Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
21. The Fantasy and Fallout of Amish-themed Romance Novels
Ever wonder what it would be like to step into the world represented by Amish-themed romance novels? Well, just as the cottages in a Thomas Kincade painting don't actually exist (has anyone ever seen glowing windows in the middle of the day?), neither do the communities of Beverly Lewis' imagination. These books reflect as much about Amish culture as the Little House on the Prairie TV show tells us about pioneer life. But is it all just harmless fluff and fun? Does it really matter since fiction is fiction, after all? Naomi and Rebecca join a few friends to discuss the impact of these books on the lives of actual Amish women and the material harm it does to romanticize a culture as they do. We are publishing the first thirty minutes of our conversation here.
Listen to our complete discussion:
Coffee with JC, Ruth, Rebecca & Naomi (Misfit Amish Podcast)
Coffee with JC, Ruth, Rebecca, and Naomi (YouTube Live)
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So, whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. Hello everyone, welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi, and today I'm here to bring you an excerpt from a podcast panel that Rebecca and I participated in recently on the Misfit Amish YouTube channel and podcast. We were there with a few other women who've also lived deep in plain communities to talk about Amish-themed romance novels and the effects they have on the lives of actual Amish women. Now, as you might expect, we had some things to say. Our conversation was very raw. Some tough questions and strong feelings may have been expressed. Ultimately, though, it was very healing for all of us, I think, to compare notes with others who are on different points of similar journeys. After you listen to the first part of the conversation coming up in this episode, you'll definitely want to hear the rest of the conversation on the Misfit Amish podcast feed. Upload links in the show notes so you won't even have to search for it in your podcast app.
Speaker 1:One of the distinguishing features of the Misfit Amish podcast is that it is recorded live and not edited. This is a very conscious choice on the part of Mary Byler, the host, who is serious about providing an unfiltered platform for the guest on her show. She doesn't want anyone to worry that she edited out details or took control of someone else's story, and I can really appreciate that editorial decision. However, mary did give me permission to adjust the audio levels in this excerpt to optimize the listening experience.
Speaker 1:Now I'm also going to put in a plug here for the documentary Sins of the Amish. It describes some of Mary's traumatic experiences as a young girl, her incredible courage to seek justice and what that search for justice cost her. In the documentary there's an unforgettable, deeply unsettling courtroom scene that showcases the shameful priorities of too many plain communities. It is a must watch for anyone who cares about the safety of women and children, but that's a conversation for another day. Right now we are going to turn our attention to the fantasy world of Beverly Lewis and her minions. Enjoy and thanks for listening.
Speaker 3:Good morning everybody. Welcome to another episode of Coffee with Friends. Before we begin, I just want to give a little disclaimer. This livestream may discuss trauma of all sorts, to include all types of abuse. Viewers and listeners may find it unsettling and triggering.
Speaker 3:The guests on our livestreams reflect a diverse set of values, morals and ethics that may not reflect the morals, values and ethics of the misfit homage. But if this livestream causes you distress, please seek support from your twist of folks and qualified mental health professionals. As needed, you may also cease listening until you're able to listen again. And before we begin today, today we're going to talk about homage romance novels, so you all might want to grab onto your hats and bonnets and your kappa, hold onto your buggy seat. You know you really are going to need to have a solid grip on reality to be able to listen in here with open hearts and minds from some people that were raised in homage and Anabaptist churches. And, with that being said, I'd like to welcome our guests today. If you all would like, starting with Rebecca, go around and introduce yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi. So first of all, thank you so much, Mary, for making this happen. I was telling my husband it's always fun to have you on my message board because I never know when we're going to break out into Amish song or Lope Leet or you know all the things, so I enjoy having you there. So I was, my mom was raised Amish and was Amish pretty much until she married my dad and from there we lived in five different communities and they were all variations. Someone had recently said they feel like they're an Amish Mennonite mutt and I'm like, yeah, that describes it, and currently I am a senior in college. I'm this close to graduating, so I'm kind of excited about that and I'm excited to be here today.
Speaker 3:Thank you. Thank you for that, rebecca. What about you? No way me. Did I say it right? Naomi, naomi, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, that's fine. That's fine. I've got a long, long list of variations in my name. So I'm Naomi and I. Well, my mother was also raised Amish and then she left as an adult. My dad was raised B G Amish, mennonite, and that's what I was raised asa, pk, no less, and that was in central Pennsylvania. But then as a young adult, I left and I eventually found my way to college and then never left. Well, I'm a professor now. So I'm so grateful to you, mary, for organizing this panel and organizing this conversation. I've had so many thoughts about this topic since I left back in 97. So it's been a while now, and I might also mention that Rebecca and I, about a year ago or almost a year ago, started a podcast, uncovered Life Beyond, and it's for first generation non-traditional college students who are leaving high demand religion, so very, very niche group, but we're having a lot of fun with that.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I'm not even going to say your name. I feel like I'm going to butcher it every time. I'm so sorry. What about you, Ruth?
