Is Amish Life Hard? One Amishman’s Answer

“Don’t feel sorry for us, no,” John says with a chuckle. “We’re having a good life.”

In this video I interview John Esh. John lives in Nittany Valley in central Pennsylvania and runs the Goot Essa cheese & food company (Full video transcript below).

John sat down for a longer conversation with me a week or so ago. I’ll be posting that full video soon. But in the meantime, here is a short 3-4 minute excerpt, where I start by asking John “Is it hard being Amish?”

John goes on to explain how technology has proven a challenge, and why he wants his children to be equipped to understand both the value and the dangers of tech – even if they end up accepting more of it.

I’d say this is something that is likely, if only for the fact that each generation of Amish accepts at least a bit more tech than the previous one did. They’re intentionally lagging behind mainstream society, while measuring the impact of adopting new innovations – but not outright rejecting all of them.

As to the disruptive power of the internet, John compares it to an earlier piece of technology that his parents’ generation had to deal with. I won’t give away what the comparison is here, you’ll just have to check the vid (a little over halfway through).

He also describes what it was like when his family moved from Lancaster County into a new area in central Pennsylvania many years ago, and the response local non-Amish had – at first.

“Particularly when we moved into these valleys in the early 1970s, a lot of the natives where like, ‘What is coming here? These people are very backward…'”, John says of the non-Amish reaction.

“And then as we learned to know each other, and they became involved with us, we became involved in the general community, they saw you know, in a lot of ways they are no different than we are.”

I hope you enjoy the video and check out Goot Essa’s cheese gift baskets for the holidays here.

Video Transcript

Amish America: Being Amish, is it is it hard being Amish? Because we we look at you from outside, and it’s like, they don’t have cars. They don’t have electric plugs in the wall. And I think some people even feel sorry for, well, Amish guys. “They must have it tough.” Is that true?

John Esh: Don’t feel sorry for us. We’re we’re having a good life. What is it like to be an Amishman in the twenty first century? Technology clearly is a big challenge. And even when we started the business here, Goot Essa, 22 years ago compared to today, the amount of business that’s done online, email, that has really changed. We find solutions to that.

You know, I personally am not comfortable being on a computer, but I will hire someone to do that work for me. And, you know, I’m also looking to for the next generation, how can we involve them?

How can we how can we teach them the values of and the dangers, I should say, the dangers of what’s out there on the Internet, but still have them grow up to be responsible adults realizing that this will just continue to change. And in some way, they will embrace technology in a different way than perhaps what my generation has.

And so it’s important for my wife and I to instill our the values in our children. So even if they embrace more technology, they are aware of the dangers and where that can lead to. With what we perceive as the dangers of the Internet. Realizing there’s a lot of good on the Internet as well. I do realize that.

Amish America: I think that’s a question people have as well. Do Amish people – you don’t think technology is evil in itself – right? I mean, how do you look at it? When you look at the Internet, it’s a tool, but there are also, like you mentioned, dangers there.

John Esh: In a lot of ways, in my mind, it’s not that much different than the telephone was, like, earlier like, a generation ago. The telephone was quite a quite a technology change for my parents. Disruptive.

And then, you know, you could also reach a lot of, material on the telephone that was not necessarily productive or upbuilding. So in a lot of ways, in my mind, this is very similar to what they faced.

And, you know, I’m trying to remember the way my parents taught me, and then trying to instill the same values in our children. Particularly when we moved into these valleys in the early seventies, a lot of the natives were were like, you know, what is coming here?

“These people are very backward.” And then as as we learned to know each other and they became involved with us, we became involved in the general community, they saw, you know, this is in a lot of ways – they are no different than we are. In other words, the Amish people versus the general mainstream.

We have our challenges. We like to have fun. We like to laugh and joke, but we’re also serious. And we also have our heartaches, and we have our challenges just like any other human being does.