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I would recommend seeing the film to decide for yourself. I think the people in the movie were authentic, but I don't necessarily believe this is representative of ALL of Ahmish culture.

"Rumspringa makes perfect sense. "

I have to disagree.

I actually used to really admire not just the Ahmish, but also some of the offshoots of these religions or world-views (whatever you want to call it). The parents in this film knew that their 16 and 17 year old boys were involved in pornography and narcotics and they walked away from it as though it was their own rite of passage - as though it were providence - and they, as parent's, could do nothing to combat it. I think that's cowardly and morally wrong.

When I was 16 I did some damn stupid stuff, and I needed to hear about it from my parents. I was lucky that my folks cared enough to cuff me and put me in my place.

My family is predominantly Roman Catholic, but we did have a branch that shot off 2 generations ago and became involved with the Society of Friends. As I was growing up I really admired their "quiet way", the calmness and the communal sense in which they lived. They were also pacifists - true pacifists, not this secular humanist nobler than thou kind of pacifist that we have on the left today.

Today, after 9-11, I no longer admire pacifism in any way, even as a part of a person's genuinely deep moral philosophy. This extends to protecting one's family, whether they be threatened by from the outside or not wishing to talk to your teenage son for driving the buggy while being 3 sheets to the wind.

"If they are exposed to the outside world but manage to resist the temptations, they will be better off"

Teenagers need to be protected from their own stupidity. They take chances anyway and that is natural and normal, but they need guidance. Even if it takes 5 or 10 years for it to sink in.

They take chances anyway and that is natural and normal, but they need guidance.

But they do get guidance. Until they reach the age of 16 they are very isolated, protected and spend most of their time with adults learning a work ethic instead of being raised by other children like many American kids. In our society, there are preteen gang bangers who can barely read and write killing each other in our cities.

But Amish kids are raised right. With their eight years of education, I'll bet most of them can pass the GED easily.

Some of them go bad and when they do it becomes a "man bites dog story" in the news or documentaries because it is so out of character for them.

But at some point when you are raising kids you have to cut the apron strings. With the Amish it is at age 16. Some of them fail but failure is the price of freedom.

I'm from a Catholic family too and I think the practice of "cuffing" kids has limited value. The best way to keep kids from going bad is simply by keeping them away from other bad people until they reach the age of reason. The Amish do that much better than anyone else.

If you were to do a similar documentary on Catholics instead of the Amish it wouldn't be about drunkenness or occasional drug peddling, it would be about the Mafia.

All children are different. I know of families where the children were all raised the same, and yet one or two of them broke away from the family at a very young age.

They learned the hard way about growing up... outside of the family. That isn't to say that there parents weren't around to help them... but having dropped out of school, gotten pregnant, married young... these young people made bad decisions at the time.

It was after they realized that life was hard that they returned completely back to the family fold. They were then able to re-wind the clock some, get a GED, go on to college with financial support from their parents and eventually get everything in line.

One pattern does not work for all people. And learning that Amish have children who leave the flock? How is that any different than any other American family where the child doesn't grow up to be perfection and never makes a mistake? Some mistakes are bigger than others. Life happens.