Patriots wasn't that great to me. Instead of Lights Out, where you have a really lucky two guys who are "given" thousands of dollars worth of coins and Federal IOUs, you have Patriots, where a group of people with elite skill sets and like minds all come together and prepare starting a decade beforehand. Then, based only on a decade or less of preparation, they have literally everything they could need, at just the right time, and for the most part (in terms of preparedness), nothing really goes wrong. Or, if it does, they soon find a replacement. There are no kids, despite the fact that half of them are in serious relationships and in their mid-thirties or later, so for me and many other thousands upon thousands of preppers who have infants, toddlers, or small children, there are a lot of things that would probably need to be different that aren't addressed. I treat the book as just a "wish list" of stuff you could have, not as a truly achievable thing.
It would be much more believable if their preparations had not been worth so much (tons of equipment, guns, ammo - literally, probably a couple of tons of it), and if just one couple had some kids. That's one thing I don't see addressed very often except in the slightest fashion regarding preparedness - topics targeting families with children, or at least discussing all the various topics with children in mind. You want to have enough food to last you ten years, and by then grow your own if the system isn't up? How old are you going to be? Going to be in perfect condition? Going to patrol, grow/forage for food, repair things, all the chores ten years from now? Kids are people and I love mine, but they're also an insurance policy. You're going to need that younger, stronger back, that fresher mind and reflexes, that gung-ho attitude that youth brings.
Now, I'm not saying everyone should have kids.
I know some people who would probably strangle them in their sleep from pure annoyance. However, enough people have children, need children, will have children, that it should be a much bigger topic than I've seen over the past few years.