Speaker 4:So, my dad grew up, while he was born into a sleeping preacher, mennonite which is its own time and I can go into that later if you need to. And then his family joined the old order Amish Mennonite no, sorry, the old order Amish where he met my mom. She was the Bishop's daughter and then they got married, had a building in the bus and then when I was 16, I'm not exactly sure on all like the different ages we left the Amish. We started attending like a pilgrim Mennonite church for about a year. Never became members, so that really awkward like we attend there but we're not part of them. And then he joined the charity church, so kind of all over the place, moved to all the different states and then I left almost exactly three years ago. So you know I'm still trying to find my way in a world that I was conditioned to specifically fail in is and thrive. But yeah, that's, that's the short run down in my story.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you, ruth. I'm really glad you're, you're all here today. What about you, jaycee?
Speaker 5:I'm Jaycee Military brat, was raised independent fundamental Baptist, Got dragged through a lot, ended up in the Eastern Pennsylvania Mennonite conference. We left that and we left family behind there who ended up floating through charity and about every other offshoot possible While continuing being dragged through things until I finally said sorry, the train is stopping. At this point I'm a mom of many copy editor and can join my life as a clerk.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I'm really excited to have this conversation because, as many of you know, like I think especially like what Ruth is experiencing now when we first escape, like we all had some experiences with people whose whose eyes light up because they read all of the romance novels. Did you do? You have any of you had experience?
Speaker 1:I just recently at a holiday party at work no, no, it was somewhere else I mentioned my background and someone said oh, you're so lucky, yeah.
Speaker 4:I had a guy I had just started a new job and within the first week somehow found out I was on the eye. It was something that specifically wasn't telling people, and so this middle-aged dude- clearly married he's wearing a ring and everything comes up to my desk.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, I just heard your homage and he was like I was like I'm not anymore and he was like can we pretend? Can we pretend that, like you're on this and I'm not, and we need in Walmart and beautiful moment, where I need and like love at first sight, and I was like no, and you're like, can we get married? And I was like no, and what the heck is going on? Because this is, this is work.
Speaker 1:How do you humanizing?
Speaker 3:Not even just that, but this is like a perfect example of the fetishization of all this women. All this women are fetishized by dominant culture, society, and when we escape and we exit the culture and we become non-practicing, this is what happens everywhere we go. Oh yeah, you're an object. Were you filled with my fantasy. Yeah.
Speaker 4:You was fired, by the way.
Speaker 3:I mean, thank goodness for small miracles, yeah. Yeah, I think that part of what happens with this is that when we experience this inside of our own culture is far too often we have taught things like the booklet from to a girl of 11, which tells us, as you know, 11 year old girls like don't climb up ladders in front of your brothers and I'm summarizing here. I could bring out the booklet and read it, but it's kind of disgusting. Or it tells us if our brothers lust after us, you know it's our fault, because we are the ones who entice people to lust after us Anybody who lust. We're just another object yet again.
Speaker 3:So when we escape and we feel free and we are free from that specific environment and those specific types of teachings, then we discover that there's a whole other culture out here that looks at us as objects. Because one of the things that I've experienced is where I feel like when you have a friend group and you have events, you're disproportionately expected to host events, you're disproportionately expected to bake food, you're disproportionately expected to perform manual labor and you're expected to be happy about it. And the reason we're talking about this is because why? Anybody got any guesses? Why are we talking about this when the topic is Amish romance novels.
Speaker 4:Because that's what the Amish romance novels perpetuate.
Speaker 2:The Amish romance novels make fluff and fun out of our real live trauma and experiences. And I remember sitting in college in a college class and realizing that your voice was minimized and not believed within your community. You fight, you fight, you fight to leave and it is horrible leaving. You finally get out and you still have to fight to have a voice. You still are not believed. I just sat there and I'm like, oh my word, it doesn't end and the fluff and fun is only fluff and fun for those who have not experienced it. And there's people benefiting off of our lived experiences, and that's not to say all Amish men and I people are bad at all. But it presents an unfair narrative, an untrue narrative, and coming from a background also of trauma.
Speaker 5:Yes, reading books is an escapism for those that have been through trauma, and the problem is when your escapism what's been built to you as, oh, this is a beautiful, idealistic thing to escape your own trauma, you end up stomping on other people's trauma and it's like think about what if we build your trauma that way? What if we build your background that way and you know better, or somebody tells you to stop, or why you need to take a step back and listen.
