It kinda depends on the individual communities. My dad’s side of the family is from nw ohio where there are quite a few Amish communities. Where each community seems to function almost like little independent nations with their own rules, cultures, and hierarchical structures.
The small community that is closest to my family’s farm is really nice. Our family has a long history with them often trading skills, resources, and labour. Whenever they need someone to operate a piece of modern equipment or to provide modern tools to a job site they would call my family. We would call them whenever we needed extra hands to build a new barn, or to re shingle a roof.
In my experience the larger and more strict the community was the more fucked up they were. The community next to us wasn’t very strict, lots of loop holes to make life easier. Most of them banned anything modern in the household, but would have a barn with electricity for refrigerators and other modern amenities.
The real strict communities were always filled with miserable people, it always felt kinda what I imagine visiting a 19th century cult would be like. The elders run everything with an iron fist, and children and women were basically treated worse than working animals. Forced to work at weird little businesses to sell furniture, blankets, and baked goods to tourist.
It kinda depends on the individual communities. My dad’s side of the family is from nw ohio where there are quite a few Amish communities. Where each community seems to function almost like little independent nations with their own rules, cultures, and hierarchical structures.
The small community that is closest to my family’s farm is really nice. Our family has a long history with them often trading skills, resources, and labour. Whenever they need someone to operate a piece of modern equipment or to provide modern tools to a job site they would call my family. We would call them whenever we needed extra hands to build a new barn, or to re shingle a roof.
In my experience the larger and more strict the community was the more fucked up they were. The community next to us wasn’t very strict, lots of loop holes to make life easier. Most of them banned anything modern in the household, but would have a barn with electricity for refrigerators and other modern amenities.
The real strict communities were always filled with miserable people, it always felt kinda what I imagine visiting a 19th century cult would be like. The elders run everything with an iron fist, and children and women were basically treated worse than working animals. Forced to work at weird little businesses to sell furniture, blankets, and baked goods to tourist.