I think we sometimes picture long-term survival too much like an action movie, where everyone is in their thirties, hunting wild board only minutes before fending off marauders. Then they chop some firewood, roast that pig over a spit, toss the bones to their trusty canine companion, and do it all over again the next day.
Real life doesn’t work that way, and neither will a SHTF survival scenario.
Someone has to cook. Someone has to keep track of supplies. Someone has to watch children, mend clothes, operate radios, preserve food, care for sick people, and clean tools.
Those jobs aren’t glamorous, but neither is washing dishes or scrubbing laundry or dozens of other tasks that modern life has made easy. Try going without clean dishes for a week and see how important basic sanitation becomes.
My mother-in-law, for example, can’t do nearly as much physical work as she once could. She struggles with plenty of everyday tasks now, and there’s no pretending that would somehow improve during a disaster. Yet she still folds laundry, peels potatoes, and helps with simple chores whenever she can. More important, she’s always willing to offer love, encouragement, and prayer.
My father-in-law is almost 80 and slowing down too, but he still cooks dinner once or twice a week, mows the lawn (on a riding lawnmower; I’m not a slave-driving son-in-law), and helps where he can. He’s also encouraging, which matters more than most people give it credit for.
More importantly, none of what they’re doing now is also occurring during some terrible SHTF event. It’s just everyday life as my family and I live it. Still, watching them makes me wonder how much more useful older people might become during a long-term crisis, especially when everyone needs to contribute somehow, and elderly folks are easy to overlook as being unimportant in such a scenario. I suspect the answer is actually quite the opposite.
Physical strength is only one form of usefulness. Older people may not be able to carry heavy loads, patrol a perimeter for hours on end, or spend all day digging a trench, but they can handle dozens of jobs that still need doing. And every job they handle frees somebody else for work that does require strength and a strong back.
Teach What They Know
Decades of experience count for a lot more than most people give it credit for, especially if knowledge that could once be had nearly instantly online suddenly disappeared.
An older person may know about gardening, farming, mechanics, carpentry, electrical work, cooking, sewing, food preservation, radios, hunting, fishing, livestock care, or any number of trades. They might not be able to do eight hours of hard work anymore, but they can show somebody younger how to do it right. That alone could save days or weeks of wasted effort.
When we built our chicken coop about five years ago now, I could’ve watched videos online and figured it out. But my father-in-law (who did carpentry in his youth) more or less knew what he was doing, so I just followed his lead. And it worked out exceedingly well. Honestly, sometimes I think the chicken coop is more likely to survive a tornado than our house, lol.
Someone who spent thirty years fixing engines surely knows things a twenty-year-old, even with YouTube, will never know. And someone who gardened for decades surely recognizes problems long before a new gardener ever will. I’m discovering this reality as well.
There’s also plenty to be said for teaching older, low-tech ways of doing things. Those skills could matter a lot when electricity, replacement parts, or the internet may not be available.
Organize Work
Older people often have years of experience managing jobs, families, businesses, crews, or households. I say put that experience to work!
After all, someone needs to decide which jobs matter most today, and which can wait. Someone needs to assign tasks, check progress, keep people from duplicating work, and notice when somebody is working on the wrong thing. That might mean organizing garden crews, scheduling repairs, managing food distribution, tracking fuel use, or planning tomorrow’s work.
Keep Track of Supplies
This is one of those jobs that sounds boring until nobody does it, only to discover the group has been using toilet paper like it’s going out of style and now everyone is resorting to leaves and those newspaper flyers they keep delivering to the door.
Food, medicine, batteries, fuel, seeds, tools, spare parts, hygiene supplies, clothing, and other gear will disappear faster than expected if nobody tracks where it went and how much can be spared at any given time.
An older person could record what came in, what went out, what’s running low, what needs replacement, and where everything is stored. That could also reduce waste and keep ten people from opening ten different containers of the same thing or making a mess looking for one thing.
Because if there’s only thing I’ve come to realize that older folks know … it’s where they stashed something that hasn’t seen the light of day in ten years, but somehow “simply must be found” at this very moment.
Yeah, they’re good at keeping track of stuff, unless it’s their glasses, hearing aids, or a cane.
Cook Meals
Cooking for a large group every day is a serious job. Older people with decades of kitchen experience may be some of the best people for managing the chaos because they often know how to stretch ingredients, use leftovers, adjust recipes, substitute missing foods, and ultimately to get meals on the table without turning dinner into a science project.
And older folks don’t have to do everything except what they can manage. Younger people can haul water and firewood while someone else handles the actual meal preparation. You’re just there to direct it all.
Process Food
Growing food is only half the job. Once beans, potatoes, corn, tomatoes, berries, fruit, and other foods start coming in, somebody has to deal with them.
Older people can snap beans, peel potatoes, shell peas, chop vegetables, sort produce, clean food, remove spoiled items, and get everything ready for cooking or preservation as needed. Peeling potatoes doesn’t feel impressive until you have a mountain of potatoes and everyone else is too tired to do it.
