If there is broad agreement on the overall goals of parenting, however, there are varied interpretations of precisely what a “yielded self” is and how it is to be achieved. The dominant “internal conversation” among the Amish over the goals of child-rearing revolves around the dangers of individualism. Several Amish scholars have pointed out that, contrary to popular views, the Amish focus on conformity is not a dehumanizing process, nor is it predicated on a “weak sense of self.”34 According to one of our interviewees, “It’s not that the individual always takes a back seat to the community. We stress not to be individualistic, but to be an individual.” But this important distinction seems to be lost on more and more Amish, at least according to an article titled, “The Big ‘I’” that was featured prominently in the November 2007 issue of Family Life. “Even though there is more submission and working together in our church communities than in the world around us,” notes the unnamed author, “we all have to admit there is less than there was fifty years ago.” Noting that “the ‘BIG I’ is the heart of sIn,” this article singles out both the “expensive homes people build and the consumer lifestyles they follow” as examples of overly individualistic behavior.35
Many Amish parents we interviewed acknowledged that raising children today involved new challenges and difficult decisions. “When I was growing up, I built my own pony cart,” said one Old Order father, “but we just bought one for our kids.” Another Old Order father complained, “My kids have way too much money—and I have to buy ’em things that I don’t want to get ’em.” Judging from the Amish with whom we talked, there is considerable variation in the interpretation of what constitutes individualistic behavior. As just one example, although many families lament the difficulty of finding “hired girls” to help out with young children, they have no qualms about encouraging their own daughters to work at better-paying jobs in restaurants, shops, worldly homes, or factories.
A second conversation that the Amish have among themselves is about the kinds of parenting techniques that best foster the idea that self-will must be given up in the service of God. Two broad positions are discernible. The first holds that the time-tested standards of right and wrong, determined by the Bible and interpreted by church leaders, can be upheld only through strict discipline embodied in the doctrine of “spare the rod and spoil the child.” Strict obedience to parents must be stressed at church and home, and “smackings” (by hand, switch, buggy whip, etc.) are the price one pays for being a smart aleck, mocking others, or having a temper tantrum. In this view, rigid social boundaries must be imposed so that children don’t face the temptations of the world, since they will go astray if left to their own devices.
A more optimistic view of the individual underlies a competing philosophy, which holds that “given an emotional climate of love, trust, and acceptance in the home, the developing individual will come to accept the values of the social system, not because he is required to do so under pain of punishment if he does not, but because he has warm and kindly feelings toward those people (parents, teachers, etc.) who model and teach the system’s prevailing values.”36 In this view, parental imposition of values, especially if done in a punitive way, may actually be counterproductive, leading to rebelliousness. Corollaries to these two philosophies can be seen in the Amish debate over excommunication and shunning described in chapter 3. Whereas the New Order Amish emphasize teaching as the most effective approach, the more conservative churches stress that the bottom line has to be firm sanctions.
Although spanking has become a controversial topic in the non-Amish community, it is still uncommon to find Amish parents who reject corporal punishment outright.37 “We believe in discipline, from Solomon, the rod of reproof,” commented one New Order man. An Old Order man agreed that it was important to teach children “to obey authority and obey the laws of the land and if they don’t there are consequences.” “One of our daughters got more spankings than all the rest—and she’s the one who now tells us she’s so happy we did that,” commented another.
Most members of the Amish community temper their endorsement of corporal punishment with a note of caution, however. “At times the rod needs to be used,” explained a New Order bishop, “but it’s never right to discipline a child in anger. We had a certain place we’d take them to. If you explain why this has to be, usually by then, you’re crying with them. If we have to paddle ’em, then take ’em on your lap, show them love.” Another bishop offered this assessment: “Parents who are high on love and low on discipline, or high on discipline and low on love, are not good.” A New Order church leader vented his frustration at parents who spank children in church: “The place of worship is a place of reverence. It is not a place where parents should ‘practice’ their discipline. That begins at home during devotions, etc. Woe unto us if we start to paddle our children loudly during preaching services. It is irreverent, bringing a sense of unholy disturbance into the gathering. It puts the assembly on edge—what next? Have you noticed that perhaps nine times out of ten the parent who was determined to discipline inside ends up going out after all?”38 Cautioned a bishop who feels that some Amish families rely too heavily on the rod: “You have to be careful not to remove the sparkle in their eyes.”
Occasionally, Amish fathers or mothers have been overzealous in their discipline; in the late 1990s an Amish woman even spent time in the Holmes County jail after being convicted of physically abusing her infant by shaking him. According to the director of Job and Family Services in Holmes County, the Amish have “the same types of pathologies as the English.” In his estimation, however, the frequency of child abuse and neglect in the county is far less than one would expect given the relatively low average per capita income. He attributes this to the large presence of Amish in the county.
