Not long ago, I had the opportunity to visit with a new prepping friend who had come to one of our Ladie’s Weekend Retreats. She and I chatted and enjoyed talking about all the self-sustaining lessons we had learned and sharing ideas to help each other prepare in peace. We were loading her small four-wheel drive with her bulk order and just enjoying the beginning of spring.
She shared with me that she had recently been able to secure a location to move to that was a bit further out of town. At this delight, she made preparations to make the move. Being a single mother, she was offered help from some of her co-workers. A very nice gesture. She accepted. This lead to one face to face encounter with a question that is often asked/implied about prepping.
While moving, she was confronted by a fellow work peer about her food and having to move all of it. To hear her talk, she felt she barely had a couple month’s of the basics on hand for she and her elementary age child, so it was not an exorbitant amount of food. But after seeing a few bags of grain and other staples, she was faced with the question: “Why all this food? Are you HOARDING?” She had to come up with a viable answer on the spot and felt like she had been accused of taking food out of the mouths of others.
The truth is, the definition of hoarding does not have a negative connotation at all. The verb “hoard” makes no differentiation about the use of items stored. Dictionary dot com simply defines the verb as this: ” HOARD verb (used with object) – to accumulate for preservation, future use, etc., in a hidden or carefully guarded place. (ie: to hoard food during a shortage). ” No where in the definition of hoarding does it denote the intended USE of the items preserved for the future.
Preppers are not taking food out of the mouths of people now nor are they creating a shortage of toilet paper or gasoline. To be maligned with a negative connotation in the word ‘hoarding’ is completely uncalled for.
So if someone uses that word with you while you are trying to encourage others to live a preparedness lifestyle or they get wind that you are prepping, do not despair. They obviously don’t really know that hoarding is not negative by definition. On the contrary, your ‘hoarding’ may be what saves them in the future!
If you get called ‘stingy’, well, now there may be the need for a heart-check before you settle with that label.