Amish adolescents may engage in rebellious behavior, resisting or defying parental norms. In many cultures, enforcement may be relaxed, and misbehavior tolerated or overlooked to a degree. A view of rumspringa has emerged in popular culture that this divergence from custom is an accepted part of adolescence or a rite of passage for Amish youth.
Among the Amish, however, rumspringa simply refers to adolescence. During that time a certain amount of misbehavior is unsurprising and is not severely condemned (for instance, by Meidung or shunning). Adults who have made a permanent and public commitment to the faith would be held to the higher standards of behavior defined in part by the Schleitheim and Dordrecht confessions.[5]:75 In a narrow sense the young are not bound by the Ordnung because they have not taken adult membership in the church. Amish adolescents do remain, however, under the strict authority of parents who are bound to Ordnung, and there is no period when adolescents are formally released from these rules.
Of course, what our leaders are doing is the exact opposite of this...in almost every respect. At the first sign of normal teenage "rebellion" (a.k.a. just being a kid), Mormon parents/leaders go full-on commandment-mode. Petite crimes like masturbation are seen as earth-shaking violations of God's chastity laws. Then, before they get a chance to stand on their own two feet (college, military, etc), we ship them off for a two-year indoctrination boot camp. I wish that we could employ this method of letting the youth blow off a little steam, but it will be forever seen as something devilish, and to be avoided.
"Man will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest." - Denis Diderot
Riding on a speeding train; trapped inside a revolving door; Lost in the riddle of a quatrain; Stuck in an elevator between floors. One focal point in a random world can change your direction: One step where events converge may alter your perception.
