Rumspringa Revisited

Have you read the book "Rumspringa?" If so, do you think it does justice to the dilemma young Amish teens find themselves in? 

Sarah Weaver asked this question some time ago, and I am just now getting around to answering it -- thanks for your patience, Sarah. Yes, I have read Rumspringa -- in fact I own the book, and I just now pulled it off the shelf to trigger my memory about some specifics.

I honestly don't feel the book does justice to the dilemma young Amish teens find themselves in, because this is a look from the outside in. Granted, the author conducted more than 400 interviews for the book, which gives him a different perspective than if he had only conducted 10. However, it is my feeling that someone knows this dilemma or they don't -- and usually it is parallel with whether the person has lived it or not. And the 'd' at the end of the word 'live' is an important aspect of this perspective. A person still in the Amish community is not usually able to express the feelings of this dilemma for someone to portray this conflict adequately. One of the reasons for this is that if youth have any feelings of dissatisfaction for that life, they have to repress these to be able to stay. So my feelings are that a person can only reflect on these conflicts after leaving because of the pressure they were under while still in the community. In this regard, Shachtman seems to be able to get at conflicts externally, but not the 'internal' conflict that Amish teens face about their lot in life.

Notice I say 'lot in life' not 'choice about whether to stay or leave.' As I mentioned in my post of December 6, 2009 (entitled To Leave or not to Leave?), most of us who have lived that life didn't consciously think we had the choice to leave until we were already contemplating leaving. It was akin to knowing we have the choice to commit suicide -- we all know we have that choice, but we don't think about it consciously unless we are considering it as a possibility. What I think the book Rumspringa does is perpetuate the misconception that Amish youth are given a conscious choice about whether they stay or leave. If I could change just one public misconception about the Amish, it would be this one. Sadly, this book does exactly the opposite.

The one thing that I learned from this book, though, is that there are some differences in the Indiana Amish from where I grew up in Ohio. I never went to any of those huge parties of several thousand, for instance. I wasn't aware that there were Amish parties that big. The other thing I noticed is that some of the parents are more lenient about their young people doing things that were out of the question in the community in which I grew up. For example, it seems there are parents in Indiana who tolerated their children going on to high school and college, whereas in my home community, this would never have been tolerated, no matter whether one was a member of the community or not. (I cannot imagine the kind of pressure the parents were under for allowing this). And a third difference is that I was not aware of the prevalence of drug use in my home community that is described in this book. Perhaps there was more than I was aware of; perhaps that has changed since I lived there; or perhaps it is still more prevalent among the Indiana youth than in Geauga County, Ohio to this day. Whatever the case may be, this was new to me.

Schactman, in his chapter on education in the Amish, states, "...I am troubled by Amish schooling practices, particularly by the sect's insistence that children cease formal education after the eighth grade. My concern is that the years between thirteen and eighteen are the most crucial mental development years for a child -- and Amish children spend most of them out of school." I totally agree with these sentiments, and it was one of the reasons why I left the Amish in the first place.

In his concluding remarks in the book. Schachtman claims that the Amish are going to change, whether they want to or not. He cites the Amish shift from an agrarian lifestyle to an "off-the-farm entrepreneurial culture" will necessitate greater participation with mainstream society. I agree. He concludes, "In fifty years, rumspringa will be redefined in broader terms, such as the permitting of high school or of a stint in college before the Amish person has to make up his or her mind to become an Amish adult."

I think Schachtman is way off the mark on this prediction. This is a total misunderstanding of what makes the Amish who they are. There are very few things that one can name to be true about Amish in general, because there are quite a few variations of rules from one community to another, but not allowing an education beyond the eighth grade is among these few things. Plain dress and the use of horse and buggies are the only other aspects of Amish culture that I can think of that seem to be universal.

To understand how integral this is in Amish culture, one only has to look at their long history of resisting formal education. I would have guessed that this may have started here in this country until I looked into Amish (Anabaptist) history, and what I discovered is that that some of the first Anabaptists were highly educated, but many of the converts were from a more agrarian culture, and soon the sentiments developed that being highly educated was a deterrent to being a devout Anabaptist believer. So this idea of limiting education, seems to have happened long before our ancestors migrated to the United States from Europe. I think this will be one of the last Amish tenets to go, given it is so integral to their whole belief system.

So I think Schachtman certainly got some things right in the book, but I don't think he really got at the heart of the Amish youth dilemma, to answer your question.

Keep those questions coming. I'd like to address what people are interested in, and questions help to guide me in that direction.

Amish and Politics

Do the Amish get involved in community politics? I know there have been controversies about electrical lines crossing Amish-owned property and other community issues, but what about state and national election concerns?

It's been a while since last I posted. David and I had to make a mad dash to Rangeley, Maine this past weekend. His family's cottage, which has been in the family since David was 8 years old, is selling. We were surprised when someone wanted to buy it in the middle of winter, and then we were even more surprised when they moved up the closing date, which forced us to move our belongings out right away. Of course we got stuck on that steep driveway with the cargo van we rented and had to be towed out. It was sooo cold up there! But at least it's over and we survived it.

