Amish Training

From my favorite writer on all things Amish, Donald Kraybill, and this article of his is about the development of obedience in Amish culture.

These links — between spanking, happiness and heaven — provide the framework for Amish child discipline, an approach that nurtures obedience instead of individuality. It’s a framework that disturbs modern sensitivities. Naomi disagrees. In fact, she believes that letting children go without discipline is “the cruelest kind of child abuse.” She poses the question rhetorically: “Now wouldn’t it be abusive above all abuses to withhold from our children the training they need for a life of discipline and self-control, of service to God?”

This countercultural view of child rearing lies at the heart of Amish society. We can praise the Amish for their forgiving response at Nickel Mines and we may yearn for a simpler and less frazzled Amish-style life. We may even seek to sew some patches of Amish faith onto our own spirituality and instill some old-fashioned virtues into the lives of our own children. Such fine intentions will fail, the Amish contend, without a generous dose of obedience training.

My favorite book on Amish culture is Kraybill’s The Riddle of Amish Culture (Center Books in Anabaptist Studies).