Regardless, many of these jobs can be done sitting at a table. My mother-in-law still does some of this prep work even though she’s often in pain.
Preserve Food
Canning, drying, pickling, fermenting, sorting stored produce, and rotating food all take time. They also take knowledge. Older people who grew up doing these things in their younger years surely know techniques younger people never learned. Someone also needs to keep an eye on stored food, watch for spoilage, rotate supplies, and make sure leftovers get used instead of thrown away.
Garden
Not every gardening job requires digging holes or pushing a wheelbarrow. Older people can start seeds, select crops, save seeds, weed raised beds, diagnose plant problems, manage planting dates, sort harvests, and teach inexperienced gardeners. Even someone with limited mobility may be able to work from a chair or tend containers and raised beds. And, like I said before, an experienced gardener directing younger workers could save them from plenty of mistakes!
Care for Animals
Livestock and animals require constant attention. An older person may be able to feed smaller animals, gather eggs, check water, watch animals for illness, or alert someone when a larger problem develops. And I suspect that there will be domesticated animals, too, all of which will need plenty of pets and love.
Operate Radios
Someone can monitor weather reports, communicate with nearby groups, listen for emergency information, keep communication logs, maintain equipment cleanliness, and relay messages throughout the community. Experienced radio operators may also know how to install antennas, repair connections, manage backup power, and troubleshoot equipment.
Watch and Observe
Security doesn’t always mean walking a fence line all night long. An older person could sit at a gate, monitor cameras, listen to radios, watch a road, or just keep an eye on who comes and goes into a specific building. At a minimum, a stationary watch post lets somebody younger handle patrols, hauling, repairs, or other physical work.
They might also notice changes in people or activity that others miss, something that could prove useful as stress rises or resources dwindle. Sometimes paying attention is the most important job.
Repair Things
Older people often have decades of repair skills that might include engines, tractors, electrical systems, electronics, tools, clothing, furniture, radios, generators, fences, plumbing, or buildings.
During normal times, we replace things. But during a long crisis, replacement may not be impossible. Someone who knows how to fix equipment, even in a makeshift manner, could become one of the most useful people in the group.
Sew and Mend
Clothing will wear out. Work clothes will tear. Buttons will come off. Blankets will rip. Packs and straps will fray. Someone who can sew and mend can keep useful gear in service much longer. Same goes for shoes, boots, hats, and everything else a person dons to keep the warm, out of the sun, and camouflaged.
Care for Children
Providing childcare could free several adults at once because an older person may be able to watch children, teach them, keep them occupied, supervise chores, prepare simple food, or help with any number of lessons. That’s a big contribution, and one that shouldn’t be overlooked.
Care for Sick and Injured People
Some older people have medical experience, while others have spent years caring for spouses, children, parents, or relatives. They may know basic first aid, wound care, medications, or at least know how to make a sick person comfortable. Even sitting with somebody matters more than most people realize.
People who have lived longer have also dealt with more illness, grief, and death than most young adults. That experience can make them calmer when things get difficult. My in-laws, for instance, used to sit with people on hospice, so they know this aspect of life better than most people.
Keep People Calm
This may be one of the most overlooked functions because people will get scared, argue, make bad decisions when stressed, and worse. Someone who can stay calm, listen, offer perspective, and slow people down before they do something foolish has immense value.
Older people have usually survived their share of setbacks. They’ve seen plans fail, made mistakes and learned from them. In short, they’ve lived life and often have a different perspective that a younger person can’t yet see. And sharing their calming presence when times get tough can change the entire dynamics.
Encourage People
Morale matters too. Storytelling, humor, conversation, family traditions, encouragement, and simple companionship can keep people going when life becomes difficult, as I suspect it will.
And, for those who value it, spiritual support matters. Prayer, counseling, comforting grieving people, helping someone face life challenges, or keeping faith traditions alive could become crucial parts of community life after SHTF.
My mother-in-law already does this. She offers love and prayer freely, even when she can’t do much else physically; same with my father-in-law. I doubt that skill becomes less valuable during a crisis.
Prepare for the Job You Can Do
If you’re older, the goal shouldn’t be pretending you’re still 25 and can dig ditches all day long. My guess is that ship has sailed. But you can do a lot more if you allow yourself. Figure out what you can do now, not only to prove your worth to others but for yourself, too.
Maybe you can cook. Maybe you know radios. Maybe you’ve spent forty years fixing cars. Maybe you garden. Maybe you sew. Maybe you’re good with children. Maybe you’re the calm person everyone talks to when things go sideways.
Whatever it is, build on that.
Watching my in-laws has changed my view of getting older. Yes, they’re slowing down, but they still contribute most days. More important, they have decades of knowledge and experience that my wife and I don’t yet have, and a lifetime of experience that my adult children don’t have, either.
And if life ever gets much harder than it is now, I suspect we’ll appreciate that experience more than we could possibly imagine.
What skills do the older people in your family have that others overlooks? And if you’re getting older yourself, what job could you still do when the younger folks are busy hauling water and chopping wood? Did I miss anything?
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