I am now ready to address the above question to the best of my ability. I do believe the answer to the first question is varied, depending on the community. In my home community, it seemed the Amish were almost a-political unless something happened to force them into it, such as the example you gave of power companies wanting to bring large power lines through their farm land. I remember this being an issue when I was in my early teens. The sentiment from the Amish was that they do not use the electricity, why should they allow it to come through their land? They actually did cause the power company to change their route because they spoke out. I remember a controversy within the community around one Amish man having consented to a television interview, because he wanted the message to be heard. He was heavily criticized for that by other Amish.

I've also heard of the Amish turning out in droves to vote against a school levy in one particular community. It was my understanding that even the women were registering to vote for that occasion. Most likely it was like giving every head of household two votes with the husbands telling their wives how to vote.

About state and national elections: to my knowledge no Amish women vote in these elections. When I was old enough to vote and still living in the community, it never dawned on me that I had that right. It would have been frowned on as not being "the Amish way." There may have been a few men who voted in my home community, but it wasn't discussed often and I wouldn't have known who voted and who didn't, which also means I have no idea how many voted. This may have all changed -- I have been out of the community for thirty years now. It is my understanding that most Amish vote Republican. In a homogeneous community, in which there isn't much diversity of thought, it does not surprise me that they vote the way of the group.

I'm sorry I cannot give more definitive answers, but because of the a-political bent of my original community, I really don't know the answers to these questions.

I will be answering the question about the book entitled Rumspringa in my next post.

Leaving a Legacy

We are linked by blood, and blood is memory without language. ~ Joyce Carol Oates

One of my readers has asked whether my husband is also from the Amish community and what my sons’ relationship is to my background. I will address each of these in turn.

David was not raised Amish –– he was raised in a Roman Catholic family. It was very hard for both our families to accept our respective backgrounds, considering my parents wanted me to stay in the community and marry an Amish man, and David’s parents were hoping he would marry someone in the Catholic faith. None of my family members came to our wedding. David’s parents did, but only after we went through the process of getting a “dispensation of place” to marry in the Presbyterian Church, which we had both been attending. As it turned out, this didn’t matter over the years –– my parents and family love David. One of the last things my mother said to David was, “Now you take good care of Saloma.” And then she added, as though it were an afterthought, “And Saloma, you take good care of him, too.”

The family bonds went both ways –– I loved David’s mother, who was a devout Catholic. Even though I didn’t and don’t fully relate to Roman Catholic Doctrines, I highly respected her for her strong spirituality, which she lived as a wonderful example, but didn’t push it on me. She holds a very dear place in my heart to this day, even though she died in 1999. David’s dad and I had a more difficult relationship, but it had more to do with personality than religion.

Neither David nor I have any parents left –– my dad and mom died in 2004 and 2005 respectively and David’s father died in 2007. I like to think that when we meet in the afterlife our different faiths on Earth will matter little or not at all.

Now to address the question of my sons’ reaction to my background: When they were growing up, they knew about my background, but they didn’t often ask questions about it. When they did, I would answer their questions, but no more because I didn’t want to push anything on them they weren’t ready for. When they were 14 and 12, I planned a family trip to Ohio to visit my parents. They dragged their feet, but I was pretty adamant that this trip was for their future –– that they were not going to go through their whole lives without knowing something about their maternal heritage and without memories of their Amish grandparents. They didn’t have too many questions then, and I don’t honestly know how much of the trip they remember.

In 2004, when David and I traveled back to the community for my father’s funeral, our younger son, Tim, went with us. He was 18 at the time, so I didn’t have any idea he would react the way he did. He was absolutely fascinated. He was very perceptive and noticed things about the culture that I never had, even having lived it for 23 years. As soon as we left the wake, he started peppering me with questions: “Mom, are you some kind of celebrity with these people, even though you left?” “How many second cousins do I have?” Why do they dress that way?” “What? They can have LED lights on their buggies, but they can’t have electricity!” He and I had several conversations over that weekend that left me realizing how Tim may have derived meaning from growing up in such a community atmosphere. But when I mentioned that to him, he said, “Mom, you know me better than that –– I could never live with someone else telling me what to do –– I am way too much of a rebel for that.” I did understand that –– I was too. But I think Tim has suffered from not knowing his place in the world. In the Amish community, one knows that –– for better or for worse. Perhaps Tim is right, the same way it was for worse for me, it may have been for him, too. But it seems part of being a parent is second-guessing whether we did the right thing by our children.

A year later, when my mother died, our older son, Paul, traveled to Ohio from Johns Hopkins, where he was attending his last year of college. His reaction was exactly the opposite of Tim’s –– he completely drew inward and didn’t want to talk about what he was experiencing. I asked him if he had any questions, and he said, “I don’t even know what to ask.” I thought he may have a delayed reaction, and that later he would ask me questions, but to this day I don’t know what he was thinking and feeling during that weekend. This was very surprising to me, because Paul is a people-person and able to relate to nearly everyone.

