Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [28]
And so, it was with that state of mind that I officially entered my Rumspringa years.
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Rumspringa. That mispronounced word popularized by the 2002 documentary film Devil’s Playground, which, to be fair, was a pretty accurate depiction in many ways. The term Rumspringa simply means “running around.”
All Amish youth run around. That’s what they do after turning sixteen, when they are considered adults. Run with the youth and attend singings and social gatherings.
But if someone asked me what percentage of Amish youth “run wild” and touch and taste the unclean things of the outside world, either while they are at home or after leaving, my guess would be 20 to 25 percent. But that’s just a guess. It might be close; it might not. Rumspringa varies greatly from community to community. Some smaller communities have almost no wild youth. In larger communities, wild youth are much more common.
Despite the fact that the producers of the documentary had unprecedented access to northern Indiana’s wild Amish youth, Devil’s Playground left viewers with a huge misconception: the belief that the Amish actually allow their youth a time to explore, to run wild, to live a mainstream lifestyle. To decide whether or not they really want to remain Amish.
I’m not saying that never happens. It probably does, in some rare individual families. But church policy never approves it. It never has been that way and never will be. In fact, the Amish church does everything in its power to maintain its grip on the youth, including applying some of the most guilt-based pressure tactics in existence anywhere in the world. After all, there’s no sense encouraging young people to taste the outside world, because there’s a good chance they might not return—regardless of how good their intentions might have been when they left.
The smaller communities keep a tight grip on their youth. Or try to. That’s why they’re smaller communities, because the people there usually fled the larger settlements to get away from the wild-youth practices.
In Aylmer, if you looked sideways the wrong way, the leaders would whack you hard. Shave your beard? The deacon would be knocking on your door. Smoking, drinking, partying, or carousing? Absolutely unheard of in all its history.
Bloomfield used to have a similar iron grip on things, until six young men shattered the old molds and forged their own way.
And things have never been quite the same since.
* * *
We didn’t consider ourselves “wild.” In fact, we scorned anyone who consciously tried to be. And we didn’t necessarily think we were cool. But we were, at least in our own restricted little world.
We simply did the ordinary, acceptable things that all Amish kids do.
Avid hunters, we tramped through cornfields and pastures in pursuit of pheasant and quail. And in season, we hunted deer from before dawn until dusk. Our successes were rare but greatly savored. The stories of our great feats were told and retold, and grew more fantastic with each telling.
At night, full of the vigor and energy of youth, we crashed through fields and the thick underbrush on wooded lots, following the baying of our coonhounds. Waiting for the excited chop of the hounds after a coon was treed. Rushing up with our flashlights and rifles, the crack of the .22, and the plop of the body as the coon fell from the tree to be attacked by the ravenous hounds. Somehow it was fun. For us, those were good, clean activities, and we enjoyed them to the fullest.
But acceptable activities like hunting and staying out late, while fun, simply weren’t enough, maybe precisely because they were acceptable. And so the battle lines were drawn: the six of us against the world. Or at least against our world.
We were restless, driven by the pride and passions of youth, and unsure of what we really wanted, and we set out on a path of our own choosing. We weren’t particularly rough or rowdy, but we did like to party a bit