Rumspring: Analysis of the Hands-Off Parenting

In her article “The Myth of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed to Be. How It Was”, author Hope Edelman claims that perhaps the ideal, balanced, and harmonious marriage that many couples yearn for is merely an unachievable myth. Edelman’s anger and frustration drives her essay as she recounts her childhood, analyzes societal gender roles, and narrates her own relationship in order to explore the concept of shared responsibility in a marriage.

Would you have come out different if your parents used a different parenting style? If you are considered “cool” now could you have come out a nerd if your parents would have used a different parenting style? “Parenting style is one of the primary determinants of your child’s outcome whether he succeeds, achieves, meets the challenges, flounders, gives up, or runs from or fails in handling life.” (6) The purpose of this paper is to describe the outcomes, processes, labor, and techniques of parenting in a psychological point of view. Parenting styles are defined as the “manner in which parents express their beliefs on how to be a good or bad parent.” (4) Each parenting style has its weaknesses and

After witnessing the many adventures of the Walls’ family through the context of The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, I have noticed the parenting styles they use can be best described as Uninvolved using the four lens’s from the article “Parenting Styles: What they are and why they Matter’’. The four lens’s provided about parenting are: Permissive, Authoritative, Authoritarian, and Uninvolved. Permissive parents are friendly towards their kids and have a free range of limits for them, Authoritative parents have clear rules and guidelines that they like you to follow but don’t heckle you if you make a mistake. The other two types differ from the other two styles because Authoritarian parents are known as ‘’Punishers’’ with high demands, while Uninvolved parents are neglectful and not there

In “The Myth Of Co-Parenting: How It Was Supposed To Be. How It Was.,” Hope Edelman lays out the many obstacles she and her husband, John, had to overcome in their first years of marriage. She admits that from the beginning she assumed that all responsibilities would be split 50/50: if she contributed to the household income, he would contribute to helping out with childcare and housekeeping. But because John was in the midst of starting a new business and was working up to 92 hours per week, Edelman quickly realized how wrong her assumption was. As her own work hours started to dwindle down to about 18 per week, Edelman started to become extremely angry with the way her household as being run. She wanted John there to help her make decisions,

Lucy Walker’s documentary, Devil’s Playground, examine Amish teens dealing with rumspringa, in which when teens turn age 16, they are given the opportunity to explore the outside of the world and experience “English” way of life. Rumspringa can last couple of years, until they make decision to become baptize in their faith and lifelong commitment or reject to return to their Amish villages. If they decide to join the Amish faith they have to give up all their "American" way of life. During Rumspringa or “running around”, they have no supervision from parents. Many Amish teens tend to go wild, experience with cigarettes, alcohol, sex, illegal drugs, crazy parties, drive cars, and wear modern fashion, just like the other young American teens.

In nearly every family-oriented sitcom, one of the main troubles of the parents is, in fact, parenting. For example, in the hit 90’s TV show Full House, Danny Tanner is a single father of three, left to be a lone parent by the death of his wife. And yet he has two other men helping him raise his children, as being an only parent is incredibly difficult. Being a good parental figure is a challenge for every individual who attempts it.

In “ The Case for Free-Range Parenting,” an article in The New York Times, Clemens Wergin discusses should children go out without parents or older people supervision. Wergin said parents don’t need to be with their children when they go out, and he thinks it can help child easier to fit in a new community. However, that is illegal in U.S, and most American children spent their free time at home. Today children have no freedom in their childhood because most parents are taking their children with them everywhere they go, but it is even danger then let their children roam freely. Also, give more freedom to children they will easier to control their anger and fear than the kids that have no freedom. At the end, Wergin thinks child desire freedom because they will have more confidence and know how to face risks.

Modern America is a very individualistic culture that, that puts the priorities of the individual person before society as a whole. Amish, on the other hand, are very group oriented. They have their own congregation in which they sustain themselves. Their church helps with finical burdens, and provides assistance to those in need. The group’s need comes before the individual. There is also the conflict of education. America values education very highly, government regulated standards and mandatory participation. The amish do not value formal education as highly. They tend to rely on an elementary or middle school education, with the rest being learned through life experience (Amish, 2015). They learn by working hard in their jobs, and apprenticing the older generations. Family size and obligations also differ between the Amish and American values. Americans usually have relatively small families, with two or three children being the national average. Amish families usually have an upwards of eight children per household (Amish, 2015). This surplus of children provide a labor force for the farm or family business, and ensures that the number of Amish people continues to rise. The Amish population tends to double every twenty-three years (Amish, 2015). These core values help to separate them from the ugliness that lies in modern society, of which they strive to be