I have a feeling that Paul and Tim will someday want to know more about their Amish heritage. I hope I am still around to tell them stories, or at least have enough journals, letters, blogs, and other writings left to tell the story. Right now I would consider that a gift more precious than gold, for there is so little I know about my parents before they got married. Dad was 34 and Mom 32, so there are 66 collective years of memories I would love to have filled in. As it is, I have only snatches here and there and my imagination to fill in the rest.

When I reflect on the legacy that my parents left, it is making me think about the legacy I want to leave. Pondering mysteries is a good thing in philosophy, but I hope I don’t leave too much of a mystery about who I am –– rather I want to leave a legacy of having lived a conscious life –– and with integrity and authenticity.

Thank you, Linda, for asking these questions. They have elicited more of a philosophical response than I’d expected. I will address the questions about Amish involvement in community politics in a later post.

Homemade Fun

It's surprising how much memory is built around things unnoticed at the time. ~ Barbara Kingsolver

Happy New Year to everyone! David and I enjoyed a very quiet, yet festive evening together on New Year's Eve. We’d had a hectic week, so after a nice meal, we sat on the couch, covered with a blanket, looked at our Christmas tree, and instead of making New Year’s resolutions, we shared our goals and visions for 2010. I discovered this works much better for me than resolutions. Mine included goals of writing another book, while David’s included a trip to Ireland. His paternal side of the family (the Furlongs) are from Ireland. His father always wanted to go to Ireland and Switzerland, yet he never did. David and I have been to Switzerland, but neither of us has been to Ireland or the rest of the British Isles, though we have always wanted to.

I have been feeling under the weather lately. I have a horrible cold that just keeps hanging in there. Today I finally felt well enough to finish interlacing the woolen rug I started last winter for my bedroom. I needed help carrying it upstairs, so David and I each carried one end up the stairs and into the bedroom. David remarked that a child could use it as a hammock. That triggered a childhood memory that had long been forgotten. When I was little, my siblings and I used to do exactly that –– we would take a blanket or rug and two or more people would hold onto the corners, while a child lay down in the middle. Then we would swing the rug or blanket back and forth. We used to sing a song with it, but I don’t remember what it was.

As I thought about this memory, other memories were triggered of how we used to have what I call “homemade fun.” Sometimes, if Mem was in the mood, she would allow us to take everything out of one of the bottom cupboards and then one of us would crawl in there and someone would close the door. I was always amazed at how dark it was when the door closed. This wasn’t as dangerous as it sounds –– we could push open the door whenever we wanted, if the small space and pitch darkness got to be too much.

Another indoor game we used to play was the hand-stacking game. This is actually one of the only playful things Datt ever did with us. He would put one of his weathered hands on the table after supper and wait for one or two of us to put our hands on top of his. Then he would put his other hand on top, and then our hands would go on top of that, and so on. He would take his hand out of the bottom of the stack and put it on top, then wait for us to take our hands out in turn and stack them on top. He would go faster and faster, until we’d get all mixed up and then we played as if our hands were a threshing machine.

One other playful thing Datt did was when there was a glass bottle with some kind of drink in it –– which was on a rare occasion for us –– Mem and Datt rarely bought soda (or what we called pop), Datt would say, "Oh, you want more, well I will have to squeeze the bottle." He would turn the glass bottle upside down, pretend he was squeezing really hard, and when a few drops came out, he would give us his big toothless grin (Datt was toothless the whole time I knew him). If it hadn’t been for the few drops that came out, I wouldn’t have believed him at all. As it was, I wondered if he was really that strong.

We played many outdoor games as well. In winter, we went sledding, we played “Fox and Geese” in the snow, and we made forts or snowmen. In the warmer months we played “Mother May I?”“Prisoner’s Base,” “Kick the Can,” “Bag Tag,” “Freeze Tag,” “Hide and Seek,” and “Whose Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?” In the fall we used to rake together freshly fallen leaves into a big pile, and then bury one another in the pile. Sometimes our pile was big enough to bury three or four children at once. We also used to try to catch the falling leaves, which were as elusive as butterflies.

Though I did some of these things with my sons when they were growing up, I often felt I had to compete with the television, once we allowed one in the house. At he time there were still not as many kinds of technology available to occupy a child’s time as there are now. I think this is one of the reasons that so many people look to the Amish as being an example of a simpler lifestyle. In the ways I have just described, it is much less of a rat race than our headlong pursuit of the latest technologies in mainstream America. And here I am, posting to my blog, as opposed to what I would be doing, had I chosen to stay in the Amish community. Sunday nights were pretty predictable –– most families will pop corn and eat pies or cookies baked the day before instead of supper. And instead of sewing or mending, as on other nights, women will normally read or write letters on their evening of rest. Though I am no longer part of the community, I feel that having grown up there, I am choosier about which technologies I embrace. Who knows –– if television had been allowed in my childhood, it may well have displaced the memories of homemade fun.