Wouldn't it be great if we had a map of adult development so that we would know what to expect?
We well do--to a degree.
For example, Daniel Levinson has worked out a map based on his studies of adults.
And before him, others did too, including Carl Jung and Erik Erickson.
Every counselor who has worked in the field long enough has some kind of a basic map in their head of what lies ahead for adults--not one learned from books but from real life experienice.
In the show today [KTOK radio show] I'm going to talk about "tasks" and "stages" of adulthood. What is the difference?
Stages are windows of demand and windows of opportunity. They are time limited.
Procreation is a good example, it is definitely a time limited opportunity.
Getting training for a career is almost as time limited--although we have all seen stories of people
going back to college at an advanced age.
A stage can be approximate (such as mid life reorientation) or it can be absolute (such as menopause and the end of female childbearing).
Stages can flow smoothly from one to the next, or they can be turbulent, with depression, anxiety, divorce, change of career, etc.
We do not yet have a perfect map of adult stages, and as soon as we do, it is likely to be obsolete because our culture is changing so fast. Nevertheless, there have been adult "roadmaps" going back to Confucius (see the last chapter of Levinson's book The Seasons of a Man's Life.)
A good "map" helps us to navigate through life, just as a ship needs a navigational map to steer through dangerous waters. We might say that we don't really need a map. However, ships have run aground due to poor maps. And adults have run aground in life.
Here is a basic roadmap of adulthood:
Early adulthood 20's--the goal here is to leave the family of origin. Nature has given us tremendous optimism and energy during this stage. We can in fact be unduly optimistic. We pull away from family, either amicably or perhaps with anger. And often we come home once, twice, or three times before being able to sustain ourselves financially. We want to be self governing, living by our own rules, even if they are pretty much the same as our parents.
For many persons, sexual drive plays a large role in this pulling away as persons often struggle with parental restrictions of different sorts. (It has been said that every generation thinks that it invented sex.)
In the 20's, persons are proving, for themselves and for others, that they can be self sustaining. They are gathering basic skills, e.g. how to pay taxes, how to maintain a car, how to pay bills on time.
For some, the 20's are a period of child bearing and child rearing, whereas for others, it is a period of exploring dating partners and learning about what they like and don't like, and what characteristics to beware of.
By our late 20's we realize that the job we are in may not be a suitable career. It may make us money, but not enough. Or it may not bring meaning and satisfaction. The late 20's can also bring with it the fear of not getting married or not having children. As the end of the 20's approaches there can thus be a crisis as we try to get into the right career pathl
The late 20's can bring a rapprochement with parents. They are now approached as equal adults. A whole new level of communication is often possible, adult to adult.
For reasons that are not clear, the decades seem to play an important role in crisis, turning 30, turning 40, and so on. Even the mid decades of 25, 35, and 45 play such a role. It is as if we are prompted to look ahead at each decade.
(Age 25 does not play a very large role. The physical organism is at its height. Death is so far in the future that it is generally only an idea to be acknowledged for brief periods of time. But 35 and 45 may play important roles as turning points)
Transition to the 30's. In this transition, the person realizes that the time for experimentation is coming to a close. It is time to build something substantial in career or family. In Levinson's terms, it is time to climb the ladder in one's career. He also refers to this as the "settling down phase."
The 30's are a period of great energy and accomplishment for many people. By this point most people have made an occupational decision. They are hopefully climbing the rungs of a career and occupation. They are honing their skills to take an important place in their organization. At home, they are settling down to establish something secure for themselves and their families.
The 40's and the midlife reassessment. Much has been said about midlife transition and midlife crisis. Looming over life is our ultimate mortality as well as the mortality of our parents, as well as our frriends and our siblings. It becomes clear at a very real level that life comes to an end.
For some persons who have been driving themselves hard in their career but without much pleasure in life, this strategy quits working in the 40's. They may lose their drive to work hard if it is not balanced with pleasure and recreation or other meaningful pursuits.
If we have been wanting our parents to change and give us the love and affection they denied us, we may finally give up on that every happening in the 40's.
A major change occurs in the 40's and 50's as children leave home. While they may return home occasionally, it is usually only temporary. This may be experienced as liberating and freeing, or it may be felt as a tremendous loss. For many, it is both. Energy and time can be and must be redistributed. New goals and activities can be developed and need to be developed. For some, there is a loss of meaning ("If I'm not a parent, who am I?")
We are now focusing on our legacy. We want to leave something behind of substance. Pleasure may take a back seat to leaving something of permanence behind.
There is a transition at 65 when we begin to retire and to take Social Security. We have to adapt to a new self image as a "retiree". Friends start to move away or die. Our social circle begins to dwindle for various reasons. Mortality looms even larger on the horizon. Our parents may have been a type of psychological buffer between us and death. Once they are gone, we realize, we are next.
With retirement, there is opportunity for more recreation, and for fortunate retirees, they discover new sides of their personalities that they never knew existed. However, there can be disappointment as well. Retirement may bring boredom. Moreover, if there wss a plan to travel with one's spouse, the health of one or the other may prevent that from actually occurring.
Erik Erickson refers to the final stage of life as being Ego Integrity versus Despair. As the body deteriorates, persons have to decide if they are still worthwhile and whether their life still matters. If they were the smartest, they likely no longer are. If they were the most beautiful, now they must find a new source of self esteem. If their job made them powerful, that too no longer provides self esteem. Victories against old age may be won, but the person realizes that all victories now are temporary and partial.
The physical drives diminish in this age. Some find this a blessing that they no longer have to cope with sex or anger as much as they used to. On the other hand, some persons find the absence of sex to leave a great hole in their life. And anger may become a different kind of problem. If there is any frontal lobe impairment, irritability and anger may become stronger rather than diminishing.
