Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish

#92
Title: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be AmishAuthor: Tom Shachtman
Publisher: North Point Press
Year: 2006
Genre: Anthropology, Religion
286 pages

The Amish are an Anabaptist sect, so members must make a decision to join rather than be baptized at birth. "Rumspringa" refers to a period in Amish adolescence when the teen must decide whether to join the church. This decision may include exploration of the "English" comunity (i.e., everyone else), including driving, substances, and sex. Contrary to the book's assertion that this is a coming of age rite, it seems more accurate to understand it as a developmental period--it is protracted, it is not engaged in by all Amish teens (and perhaps not even by most), and many families seem to protest it.

The book is oddly U.S. majority culture-centric. The author tries to bring developmental theory into the mix, but uses theories that for the most part are out of date, not empirically validated, or see adherence to U. S. majority values as the only successful outcome. He implies that Amish youth are psychologically underdeveloped, ignoring the reality that most of the world's youth live in collectively-oriented cultures and have even less than the Amish youths' 8th grade education. The book is best when it sticks to anthropology; when it tends toward pop psychological interpretation, it is less compelling.

I kept wondering what it's like to be a gay Amish youth who holds traditional Amish values. That's a book I'd read.