The lack of education is criminal.
It was interesting watching the journey of these Amish children but also quite disheartening to see the effect of their dogma, on their lives. Apparently the Amish have no interest in keeping their teeth. As Abe put it, "it is rare for Amish to keep their teeth past the age of 30". For goodness sake, is it really evil to brush your teeth or visit a Dentist, (prior to having to have all your teeth pulled to wear dentures)? Abe's fairly young wife already had all of her teeth pulled and he was facing $21,000 dollars in Dental fees just to try to keep his few remaining teeth, (he already had a bridge.) Mary was filmed cleaning her dentures with a cup of water, outside, using anti-bacterial hand soap (and not toothpaste because it has "chemicals" in it), because she was having company and wanted her teeth to be clean. So, Mary, anti-bacterial hand soap doesn't have chemicals? How backwards... Being afraid to teach your children to brush their teeth, just because your parents were toothless by 30 is inexcusable. Tantamount to child abuse. The same goes for forcing the children out of school after the 8th grade. It was painful to watch the Amish "stars" of the show try to put together full sentences when asked a question. Sure, some of the problem could be attributed to being camera shy but when Jerimiah couldn't put together a few words to describe his new wife, (even though he was being coached by the camera crew and producers, with the possibility of many takes and re-takes), his basic idiocy became blatantly obvious. Apparently Amish children are no more, (or less), than dull farm implements, never able to explore their God given potential. This seems like child abuse in it's most glaring form. No wonder drug abuse, out of wedlock children, being toothless and unable to read and write or to be able to be employed off the "farm", are such badges of honor for practicing Amish. It seems criminal and abusive, to the ranks of the young, who are born into this cult.
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