So many questions...

This summer I borrowed my friend's season one and season two of HBO's Big Love. It's about a polygamous family in suburban Utah. Watching this fueled my existing fascination with polygamists, but mostly with the Latter Day Saints (LDS) fundamentalist communities. The show focuses briefly on this side of the LDS, and the compounds that many of the LDS fundamentalists reside in, but its not its main focus. I learned mostly about this lifestyle/religion about two years ago when I read Escape by Carolyn Jessop. It is a memoir about her leaving her LDS fundamentalist cult, er, I mean community. (It's truly fascinating, so read it if you get a chance.)

Also, just Sunday night, TLC aired a new show called Breaking Amish. This new series is about Amish people that leave their communities and move to New York. When I first heard about this show about two months ago I was psyched. Such an interesting premise for a reality show. (However, I did wonder how these people found out about the show. They clearly didn't watch it on TV. Did TLC come to the communities to "recruit" people? I want to know!)  There is something soooo fascinating to me about the lives of the Amish and LDS fundamentalists. So fascinating. I don't know what it is exactly that intrigues me so much, but I just can't get enough of it. I drink up all that information and love learning about it.

At the same time though, as interesting as these two lifestyles are to me, they also baffle me. I want to see these people, and almost shake them and shout "You can get out if you want!" I know that's easier said than done because they are essentially brainwashed since birth. They were born into these religions/beliefs and have learned nothing else beyond that. They are kept secluded from others and basically are surrounded with their own kind at all times. Is this to keep them from knowing what really is out there? About what us English, as the Amish call us, are really doing? Like enjoying life and having fun? And being free to do whatever we please? Are the elders scared that if they know what goes beyond their perimeters, would they want to get out? And stay there? I just have so many questions for them. So many questions So here it goes... This is just me thinking out loud.

1a) Why don't you want to educate the children beyond a certain point (8th grade for Amish), especially the females? So they can work? What don't you want them to learn? (And who's teaching them anyways? People who received an education? But how?)
1b) And why are the roles of women

2) How can you let one person (The Bishop for Amish and the Prophet for LDS) control everything you do? Why are they the "be-all, end-all?" Who decided this? How do you know they are the really talking and communicating all of God's messages to you?

3) How can your family basically not support you and totally disown you for leaving the community and going after your dreams? That is unheard of to me! They should love and accept you no matter what.

4a) In polygamous communities, how can women think it's okay to share their husband? Are they really okay with sleeping with their husband one night and him going and sleeping with another woman another night? Or even that exact same day?
4b) And how is it okay for an 80 year-old man to marry a 15-year old girl and no one sees anything wrong with this? Why is this acceptable? And if the girl is marrying the Prophet or another higher up in the community, it is an honor. It's straight up gross. It's pedophilia anywhere else and these people think it's in "their plan." 

5) Why do people stay in these communities? I mean I guess I know the answer to that question. And there are a few. They don't know anything else. (Some of them don't even know what's beyond their compounds/farms/communities.) And if they do, aren't they curious to experience it first hand? Is it because they are too scared that they won't have their families to come back to if it doesn't work out the way they had planned? Is it because they are told they are going to burn in hell for leaving? No one is really forcing them to stay. It's just the pressure and the fear. I think its definitely fear. Fear of the unknown. And fear of losing everything. 

I am not meaning any disrespect when I write this post, but I just have so many questions. These are just the tip of the iceberg. I clearly have a lot more to learn about both of these communities/religions but from what I know I do not understand and don't think I ever will. They might think the same about my lifestyle. In fact, they probably do. I also imagine that some of these people are just as fascinated with me and my life as I am with theirs. Do they like their lives? Are they really happy? Do they wonder what happens in the "outside world?"Ahhhh, I seriously have so many questions. To be a bird on the wall in one of these communities...