Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by melissabalick
Growing Up Amish: A Memoir by Ira Wagler
2.0
I'm as interested in Amish life as I am interested in the life of any/all repressive religious groups' lives, I suppose. This book is a pretty good reminder of why you are so lucky if you were brought up free from religion. Other than that, it's not a particularly interesting work.
The book starts off better and gets worse as it goes on. I get the impression that the author actually wanted to write about his childhood and lost interest in writing details as he got older. Perhaps he felt compelled to write past the time he was truly interested in writing about to create a cohesive narrative. That's fair. I can understand why that happens. But the beginning about Ira Wagler's young childhood is the best part. Particularly of interest to me was the cruelty of the children to each other. Apparently this religious group isn't very invested in trying to get children to practice truly ethical behavior.
And the cruelty continues. I don't think most readers would be very sensitive to this, but the Amish treat their horses terribly, overworking them and making them be more or less required to have by men even if the men don't actually know how to care for a horse. Some communities don't even allow rubber wheels, preferring instead to work horses to death by having them pull buggies on metal wheels. In the book, Mr. Wagler is surprised when his strong stallion dies suddenly, by his estimation. But he admitted earlier he's not much of horseman and anyone who read Black Beauty can tell you that inexperienced or uncaring "masters" can accidentally cause the death of a horse by failing to notice any number of details about these intelligent, sensitive creatures' lives. Also, one of the few "fun" activites accepted by the Amish for the youth is hunting. If terrorizing and killing others is what an individual or culture considers fun, that's not a good individual or culture. That is how you desensitize yourself from the suffering of others. That is how you breed and spread evil, for lack of a better word. Luckily, at least our narrator wasn't particularly interested in hunting, it was simply one of the few "diversions" open to him,
I'm happy for Mr. Wagler that he got out, but now he's a Mennonite. That's fine, it's better than Amish, I suppose. You know what would have been even better? If he'd become a truly actualized human, free from religion to explore all the big questions. And then he'd written a memoir about life growing up Amish from that, much more interesting, perspective.
The book starts off better and gets worse as it goes on. I get the impression that the author actually wanted to write about his childhood and lost interest in writing details as he got older. Perhaps he felt compelled to write past the time he was truly interested in writing about to create a cohesive narrative. That's fair. I can understand why that happens. But the beginning about Ira Wagler's young childhood is the best part. Particularly of interest to me was the cruelty of the children to each other. Apparently this religious group isn't very invested in trying to get children to practice truly ethical behavior.
And the cruelty continues. I don't think most readers would be very sensitive to this, but the Amish treat their horses terribly, overworking them and making them be more or less required to have by men even if the men don't actually know how to care for a horse. Some communities don't even allow rubber wheels, preferring instead to work horses to death by having them pull buggies on metal wheels. In the book, Mr. Wagler is surprised when his strong stallion dies suddenly, by his estimation. But he admitted earlier he's not much of horseman and anyone who read Black Beauty can tell you that inexperienced or uncaring "masters" can accidentally cause the death of a horse by failing to notice any number of details about these intelligent, sensitive creatures' lives. Also, one of the few "fun" activites accepted by the Amish for the youth is hunting. If terrorizing and killing others is what an individual or culture considers fun, that's not a good individual or culture. That is how you desensitize yourself from the suffering of others. That is how you breed and spread evil, for lack of a better word. Luckily, at least our narrator wasn't particularly interested in hunting, it was simply one of the few "diversions" open to him,
I'm happy for Mr. Wagler that he got out, but now he's a Mennonite. That's fine, it's better than Amish, I suppose. You know what would have been even better? If he'd become a truly actualized human, free from religion to explore all the big questions. And then he'd written a memoir about life growing up Amish from that, much more interesting, perspective.