Speaker 3:What if, what if? For example, you'll know that Beverly Lewis and for those who don't know, beverly Lewis is the one who primarily made Amish romance novels be the genre that it is. She has has profited immensely off of writing about Amish people and the way she writes about us. I will get into that. But she it's estimated she makes over over 500. She's worth over 700,000 or you're like she's worth a lot of money, and the Amish romance novel industry generates annually anywhere from $677,000 to $1.4 million, I think, if I'm not mistaken. I'd have to go look it up.
Speaker 3:But the point is, is these romance novels? They have perpetuated narratives and basically they are taking our trauma. Now, I lied, it's $1.4 billion, according to an article from the week. $1.4 billion annually. Just just just let that sink in annually. Who are the people that are reading these books and why do they read these books? Because these books. It's dehumanizing how we're depicted. I myself stayed up last night to finish a Beverly Lewis book called the Tinder Box. By the way, that physically made me ill, because I wanted to understand better what the appeal is, and I was talking to my friends about it and one of my friends, seth, actually said something that I think it might help people understand better what these books actually are. It's like evangelical Christianity meets little house on the prairie and appropriates Amish culture to do so.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and because these Amish-themed romance novels are not written for Amish people anymore. That Little House on the Prairie TV show was made for pioneers in the 1800s.
Speaker 5:They would be gagging at our.
Speaker 3:Aren't they made for people who are living with a sense of nostalgia about the good old days, people who sit there and they think in the good old days it was easier because it was a simpler life? Absolutely.
Speaker 5:Absolutely. I had somebody sit down. I have a digital library of over 40,000 files thanks to a friend that worked for a particular company. It was a book dump. So the dump is everything from eroticism to history to just literally everything. And I had a cousin when I was in South Carolina invite me over when we are both part of the same current group. But she invited me over and I think it was partially because oh, you used to be Mennonite. She asked me to give her transfer every Amish romance that was in that file dump, give her copies of them, because she just was obsessed.
Speaker 5:Because it's so idealistic and I'm like. You don't understand. You've never lived in community. You do not know what this you. This is not representative.
Speaker 3:Furthermore, in the Beverly Lewis book that I was reading, like it kind of gives the idea that like anybody can join the Amish Not even anybody can join the Amish and being well accepted, and you know, this whole idea of like somebody Amish going to the Mennonites for counseling or ministry, like like I'm sorry, like no, and then the vernacular of the language she uses to describe Amish people. It portrays us. She portrays us as backwards, kind of dumb, kind of like ignorant, not really knowledgeable. She portrays an image of perhaps what she perceived Amish women, amish people to be, and specifically even Amish women to be, when she spent two weeks visiting I'm sorry, she did not live Amish. If you went and you stayed with an Amish family for two weeks, you were a visitor. You did not live Amish.
Speaker 5:They treat you as a guest. You get the guest experience. You're not getting the real lived. You're beholden to the rules experience.
Speaker 2:Which makes me wonder, like what is it that white women have to gain by this narrative? Like I get the yucky stuff with men and I get that, but like the only thing I can think of that white women are getting from this is not good stuff, like it's clickbait. It's like they present Amish people like we have some kind of cognitive disability and we can't think for ourselves. Does it? Does it make them feel powerful? Does it make them feel smart? Like I keep trying to figure out and come up with a good perspective that they might have on it and I just can't come up with anything kind.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean and let's be clear, it's not just one person who does this. Right, right, this is not just one person. This is a repetitive experience for many of us. We face this on a daily basis in our jobs, in our relationships, even in our, in whatever environment that we're in, when we go to college or we go to school, you know, if we go to any type of higher learning and institution and we're taking courses there, if we write about our Amish experiences, even our instructors there tend to gaslight us about our Amish experiences. They write down, they grade down our papers because you know we should have written from a real perspective, because Amish are not really like that. We get this on every level of society. When we try to go to a different church, if we talk about the things we experience, how are we received by that church?
Speaker 1:I think, when I think that I spent a long time since I've read any of those novels and I've, you know, it only took me a few to kind of to realize it was not my scene.
Speaker 3:Not your scene.
Speaker 1:But what struck me is that the way that Amish women are characterized in these books are, as you know, like pearl clutching, just old fashioned versions of kind of standard white evangelical Protestants, but like just in a buggy, right, but they're like that same pearl clutching, fragile kind of person or character, and when the reality is that that Amish, the Amish women I know, are nothing like that and they don't under, so basically they are seeing. What it does for them is it gives them a way of imagining themselves just in a buggy or in a cop Bye. They don't understand that they're or they refuse to understand that. There are other differences.