Of course, anyone can assume a sheltered teen who has not witnessed modern life and experienced “fun” will go wild. Analysts believe conservative parents teach their child about correct morals and values and yet don’t turn a blind eye. In my opinion, if this was true, the epidemic of Amish teens pushing too far during Rumspringa would not be a debatable topic of discussion. Many authors summarize Rumspringa as a simple rite of passage where Amish teens ride horse and buggies and socialize while an insignificant amount of them party. Again, a National Geographic journalist covers up the dire matter of this issue and only explains Rumspringa as, “Rumspringa is just a token venture: going to the local movie theater, or driving lessons,” Although National Geographic is a trusted source, the question still remains, how come an educated scholar completely left out half of the equation. Time and time again, men and women write about this controversial topic and leave out the questionable and well-known

The Documentary “The Devils Playground” follows the lives of a few Amish youths as they go on a journey called rumspringa and attempt and decide whether or not to devote their lives to the Amish church. This documentary clarifies that the Amish religion is in fact a branch of Catholicism in which the members do not get baptized until they are adults. The reasoning behind this difference is that the Amish live a very minimal and secluded lifestyle and they feel that before committing one’s life to the church and to Christ a person must be old enough to know what exactly that promise entails. The Amish community is one that values work; they take pride in living life without many of the advantages available to them, including electricity and cars. When an Amish youth turns sixteen they are able to go on what is called rumspringa, which is a time when they are able to abandon their core values and live like a normal American for the first time. This journey, in a way, exposes these kids to a sociological imagination, which allows them to, “Understand the larger historical meaning for the inner life and the external career of a variety of individuals.” (Mills 1959). This means that these Amish kids are able to see how their life’s play into the bigger picture of society and how a majority of non-Amish people live. The point of rumspringa is to push these kids right in the mix of the world with no previous exposure in order to scare them into thinking the real world is too

In “The "Y" Factor: Gender Bias, Child Custody And The Great Parenting Myth”, David T. Pissara argues that there seems to be gender bias when it comes to child custody and parenting. He establishes his point by acknowledging the intentions of the the custody courts from a legal perspective, the bias that occurs in courts and mentioning a man's virtue to protect and guide the development of a child through the use of personal opinion. However, I wish to argue that Pissara's arguments are somewhat biased and lack factual information to backup his claims. Pissara is in no doubt correct that family courts want what is best for the child.

In class today we watched a video that observed multiple Amish adolescents who were experiencing what is known in Amish culture as rumspringa. Rumspringa is a time in which Amish adolescents break off from their families and church beliefs to discover whether they will commit to the Amish church for adulthood or if they will break free of the church from their childhood. Rumspringa starts at age sixteen and normally ranges from a few months to several years until they make their decision. During rumpsringa, Amish adolescents in the video were seen throwing large parties, possibly moving out from families, and sometimes experimenting with alcohol and drugs. Not all adolescents, however, make such big changes. Some commit very quickly to stay

As a child of divorced parents growing up the in the nineties in New York City, I was hardly a minority. Approximately half of all kids my age had divorced parents and it generally wasn't considered strange or a big deal. From this pool of "divorced kids" whose parents had divorced for a variety of reasons, there was one thing they all had in common, as far as I knew, the majority of custody had been granted to the mothers in nearly all of the situations. This has generally been the case for a long time: "According to some estimates, only about 10 percent to 15 percent of divorced or single fathers have sole custody of their children. The remaining fathers have either joint custody or no custody of their children" (attorneys.com, 2012). Reasons abound for why women often overwhelmingly win over the majority of custody cases; the pinnacle reason for why this phenomenon has prevailed is because this is how it has always been as a result of traditional gender roles (attorneys.com, 2012). In the past, men worked and women stayed home, looking after the children; there also continues to be a partiality towards women when it comes to raising children: "From a biological perspective, we are more inclined to think of the mother-child relationship than the father-child relationship. Many people make the automatic assumption that women are more nurturing as parents than men" (attorneys.com, 2012). Many people still think that this is the way that things

Mythbusters presented a hypothesis that a person driving while on the phone is just as dangerous as one drunk. They ran several test to try and solve their belief of which would affect the driver the most. They had two subjects for their testings, a male and a female. They both were asked to preform a series of tasks while driving like normal. They were made to complete it three different times. Once like normal, and the others either on the phone or intoxicated. The constant of this experiment was that they were trying to complete tasks, but the dependent factor was that they had inhibitors two of the times.

In 1525 a group of religious dissenters rebelled against religious conformity near Zurich, Switzerland . After the Anabaptists emigrated to the US for religious freedom and land, they formed the Mennonites and Amish. There is much diversity among the 5 separate affiliations of Amish, but the concept of “ordnung” is a main feature of social organization among Amish society. Because their beliefs are highly group oriented, all important areas of life, including decision making is highly determined by the church. The Amish have many opportunities to learn about the non- Amish communities, such as rumspringa, yet, most of those who are born of the Amish way of life choose it. This commitment is the religious basis of the Amish culture which successfully