Many persons at this age now turn toward grandparenting as their primary source of meaning in life. They find great enjoyment in it. They also want to pass on their values to the second generation down and worry that some values may be lost.
On the other hand, they often worry that society is losing its most important values. They see a world that is changing so much that it is starting to feel that it is not THEIR world anymore. It begin's to feel that their world is receding, and they may mourn for it. At the same time, they see glimmers of hope--new developments in medicine and the humanities which give them hope for humanity.
As their physical bodies fail them, they have to turn to other resources. Some focus more on their intellect. Some focus on spending or managing their money, and some on spending time with their family. The equation of life has to be re-solved. One person once joked that this age person checks their stocks in the morning and plays golf in the afternoon.
Loneliness begins to be a major problem for many, as significant others pass away. For other couples, both are still alive but there is a change in personality due to changes in the brain. Some spouses, for example, are in chronic pain or experiencing a mild cognitive disorder. There may even be the beginnings of dementia.
The onset of chronic physical disorders and cognitive problems leads to another issue--the ascendence of the younger generation. Older persons may both enjoy the help they receive and resent the increasing dominance of their children. In a best case, the adult child assists them in their goals. In a worst case scenario, the elder finds themselves explicitly or implicitly demeaned, and their autonomy taken away.
The elder struggles to preserve autonomy. It had been hard won in the first 20 years of life. Now there is the threat of it being taken away, if not by one's own children then by physical illness or cognitive impairment. It may also be taken away by financial restrictions.
The elder may look to preserve a sense of worth by being a source of knowledge for younger generations. This may work. On the other hand, they may find that there is no interest in their life wisdom.
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Then there are the tasks of adulthood. These tasks go on more or less perpetually throughout the adult years and are not limited in time as stages are.
Identity development--This begins in the adolescent years but never stops. The sense of being a unique person with one's own values, goals, strengths, and weaknesses continues to develop. But it is not only thoughts and actions. As much as anything it is a feeling of being integrated. It is a feeling of "I exist, and I know who I am." But as we age, the question is less and less "Who am I?" Rather it becomes, "How do I fit this self that I think I am into a new world of change and loss?" It becomes partly a question of, "Does the world around me want or need the self that I have become?" Or to put it differently, "Does my identity make sense in a world that has changed?" In one sense our identity becomes more fixed as we get older. But it is always capable of change. And who we are in relation to the world has to change as the world changes around us. Take, for example, a person who was a colonel in the army. He had a job to do. People looked up to him and respected him. They looked to him for orders and direction. After retirement, however, those relationships do not exist. He or she must define an identity in relation to the people and circumstances surrounding them now.
Interconnectedness--being known, having friends. This task never stops because we lose friends as well as make frinds as time goes on. Friendship patterns can stabilize from 30-65 but then they destabilize also as time goes on. People move, and they die. And unfortunately friendships are sometimes tossed aside for no good reason. They may be lost because of resentments. There is a danger of losing our interconnectedness with others. Relationships have to be nurtured and maintained.
Intimacy--This is interconnectedness at the closest level. It involves both sexual intimacy and emotional intimacy. In fact it involves a variety of types of intimacy--too much to go into here. We learn to approach "the other," sometimes to the point of feeling that we are merging and becoming one. But we discover that merging is not really what we want and that there is a need for distance as well. We learn to back away and protect a sense of selfhood separate from the other person..
Assertion and boundaries--Learning to draw boundaries in a healthy manner can be a difficult task. We have to learn how to say no to others. Similarly, we have to learn how to handle our anger in a healthy manner. Anger is such a powerful feeling that employing it in a healthy manner requires adjustments and tweaking throughout the lifespan. Anger and assertion are not the same thing, but they are linked. If we create healthy boundaries and assert ourselves, then anger is less likely to build up and get out of control.
Contributing to society versus meeting our own needs--This also continues throughout the lifespan. Do I give of myself to others and to society? And if so, how much? How much do I hold back for myself? Not just my money, but my time and my emotional energy?
Coherence--Finding a meaning for life. This involves spirituality, or if not that, then at least a philosophical view of what my life and Life in general are all about. Is there meaning to my life? If so, is it purely a meaning that I create out of thin air, or does my life's meaning come from a higher power?
Keeping a sense of hope--Faith, hope, and love are mentioned by the apostle Paul as the greatest of human aspirations. There must be something to live for. Just living is not a solution. It is static. Either we are reaching for something that gives our lives meaning, or we are just marking time until we die.
Dealing with deterioration--dealing with illness and with aging. We begin to noticeably decline even in our 30's with a few gray hairs or being short of breath climbing a hill. For some persons, illness leads to decline even earlier. We are forced to adjust our self view every time we notice a new phase of decline. We notice gray hair, and then we adjust our self view to that. We notice less muscle strength, and we adjust to that. If our doctor gives us a chronic diagnosis, then we have to adapt to that also. This is both a practical and a psychological issue. How do I function now that I have arthritis? Or who am I if I am not able to function sexually anymore as a man or as a woman? Our "self" has to absorb not just one blow to it, but multiple blows--indeed many blows.
Establishing Financial independence--For some people this is a stage; for others it is an ongong task. It has been said that making money is easy, and keeping it is hard. Many persons enter retirement with very little cushion and mainly have just their Social Security retirement income.
Coming to grips with "the real world" and not just an ideal illusory world--There is a danger at all ages of living in an fantasy world. This may be an illusory view of ourselves or of the world around us. We may all be prone to this--liberals and conservatives, religious and non religious. And yet we cannot live without hopes and dreams. And we cannot be absolutely sure of the ultimate nature of reality. We must have dreams of who we are and what the world can become, and these dreams must exceed what we have now. But also these dreams must remain sufficiently rooted in reality.