In nearby Geauga County, the assistant director of the Department of Job and Family Services reports that the number of referrals for abuse in the Amish community is about seven to ten a year, far fewer than for the non-Amish. Nevertheless, she has recruited an “Amish liaison” to help mediate accusations of abuse that do arise. In both counties, these administrators feel that the Amish are very cooperative. “When we do have an Amish case, they are ideal to work with because ‘best practices’ calls for us to work with networks,” commented the director in Holmes County. “With the English, it’s almost always a broken family, but with the Amish we never need a foster home.” Extended family members always step in to help out.
In the socialization of Amish children, the realities of shared history, language, and overarching values come together to create a relatively high degree of “cultural compression.”39 That is, the boundaries of publicly acceptable behavior, thoughts, and emotions become ever narrower, starting at age two for Amish children. It is doubtful, however, that one can speak of an “Amish personality,” as if the Amish authority structure “stamped” every child in a cookie-cutter fashion.40 Amish recognize different parenting styles and personalities and the varying family dynamics that result from differences in occupation and affiliation. As Nolt has suggested, it is probably more accurate to say that Amish parents today “share a conversation.” They may disagree about what constitutes individualistic behavior or exactly how and how frequently corporal punishment should be administered, but they all feel strongly that these questions are worth arguing about.
Marriage: Gender Ideology and Practice
The idea that church-sanctioned unions between a man and a woman express the “natural” order of things is so taken for granted by the Amish that marriage is nearly universal. It also occurs early. Although in the general population there was a dramatic rise in the average age of marriage between 1960 and 2000 for both women (from 20.3 to 25.1) and men (from 22.9 to 26.8), in 2000 the median age of marriage for the Amish in the Holmes County Settlement was still just over 21 for women and 22 for men. By age 25, more than 80 percent of Amish men and women are married, and by age 30 only 4 percent of Amish men (compared to 30%
in the general population) and 8 percent of Amish women (compared to 26% in the general population) are unmarried.41 As in other cultures, marriage for the Amish stands as the primary context for the socialization of children and creates alliances between kin networks.
Weddings in Amish society are literally “high times” that bring together two young people and their extended families for a ceremony embedded in a church service, followed by a meal in the bride’s home.42 Once a couple decides to get married, the young man asks his bishop or deacon for a letter saying he is in “good standing.” If both the bride and groom say that they have been “free of fornication” and are otherwise in compliance with the Ordnung, they will “get published,” or have their intentions to marry announced, in church.43 Preparations for the wedding are extensive because three hundred to five hundred people may be invited. At one wedding we attended, the family had rented a “wedding trailer,” which was parked in the yard and contained multiple stoves and appliances to help with the food preparation. After a two-to-three-hour church service, punctuated by the short, solemn vows of the bride and the groom, the guests enjoy a feast that is followed by singing, the giving of practical gifts, and, in some affiliations, the much-anticipated pairing off of young people for dates. Increasingly, Amish honeymoons involve a short getaway for just the newlyweds, with less emphasis on the traditional practice of making the rounds of kinfolk to establish their identities as “young marrieds.”44
The institution of marriage provides an ideal window for examining the ways in which gender serves as a fundamental basis for the organization of Amish families and communities. As is well known, the familial, political, religious, and social structures that direct behaviors in Amish society are formally patriarchal. The “relations of ruling,” using Dorothy Smith’s term, are technically, and most often actually, in the hands of men.45 The implications of patriarchy among the Amish have been well documented; briefly, they include these restrictions: Amish women may not become ordained leaders in the church, although they do have a vote on most church matters. Only men are allowed to serve on the many special committees that address issues affecting the Amish at the settlement level or the state or national level. For example, members of the three-person education committee that oversees the Amish private schools in the Holmes County Settlement must be men, and the three-person advisory boards for the settlement’s more than two hundred private schools are strictly male, even though more than 90 percent of the teachers are women. In the nuclear family, the husband is widely recognized as the head of the household, and his wife is to be a supporter. Furthermore, most church Ordnung discourage women from working outside the home, but exceptions are sometimes made for single women and widows.
At least four dominant images have depicted the “true” place of Amish women in their community. These include: (a) romantic, (b) dominated and downtrodden, (c) separate but equal, and (d) closet feminist. They characterize Amish women as ranging from (a) “walking flowers in full bloom” to (b) women “at the beck and call of their husbands,” to (c) being “equal in worth” but different “in calling,” to (d) “benevolent feminists who are decisive about their personal worth, determined to realize their full potential.”46
The most common view held by outsiders is that the role differentiation pervading all aspects of Amish society is unfairly tilted in the man’s favor. Amish women are often depicted as being “stuck” in the house to raise large numbers of children, cook food, wash clothes, and generally serve their husbands and families. Popular images of the Amish woman also incorporate a belief that she is dominated by her husband and has little influence. Seen as “quiet, bashful, obsequious,”47 Amish women appear to be “surrounded by a culture that may seem oppressive to women.”48 As Louise Stoltzfus notes, “Men are called leaders, women are not.”49 Karen Johnson-Weiner mentions a colleague who “lamented the downtrodden state of Amish women, who … live at the beck and call of their husbands, work constantly and have children yearly as long as they are able.”50 Society at large tends to think of Amish women as oppressed by a patriarchal and somewhat primitive community.51 Thus, seen from the outside, the role and position of women within the Amish community has been very controversial.
