a way? Oh, I love it. I love it. It's been so much fun. But all right. Well, I think that's it. I love it. It's been so much fun. But all right. Well, I think that's it. I think that's our episode. Again, it's been a blast having y'all on.

So we'll have to do it again. But where can everybody find you, Sarah? Yeah. Brock, I'm changing. I was going to say Earth Series. Changing Earth Series. Dot com. Dot com.

I will make sure I include that in the show notes. Brock, I would ask where people find you, but I don't think you want to be found. No, you can find me right next to Sarah. That's it. That's it. I love it. Yeah, ChangingEarthSeries.com. And yeah, you need to put that in the show notes. Everything's there. The audio drama, the podcast, all my books. That is my hub. changing our series.com

and yeah listen to phil and gill playing some fun characters yeah all right guys well thanks again for being on thank you all for watching or being a part of the podcast and we will see you next week no we won't no we won't we won't see you next week it will be a day off because we will be in texas actually oh hey we will be back on sunday okay maybe you know us we don't know we'll be in texas next weekend but anyway all right guys well we'll see you when we see you how about that bye everybody bye y'all thank you bye you