You wake up with a jolt.
It seems like dusk is already setting in – what’s the time?
Oh fuuu-or crying out loud, it’s already 5:00 am.
You can’t believe you let yourself have such a big lie-in.
Most days you’re up and about by 4 in the morning, and sometimes even earlier.
There are children to be washed, animals to be fed, vegetables to be picked – you’ll
need to hustle extra hard today to make up for all that time you spent oversleeping.
Without further ado, you jump out of bed.
Luckily, there’s nothing much to distract you from the tasks at hand.
As an Amish person, you don’t use electricity – it distracts from what really matters
in life, like connection with your family and the world.
That means no scrolling through Insta or checking your emails first thing, or at any other point
during the day for that matter.
You can’t even turn on the lights!
In the name of sacrificing comfort and convenience for simplicity and self-denial, you reach
for a kerosene lamp instead.
It might sound annoying, but hey, you’d fare better than your sacrilegious compatriots
in the event of an electricity cut or any other event that suddenly took away the home
comforts most people rely on.
And that’s what the Amish value system is all about – not being better than others,
but ensuring you have the self-sufficiency needed to tide over any misfortune that hits
you.
Anyway, enough philosophical ramblings.
You’ve got things to do!
But first of all, it’s time to get dressed.
You don’t have a mirror in your room, but you’re not dressing to impress, at least
not in a conventional sense.
Instead, you dress to show your modesty and separation from the world – it’s the inner
world that really matters.
That means a dress with a full-length skirt and long sleeves, a cape, and an apron.
Since you’re married, this is topped off with a white prayer to cover your head, instead
of the black one you wore when you were single.
Likewise, your husband stopped shaving since the two of you got married – a long beard
is the sign of a man.
#taken
You look up at your husband wearing his dark suit, suspenders, and straw hat, and you can’t
help but smile.
You’ve got to say, he looks pretty handsome today, in a modest kind of way.
You pass on your compliments in Pennsylvania Dutch, a dialect of German.
It’s the language you use most often in the house, but not the only one you speak.
Your children are learning both English and German in school, just as you did before them.
Speaking of which, it’s time to wake the little rascals up!
This normally takes a while since you have eight children in total.
You don’t believe in any form of contraception and relish your family above all else.
Plus, you need them to help out around the home and the farm.
You let the younger ones sleep until later so you can get on with your morning chores
in peace, but you wake the older ones up so they can give you a hand with some chores.
Waking up so many children and getting them ready could be mission impossible, but luckily,
they’re well-behaved and don’t put up too much of a fight – unlike the nightmare
tales you’ve heard about the children outside of Amish communities.
In fact, your kids get on with most things themselves without your input.
Within a few minutes, you, your husband, and your three eldest kids are out of the house
to carry out your basic chores for the day.
First, you feed the livestock – your husband is fortunate enough to be a farm owner, so
looking after the animals you’re breeding is one of your main priorities.
Next, it’s off to milk the cows.
You take some of the milk back home with you to eat with breakfast, but your family can’t
use it all – instead, part of it is sold on.
It’s one of many businesses the Amish run to provide for themselves.
You therefore take a stop off at the milk dumping station on the way home, where milk
is stored and collected.
When you’re back, it’s time to wake up your five younger kids.
You need to make sure they’ll all up, washed, and dressed ready for breakfast.
Even though there’s no electricity, it doesn’t stop you from cooking delicious meals.
Gas operates your stove and refrigerator – not all Amish people have the luxury of storing
milk and meats, but you’re glad you do.
Breakfast today is eggs, fried potatoes, and the fresh milk you just collected.
Your diet might not be the most varied – there’s a lot of potatoes and dairy and never any
avocado on toast – but at least it’s fresh.
In place of coffee, you drink coffee soup: it’s basically just coffee, but with bread
and crackers too.
After some silent prayers, you all eat together as a family with no distractions.
You’ve already done so much, but it’s only 7:30 am – the day has barely begun.
As soon as you’ve eaten breakfast, it’s time to take the kids off to school.
Although some Amish communities take their children to a regular public school, your
community has its own parochial school for the children.
It only provides education up to eighth grade, because you believe education should be a
means to an end rather than an end in itself.
Although you believe education is important, you think its purpose is learning how to be
self-sufficient and lead an Amish lifestyle successfully.
Therefore, the concentration of schooling is on reading, writing, and math, alongside
lessons about Amish history and values.
Meanwhile, your husband heads off to work.
You’re proud to say he’s a farmer, a career that many other men in the community would
love to have.
Farming is one of the oldest and most respected Amish occupations, so most Amish men would
like to pursue it, but recently there haven’t been enough farms to go around due to increased
population and scarcity of land.
When everyone has eight children and all of those eight children also have eight children…
yeah, you get the idea.
As a result, many men now work as furniture makers, builders, or other professions instead.
I mean, it’s cool, but it’s not quite farming.
Your eldest son, who is fifteen years old, now goes to work with him, as he recently
finished eighth grade.
You’re glad he’ll also have the opportunity to learn the farming trade and continue the
legacy of the family whilst bonding with his father.
Plus, it’s about time he made himself useful.
You give the two of them their pre-prepared packed lunch for the day and wave them off
as they head out in a buggy.