Demand for the “kitchen on wheels” is so high during the wedding season that couples sometimes reserve wedding trailers up to a year in advance. Photographs courtesy of David McConnell.
Our in-depth interviews with thirty Amish women, however, yielded a surprisingly different picture: The women generally voiced deep satisfaction with their roles. All believed strongly that men and women are meant to have different roles to play in life, largely because of perceived basic differences between the sexes. “Well, face it, men and women aren’t the same,” commented one Old Order woman. “There are things that men are better at and things that women are better at. So I don’t really understand what supposedly is the advantage of getting the roles mixed up.” Another Old Order woman put it this way: “He should provide the family with income and women should take care of the house. I like housework a lot more; I don’t have to worry about making a living.”
What personal qualities would bring an Amish woman the most respect in her community or would cause others to view her as a role model? When we asked our respondents, they singled out being gentle, quiet, patient, and hardworking, but also being kind, respectful, and willing to reach out to others. One Old Order woman listed these qualities: “Quiet and not a gossip. Has her house in order. Gets her work done. Not a big spender. Saves what she can.” Another elaborated: “Being industrious and being keepers in the home and trying to reach out to others and being helpful in the community when there’s a crisis or there’s a death … anything to help.” Wandering away from these qualities brings disrespect: “If one of our women would go out and get a job, and she’d still have children at home, I don’t think we’d really respect her for that.” An Old Order woman added, “As a whole, in the Amish community, men and women, we don’t have too much tolerance for lazy people, very frankly. I know very few that are. But if somebody makes a remark, ‘Oh, she’d rather not do much,’ it’s not considered a badge, really.”
These women were also very comfortable with the idea that the “man is the head of the household.” They interpreted that statement to mean that men or husbands serve as “leaders” who guide the family spiritually and economically, not that they are the “bosses” in the home. “He’s not like a dictator, my husband isn’t,” reflected an Old Order woman. “He certainly should be in charge, and be here for us, and I feel he is.” Another woman reflected, “My husband would not do anything without my okay, and I wouldn’t do anything without his okay. But I still think he’s got the final say.” Some women explicitly based their acceptance of men as leaders in their homes on biblical or religious beliefs: “Naturally, it’s the biblical way… Everything works better if it’s in that order of Christ, husband, and wife.” “If I’m submissive to him, I’m a lot happier because I know that’s the Lord’s rule.” Others flatly stated that having the husband as the leader relieves them of a burden and creates a greater sense of security, freedom, and opportunity for them: “To me, it’s the way I like it … It’s a way I have of being protected.” Another said, “It means that my husband takes care of the major decisions. I don’t have to worry about the bills. I don’t have to worry about making a living. And that frees me up to do what I really like to do, that’s taking care of my house, washing my windows, and taking care of the kids.”
Our survey of New and Old Order Amish also uncovered high levels of agreement on the issue of women working outside the home. Regardless of affiliation, well over 90 percent of survey participants felt that it was more important for wives to help their husbands in their jobs than to have one themselves, and that children and the whole family suffered if the mother worked outside the home. Virtually all respondents felt that being a homemaker could be just as fulfilling as being employed and that working for wages
would not make a woman happier. Interviews with Amish women of different ages and from different orders yielded similar results. All of the Old and New Order women believed strongly that men and women were meant to have different roles because of fundamental differences between the sexes and that problems would arise if roles were switched or disturbed. Women were seen as basically “more compassionate” and more “tender-hearted”; they needed to “be in the house,” engaged in “very satisfying work with our children, and taking care of the house.” If men and women play the appropriate roles, “then things work out.” More than two-thirds said that both traditional gender roles were equally respected in their community.
When they compared themselves with English women, many of whom have their own careers, none of these Amish women felt that English women were more fulfilled than they were. How one interprets this response, of course, depends on the meaning of “fulfillment” for a group. When asked about the dreams and aspirations they had had as young girls, all said that their goals had been realized. Regardless of affiliation, most had wanted to get married and have children; some had desired to be, and had been, teachers, nurses, or waitresses for a while before getting married. Subjectively, at least, these women who had chosen the Amish lifestyle appeared to be fully satisfied with their lives. One Amish woman explained that such a sense of fulfillment should be expected: “It’s in the air! They see their mother as leading a happy and contented and fulfilled life and that’s really what any human being wants, so they never think twice about other options.”
An Amish Paradox Page 15
