Dr. Daloz talks about the different developmental theories of adults.
I personally like one of the theories, at the age of 30, it is so from right on, so that is what I am going to talk about.
The theory is called Levinson's Developmental Periods. And here it is.
Age
7
EARLY ADULT TRANSITION
20
Entering the Adult World
28
Age 30 Transition
33
Settling Down
40
MID-LIFE Transition
45
50 Entering Middle Adulthood
Age 50 Transition
55
Culmination of Middle Adulthood
60
Late Adult Transition
65
Throughout our life, we make multiple transitions. Through family, kids, occupations, and so on. As we age, we change.
My wife always tells me that I am not the same person I was at age 19. I'm not. I have went through many changes in the last 11 years. Career, school, marriage, children, death of relatives, and so on. Changes that many people go through. According to Levinson, I was transitioning into the adult world. Now at 30, I am at a point where I am transitioning again.
With my additional education, where do I go from here? Do I go on and get additional education? Throughout our lives, we will come to crossroads. This is where the mentor comes in. A mentor will ask questions, to get you to start looking at the options. What do you want? Where do you want to go? It will be up to you to make those decisions.
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I think another question is "wherer have you been"?
ReplyDeleteWhat particularly stood out in this chapter was as we progress through these transitions there is a constant "building, breaking, building, breaking" going on. I amagine these phases/stages to be like a spiral, not a staight line.
Another thing that sruck me was the potential impact of having a mentor of the same/differfent gender and also at a different life stage.
I like Lynne's image of the spiral -- hopefully it's spiraling up, not down! I think the idea of relatively predictable transitions occuring at certain ages is a valid one. I also remember reading about "off time" individuals. I am one, and my husband and I don't have kids. I attribute what I refer to as my husband's midlife crisis to the fact that we don't have kids. He had the "luxury" of getting reflective about the purpose of life because he actually didn't have the demands of a family. Granted, work was pressing, but it's different. Because of this happening "off time," he doesn't really have any contemporaries to act as mentors. And I think there's something to be said for individuals going through the same thing at the same time. Certainly, he has older people to offer their perspecttive, and this is valuable, but sometimes it's nice to have a peer who can relate.
ReplyDeleteJacob,
ReplyDeleteLevinson’s developmental periods seem pretty spot on. My partner had his first set of experiences with entering middle adulthood, or as I refer to it, his mid life crisis. He didn’t run out and buy a Porsche, but as it’s described in the literature I read and personal experience it’s a reassessment of priorities where everything that used to be important isn’t, but everything is still important in a new way.
For me, what was most interesting is a presumption that men can’t talk about these things. Eventually, he did broaching the topic with older colleagues/friends, but there was this barrier that if I talk about this, I’ll be labeled negatively. Everyone he spoke with had similar experiences but never shared those experiences during the time it was happening.
He is actually being his own mentor at this stage in his life. Foraging his own path.
The funny part is that, most of us are our own mentor. We seek information, ask questions, and make decisions. We like to have that control.
ReplyDelete