While I’ve taken undergrad courses in Psychology and Sociology, it wasn’t my major. My degree and certifications are in Computer Science. I’m probably going to return to school for my Masters in Information Science. Returning to school for a Psychology or Sociology degree has been on my mind throughout much of my adult life, I just can’t figure out how to integrate it into my current career.
Something that puzzles me repeatedly is Developmental Psychology as it applied to Adulthood. There are two competing laymen/social theories:
- that a troubled childhood results in a troubled adult,
- and the “American-Puritanical” response of “I had terrible parents too, and look how I turned out!”
I’ve discussed my ideas a few times with friends and psychologists alike, but I can’t wrap my mind around it just yet:
At what age do we stop developing as “adult human beings?” At what age are our personas defined, and are they immutable or do they evolve as we age?
Talking with others, I do believe Wisdom and Experience accrue with age. If we’re lucky, if we’re thoughtful, if we’re intelligent, if we’re introspective, then Wisdom comes as we learn from and integrate Experience into valuable life lessons as we mature as adult human beings.
Our personas, however? I’m not so sure. I wonder if our passion, our emotions, our character, our extraversion, or introversion are all formed at childhood and fully defined at the onset of adulthood.
I used myself as an example, and it was asked if I became less selfish and less independent with time. And yes, knowing my wife for 24 years and being married for 22 of those years taught me the value, love, and compassion of family. I learned to think outside myself, to care for the well-being of others, to cherish our time together, and to grow together rather than apart as individuals.
But I asked friends again if they are haunted by nightmares of their childhood just as I am. I asked if I was broken for still have dreams of being neglected, forgotten, or discarded by my own family of birth and blood. I was told by several people, “no, I have those same dreams, and I’m older than you are. But they’re just dreams, and family is what you make of it.”
I still wonder if “the sins of the father become the sins of the son”, whether broken children become broken adults, and the cycle repeats itself?
I thought I remembered Erickson from when Vicky was working on her Masters in Nursing Education. Psychological Development was one of her requirements. I remember Kohlberg (Stages of Moral Development), but I don’t remember Erickson.
Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development seem to better address what I’m trying to figure out.
Something else that’s a corollary and also bothering me is whether we’re raising successively weaker generations of Americans?
Nothing happens in a vacuum. You can argue that some generations are more “fragile” in others in how poorly they accept loss, how unable to cope with challenges they are. I’d agree with you that Americans probably are weaker for being unable to accept or cope with challenges, inequality, or loss.
But nothing happens in a vacuum. Did recent generations oscillate so rapidly, with each generation rebelling against its predecessors that the result was a weakening of the human spirit?
I understand your concerns and thoughts. I too, searched my whole life for ways to repair my broken childhood. I went to individual and group therapy for over twenty years. I married a psychiatrist. I studied world religions. I meditated. And now, at age 72, I still believe that we are a combination of nature and nurture. But we are not immutable. And that fact has saved me. We can and must be the creators of the life we wish to lead and to behave and act with the values we cherish. If we fall down, we must get up. If we lose our way, we must struggle to find the path again. This is done through self-reflection, study, and the caring of ourselves and those around us, our family.
As far as the current state of our society and fragile culture, I agree to some extent. However, I think it’s largely a result of non-involved parenting and a school system that is largely overwhelmed as parents fail to teach the most basic of life skills necessary to survive in today’s world.
I see many wonderfully engaged and successful Gen Z’s, in fact, I helped raise one. But I also see a fair number of disengaged and unambitious 20-somethings. I think it’s a result of parenting styles. To raise a functioning adult, I think it’s necessary to expect involvement and participation from kids. And those that participate learn and grow. Those kids who are handed everything, have no sense of accomplishment. And of course participation and engagement can result in failure as well. It’s to be expected. And it’s to be expected that parents will teach their kids to get up, dust themselves off and try again. And also to impose commensurate consequences for behavior that is antisocial or destructive. Rinse and repeat. Kids who are denied this process will not venture forward, but retreat to the cocoon of an ambition-less life, likely on the sofa of their parents in the basement of the family home. I’ve seen it play out in my own circle of extended family friends. Growing up is both joyful and painful. To deny the full experience is to stunt the growth and limit the possibilities.