I think all religions are stupid and hypocritical but the Amish seem to take the prize. They shun modern technology but ride to Aldi in someone else’s car, pick groceries that were produced with technology, put them in carts, and on conveyor belts, pack them up in corrugated boxes, etc (all technology) but wander through the store in the weird “hey! Look at me!” Outfits. They don’t pay full taxes, don’t serve in the military and are able to get away with it because of their religion which they find all sorts of ways of circumventing. If their kids can run amok for a few years, they should have to do volunteer service or something to make up for not having to register for the draft.

Yes I think it is setting them up to fail (that's the typical self-ratifying nonsense you always get from religion), although I'm fairly sure the vast majority of Amish elders aren't self-aware enough to see it for what it is. They are just following a formulaic tradition that has been in place for many generations.

As with all confirmation bias, it's not like there isn't some truth to the notion that unfettered freedom to carouse is highly overrated and has downsides that aren't generally present in one's imagination before the actual experience. But by insuring that they will hit it like a brick wall with no idea how to respond, insures that it will reinforce the whole raison d'etre of the Amish community -- to protect itself and its members from an inherently wicked and harmful greater world, preserving an allegedly far better way of life.

I do not see anything in Rumpspringa that encourages youth to look at the outside world objectively, and especially not to examine the good in it ... only the caricatured and magnified evils. It's not like 100% or 51% or even 10% of non-Amish live lives of constant dissipation and hedonistic excess, lack any moral compass, and are continually either drunk or hung-over, after all. One can find satisfying meaning and purpose outside the Amish community, and can find despair within it.

In the UK and other parts of EU there travellers from basically two traveller traditions (There are more but it gets complicated) There are gypsies of Irish decent and Romany Gypsies. They do virtually the same thing. Kids are educated to 12 years, girls are bethroyed at 14 and marry as soon as they are legally permitted at 16. 5 or 6 babies by the time they are 20. Boys are allowed some 'wild oats' time but all must be virgins when they marry. The communities do not engage, are the focus of a lot of racism, because they are virtually all illiterate they do not contribute to society. Their mortality rate is much lower than the general population, they rarely attend doctors etc.They are virtually all EXTREMELY religious (RC) but follow a strange version of their faith that discourages education. There are other closed communities and in some ways they are interesting from anthropological point of view but they damaging to the members and the rest of society.

Just another stupid fucking religion and religious culture.
They set their children up to fail, just to keep them enslaved.

I've witnessed rumspringa up close. The comments are pretty close to true as the Amish are only required in PA to get an eighth grade education. The worst part is rhe family pressure to return to the fold when the time is up. Many families threaten and even do ostracize any one that does not return. I came across a 22 year old Amish man who was in the mental hospital trying to deal with family pressures and the excessive use of alcohol (and, no, alcohol is not against church rules, where I lived it was well known: see a buggy coming to a stop sign after 2am, don't expect it to always stop because the driver may be asleep drunk and the horse is headed home). Anyway, the young man told me that he was expected to come home, go to work with an Amish business, and get married. He also said, "It will take a hell of a women for me to want to give up my Kawasaki."

First, I'd like to thank you for your well thought
out and intelligent observations. Secondly, thank you for your care in using proper spelling and grammar.

I agree with your remarks concerning Rumspringa wholeheartedly. Furthermore, like the Hassidic Jews, the Mormons and many other isolated communities, the children in the Amish community are brain-washed for nearly two decades and are never taught to reason and think critically. As a result, these communities breed ignorance as quickly as they can breed children.

Some religions are worse than others. I saw a documentary about Rumspringa which was interesting, but I don't think that I can enough about religions to get informed enough to do an in depth comparison. None of them seem good to me.

We have amish around here, and I always thought the same thing. How can you shelter a kid for (15-16 years I believe?), push them out into a world they know nothing about, with no emotional, physical, financial support, and believe them running back is any type of honest decision? It would be similar to taking a kid from NYC at age 16, throwing them in the Louisiana bayou, and saying you can have city life with us or country life on your own - you're choice.

I am a retired public school teacher who lives in the country surrounded by Amish. I remember one of the arguments against the Amish tradition of only educating through the eighth grade. The argument (from the "English" ) is that they would then be unprepared for employment if they ever left the Amish community. I have never met an Amish person who does not know how to read, whereas I saw several students who "graduated" from the public high school in which I taught who could not read. In sum, "our" system is not ideal either so we should perhaps keep our mouths shut about the perceived failures of the Amish system.

Setting up people to fail is cruel.

Take a repressed person and tell them the world is your oyster of course they're gonna fuck up and over-indulge, because both are extremes. It is parental neglect not to teach children what to expect from the world and to teach them coping skills ?

PBS had something on "Dateline". Really good. And of course. Then there is the Hollywood comedy aspect of the going buts when you vet free from parental control. What surprised me is how many went back as well as how many turn the drugs and prostitution.