Speaker 1:Amish are not simply an old-fashioned version of white evangelical Protestants. They are German, they are the descendants of German peasants and a Baptist, and there is a whole cultural, there's a whole set of cultural distinctions that come with that that they are completely blind to. But what it does for them to imagine that these Amish women are just an old-fashioned version of themselves, it's like they can see themselves then as being more evolved because they're more modern and so they've come further along, so they can identify with the parts of Amish women that they want to identify with the very feminine, very traditionally feminine features, but then, at the same time, they can feel so much more evolved than these backwards, old-fashioned people.
Speaker 3:So what you're saying and what I personally feel is that these novels they give women, especially white evangelical women or white women who really love these romance novels. Because there's Jeanette Harder who wrote in a 2021 research paper. She said, due to cultural expectations, the Amish are not often in the practice of critiquing or analyzing their own thoughts or behaviors or thinking abstract. Anybody that would write something like that and feel safe to publish that in a research paper holds a position of superiority to the very people that they're purporting to help and they have done this because they benefit from it and it's not just profiting off of it.
Speaker 3:Like this specific person, she profited from publishing and co-writing a book with like an old-order Mennonite man. She founded an organization who had received a grant. They disseminated over 46,000 copies of that book to playing Amish in Mennonite homes, wherein she recommends the booklet to a girl of 11, and facilities like Whispering Hope, which she admits in a later email to Tara Mitchell that she did not vet the facilities beyond visiting a couple of them, and she didn't even say which ones she visited or how she vetted them. There was no requirement for them to meet anything in order for her to include them as a recommended resource. Further in the same article, she also tells readers that Amish women can't speak unless the patriarch is present. So hey, let's hear from y'all.
Speaker 4:I'm sorry my patriarch is not here. Say what I said. I'm sorry my patriarch is not here.
Speaker 5:I unloaded that near 300 pounds.
Speaker 2:You know, one time, in complete frustration, I looked at one of my professors and I said it would not be okay for you to speak of this or speak this way of any other people group. Can you help me understand why it's okay to speak this way of the Amish? He was extremely angry with me for that question, but I'm reaching the conclusion. And again, it doesn't sound kind, but I'm reaching the conclusion. People like him, people like Jeanette Harder, these experts kind of want to keep us stupid and they kind of want to keep us silent. They want to keep us not speaking unless the patriarch is present, Like they have a lot to benefit from our silence.
Speaker 5:If you speak, then you're taking away their authority on the subject or due authority on the subject.
Speaker 2:Oh, this professor told me he's more of an expert on the Amish than I am and I was fired up and I'm like, so how does that work for you when you sit in their church services or go to their family gatherings? I'm like, how does that work? How do your Dutch conversations go, by the way? Oh, he was, I mean, yeah, he was mad.
Speaker 3:And so was.
Speaker 2:I. I was like that is ridiculous, but these are the exact conversations you have within the community. Your voice still doesn't matter within the community. Now I'm here struggling through college and you're giving me the same story. Like what?
Speaker 3:So how does this relate to, like, beverly Lewis? Do you think she's benefited from the prestige of, like, going and living Amish for two weeks? And do you think that people do you think that people who say that Beverly Lewis committed no wrong, you think that, like, how do y'all feel about that statement and what are your thoughts?
Speaker 1:I think to me Beverly Lewis, hanging her credentials on the fact that she has a genetic connection to Amish people and having spent two weeks with them and having maybe grown up around them, like to think that that gives you an insider's view says more about you than anything else. And what it tells you is you are an outsider for sure, because that kind of community there's no kind of in, kind of out. You're either in or out, and when you are, when you're a visitor, you get one experience and when you're a member you get a very different experience. And to think that you can get the experience in two weeks tells me you don't know a thing.
Speaker 5:I was discussing this with a friend of mine this week and this is how I described it was my grandmother was born. I have a grandmother that was born black and died white. Yes, I know I blend into the blinds here, but I can never say that I can walk. Just because I have black descendancy does not mean that I can or ever can or ever will walk in the shoes of a black woman. I will never have that lived experience. I will never be able to speak for them in what they go through. I can research into my ancestry. I can find out and try to find connections to that part of my family. That's not my lived experience and not a place where I can speak from. And same with Beverly Lewis. Not only that, but I looked up this morning. I raised like oh, she's Amish descended. And I looked up Old Order Mennonite. Not the same thing. Not the same thing.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's another thing. It's like in reading Beverly Lewis's book. I had the thought at one point like does she think that Old Order, mennonite and Amish are interchangeable?
Speaker 1:Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What was that? Just how uninformed is the so-called expert To hear what community Beverly Lewis actually has genetic ties to? Hint, it's not Amish. And here are the remaining hour of our conversation. Head on over to the Ms Fit Amish podcast. We'll see you there.
Speaker 2:Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond what?
Speaker 1:are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion. We know you have your own questions and experiences and we wanna talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at Uncovered Life Beyond at gmailcom. That's Uncovered Life Beyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