As Amish people, you can’t drive cars – it’s an agreement made amongst the community due
to concerns it would promote inequality, envy, and obvious status differences.
Even though farming is one of the most revered professions and many people would like to
pursue it, being a farmer doesn’t actually mean you have higher social status – everyone
is equally respected within the community.
As a result, everyone drives around in horse-pulled buggies of exactly the same color.
Where you live, everyone rides black buggies, but in other areas, they may use white or
yellow-topped buggies.
You might have the hubby and kids out the way now, but that doesn’t mean it’s time
to mope around and read gossip magazines all day.
In fact, you sometimes suspect that your day is even more hectic than your husband’s.
So, you pull up your sleeves as you prepare for a day filled with laundry, cleaning, preparing
food, and picking vegetables.
At the moment these tasks are yours and yours alone, but in a few months, your eldest daughter
will also finish school and be able to help you out.
To be honest, you’re counting down the days.
It’s tough caring for a family of eight, but when the kids start to grow up and help
you out, it all becomes worth it!
Since you lead a simple life, your home is very functional and not at all flashy.
There aren’t even any pictures, ornaments, or artwork – you don’t believe in decoration.
There’s a desk and some chairs in the living room, some simple white curtains, and that’s
about it.
It might not be the most aesthetically pleasing home in the world, but it sure as hell makes
the cleaning easier.
No need to move fussy items around whilst dusting, worry about polished wood kitchen
surfaces, or clean mirrors, thank you very much.
And it leaves time for the more important things in life.
Next, you start your gardening for the day.
You’re growing flowers and staple vegetables like potatoes, carrots, cabbage, and more
in your garden, whilst others in the community grow different crops, including corn, hay,
wheat, tobacco, soybeans, barley, and other vegetables.
You exchange food amongst each other often, and the surplus is sold on.
So, you pick the ripe vegetables and place them in the kitchen.
But there’s still plenty of tasks to do!
It’s not just your house you need to take care of, but also your elderly parents, who
live in a small house nearby.
They’re getting older and requiring more care from you – at some point in the future,
they might move in with you, but at the moment they’re managing to maintain their independence
as long as you visit them each day.
You don’t believe in nursing homes, so it’s your responsibility to look after your aging
family.
After all, the Amish lifestyle is all about being 100% self-sufficient.
That means you can’t claim social security benefits or welfare of any kind, no matter
your age or state of your health.
Instead, you work together as a community – all elders and dependents are cared for.
Basically, there’s no time to slack!
When you get back, you get a spare half hour to yourself to do some crafts.
At the moment you’re working on weaving a basket – don’t say you don’t spoil
yourself.
It’s a long process, but you’re almost halfway there, and it will come in handy for
picking vegetables from the garden.
What a treat!
Before long, it’s time to start preparing the evening meal.
Cooking for two working men, yourself, and seven more children is no easy task!
You get started just before 4 so everything will be ready on the table for when your husband
and son come back.
You decide on something relatively simple for tonight: liver pudding, more potatoes,
vegetables from the garden, and bread.
Liver pudding is pork and beef cooked and scraped off the bones ground along with organs
like liver – an Amish staple!
At 5, your husband comes home, and it’s time to eat.
You say your prayers before eating and tuck right in.
There’s nothing quite like ground organs…
After dinner, the children get on with their homework and have some time to play.
Their toys don’t look drastically different from those of non-Amish children at first
glance, but there are some important distinctions.
Dolls have no faces since Amish people believe it’s against the bible to have images, likenesses,
or idols.
The faceless dolls might look creepy to some, but you get used to them.
You can finally relax for a while after washing the dishes.
It might only be 6 pm, but the day is already closing to an end.
As the sun goes down, you only have kerosene lamps to provide light, so it starts to feel
late pretty early on.
In the final hours of the day, you and your family enjoy some quality time together: a
key part of Amish life.
Since there’s no electricity, the recreational activities on offer are very simple, like
board games, reading, and, erm, board games.
You can’t even listen to or create music as it’s considered too worldly and emotional.
So, you settle for scrabble.
You might never have made it past eighth grade, but neither has anyone else in your family,
so who cares?
Like all good parents, you let your children beat you.
Some things never change.
And, before it’s even 8 pm, it’s time for everyone to settle down for the night.
The final task of the day is bathing the children.
There’s no indoor plumbing or bathroom though, so you head to the washroom instead.
Getting so many children washed and ready for bed is no easy task, but finally, you
finish and head to your own bedroom.
You and your partner settle down in bed together.
Like the rest of your house, your bedroom is small and simple.
Plain curtains, a wardrobe, and a bed – that’s about it.
You’re normally asleep by 9.
You’re going to be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, and since there’s no electricity,
there isn’t much to do at nights, anyway.
So, you settle down into your partner’s strong, laborer’s arms and dream dreams
of cornfields and strawberry picking…
The Amish lifestyle sounds pretty tough, but then again, the Amish have it easy compared
to Neanderthals, who don’t even have wheels or refrigerators – why not check out our
video about what they get up to all day?
Or, if you don’t think you’re quite cut out for all that and would prefer a life of
luxury and royalty, check out our video about what a day in the life of Queen Elizabeth
is like instead.