Coronavirus, Covid 19 Discussion and How It Has Affected Your Daily Life Chat Thread

[troyer]

I wonder where the average Amish person stands politically. Personally I have no stance. I either want to vote for you or I don't. I research my candidates because I feel that's what a responsible voter does

By far most of them are in favor of a republic versus a democracy. If you are wondering who they voted for in the last election, you can be sure that the vast majority voted for Trump if they voted at all. Typically we were discouraged to physically get into politics because it was our responsibility to pray for those in government and let God choose who he wants in the positions of power to govern us.
Make no mistake of believing that politics are not important to the Amish, because they to, are very concerned who the next governor, representative, senator or president is.
Mainly because of the impact on their lifestyle. If you could mingle with them and understand the language it would become perfectly clear who they support during a presidential election. Because of the covid restrictions that we experienced, a substantial % of Amish showed up at the election booths this time around. In some districts/areas they were encouraged to get out and vote.

 

[tripletfeb]

By far most of them are in favor of a republic versus a democracy. If you are wondering who they voted for in the last election, you can be sure that the vast majority voted for Trump if they voted at all. Typically we were discouraged to physically get into politics because it was our responsibility to pray for those in government and let God choose who he wants in the positions of power to govern us.
Make no mistake of believing that politics are not important to the Amish, because they to, are very concerned who the next governor, representative, senator or president is.
Mainly because of the impact on their lifestyle. If you could mingle with them and understand the language it would become perfectly clear who they support during a presidential election. Because of the covid restrictions that we experienced, a substantial % of Amish showed up at the election booths this time around. In some districts/areas they were encouraged to get out and vote.

My family that lives in PA are good friends with many Amish, they have helped each other run the farms and build the family barn that burned down by lightening. My family farm is a large dairy farm in Clarion County and have relied on the Amish for years, and the Amish on them. All the Amish we know voted for Trump

 

[troyer]

We had a huge influx of Amish here a few years ago.
They left several different clans to create a new one that is more lenient.
There was a lot of education in the area to welcome them and learn as many had no real clue about the group(s).
The biggest thing I learned is that each group makes their own rules,
many rules that are rather vague and often have wavy lines.
They are not allowed to own cars, but freely ask other to drive them(Yoder Toters).
They are not allowed to have phones, but use other peoples and have booths just off their property to bend that rule.

What you learned about them in your area is accurate. Here where I live they are allowed to have them in their outbuildings, but not in their houses. It's often a progression of getting used to having phones. 25 years ago they had a non Amish neighbor set up a phone in his polebarn to use at their convenience and then they paid him to allow them to use his phone. 10 years ago they agreed to have a community phone on the outskirts/somewhere close to the road for easy access on one of their Amish properties and then all the families within a mile or so could come and use it. That lasted for about 2 years. They now have phones at each of their personal properties, but it has to be in an outbuilding, not in their houses. Businesses are allowed to have phones right in the offices because it is considered an outbuilding and not a place of perpetual family residence.

 

[citymeetscountry]

My wife is a midwife assistant.
The Amish do go to the ER when necessary. In our area "necessary" is often left to the decision of the midwife. Some Amish preferred having a birth in the hospital, covid has dramatically changed that though and numerous birthing centers have sprung up to accomodate that.
The cord is cut at the time of the birth and clamped. The Amish men usually want to cut the cord and take care of the placenta, which usually means that it gets buried. There are some that will request that it be encapsulated and brought back to them. I don't know the details of the reason for that, maybe there's someone on here that can explain. There might be some ultra conservative groups that have no midwife input, that out of ignorance they just let the cord fall off, but it is certainly becoming less and less as there has been significant effort on all the Amish groups to teach safe birthing practice.

Encapsulation and then ingestion of it by the mother is thought to help reduce risk of things like PPD and also to help the recovery process among other things (milk production?). I don’t remember all of the benefits that it is said to have. There are doula that will encapsulate for patients as well. I personally haven’t don’t much research on it nor have I had mine encapsulated, but I know of friends that have. (Not Amish btw)

 

[BigBlueHen53]

What is the reasoning for not having phones, automobiles and such?

 

[Molpet]

What you learned about them in your area is accurate. Here where I live they are allowed to have them in their outbuildings, but not in their houses. It's often a progression of getting used to having phones. 25 years ago they had a non Amish neighbor set up a phone in his polebarn to use at their convenience and then they paid him to allow them to use his phone. 10 years ago they agreed to have a community phone on the outskirts/somewhere close to the road for easy access on one of their Amish properties and then all the families within a mile or so could come and use it. That lasted for about 2 years. They now have phones at each of their personal properties, but it has to be in an outbuilding, not in their houses. Businesses are allowed to have phones right in the offices because it is considered an outbuilding and not a place of perpetual family residence.

Do Amish have birth certificate and SS# ?
If not what does one do when they leave?

 

[troyer]

What is the reasoning for not having phones, automobiles and such?

They are separating themselves from the world, the world being anything that isn't Amish in practice. It is a continuously changing complexity of reasoning. As my father-in-law used to say, anything that is highly esteemed among men we choose to avoid, in avoiding we protect ourselves of being proud of what we have or are. In their reasoning automobiles would make it easy for you to go to places that would be destructive to moral human life, such as a bar, strip clubs, beaches etc..... places that they consider immoral and indecent to the overall mental health of the individual.

Avoiding phones is similar in nature. The reasons given not to have a phone in the house is that it could be a distraction having it so close at hand and it would tend to take away from family time. In my experience with them having phones in their little shacks outside it actually gives their young people more opportunity to do or have conversation with their friends on the sly because the shack door is shut and they can't see or hear them inside.

There are major complexities to all the reasoning behind a lot of the reasons given, because they often contradict themselves in practice. Some of them know that, but don't really know how to change it, or, it's just the way it is and it's been this way for all of our lives. We're used to not making sense to others. It's a very pick and choose lifestyle.

Some of the attitude is, that we don't have to make sense to the outsiders, we live how we want to live and they need to be okay with that.

 

[troyer]

Do Amish have birth certificate and SS# ?
If not what does one do when they leave?

All the Amish that I know of have birth certificates.
I didn't have a SS# until I started working off the farm and the employers required it. My wife didn't have a SS# until after we were married and she needed it for tax purposes. I don't actually know how they avoided it before then, because she taught for several years at an Amish school before we were married.

 

[troyer]

Do Amish have birth certificate and SS# ?
If not what does one do when they leave?

That happens and they have to live off of charity until they can get a SS# number in order to get a job. Normally the other ex-Amish people are quickly on hand to help them out in whatever way we can. We ex-Amish tend to stick together pretty close, especially those of us that were severely shunned because we understand each other.

 

[aart]

They are separating themselves from the world, the world being anything that isn't Amish in practice. It is a continuously changing complexity of reasoning. As my father-in-law used to say, anything that is highly esteemed among men we choose to avoid, in avoiding we protect ourselves of being proud of what we have or are.

But I think they are pretty proud of that avoidance.