Amish Life

 

People ask me all the time "how was it to grow up Amish?" I say for the most part it was great, the part not so great was the legalism.

 I was number 13 of 14 children, that was great because I always had someone to play with, (or fight) :P My sister Dena was almost 2 years older than I, and truly was my best friend, we often dressed alike, and people thought we were twins. Later we married brothers. That will be a whole 'nother post. ;) I have a brother that is nearly 3 years younger than me who was and is still a wonderful friend.

 Most of my older siblings I don't really remember a lot of since some of them were married before I turned 2, and had moved out of the house. I mostly remember them making comments of how spoiled we younger ones are. I wouldn't know anything about that. ;)

My life was good and uncomplicated until I turned 17 and started dating. Age 16 or 17 is when most Amish kids get to join the youth in their Sunday evening singings. It also means you are old enough to have dates, and figure out who you are gonna marry. We were from the Swartzentruber Amish which means we practiced bundling. You should probably just Google bundling, and Swartzentruber to save me the embarrassment of explaining. When I was 17 I started dating Isaac, (he's now my husband, and father of our 5 children) he was from Ohio so it was long distance and we wrote letters to each other, he would travel by grey hound to see me every 6 weeks or so, after a year of that, he moved to Kentucky to be closer to me. This is when I started questioning the Amish ways, It bothered me a whole lot that my parents really had no way of getting to know Isaac, since dates happened in secret at night while the parents slept. or were supposed to be sleeping, but what parent really sleeps when their teen daughter is cuddling in bed with a stranger? (oh, you didn't Google bundling yet?) Most of our dates were in the kitchen which was southern style, and supposed to be better than what they do up north. :P still at night with no one around.

 Having the boyfriend over for supper or involved in any kind of family things was a big no no. My Dad often talked about how he wished the rules were different, but for him there seemed no way out. He was a preacher, and was already looked down upon just for the things he let his children do. He did let Isaac eat supper with us on several occasions, which didn't turn out so well because the neighbor came over and saw Isaac at our house, and Dad had to make a confession in church. I began to think of my future children and how I would feel seeing my sons and daughters getting married to someone they only conversed with at night, but I still never thought I would leave the Amish, afterall I didn't want to purposefully go to hell when I die.

To be continued......