Created with Sketch.Personality Theory:
A Biosocial Approach
C. George Boeree, PhD
Psychology Department
Shippensburg University
& Copyright C. George Boeree 2009
Stages are something most personality theorists shy away from.&
Sigmund Freud and Erik Erikson are the obvious exceptions, as is the
developmentalist
Jean Piaget.& And yet there is a very biological basis for the
We can, on pure biology, separate out at least three stages:& the
the child, and the adult.& This is parallel to the egg,
caterpillar, butterfly example we learned in high
school biology.
In addition, we can see three transitional stages:& infancy,
adolescence, and senescence.
Infancy is not, actually, found in more primitive
and is greatly exaggerated in humans.& We humans are, in a sense,
prematurely.& Perhaps this was the result of an evolutionary
How can an upright creature give birth to a baby with a large head
killing the mom?& That’s right:& Give birth before it gets
What that does for us is more than just let us live long
to give birth again.& It lets the infant soak up information much
earlier, and in a different way.& It would seem that for the first
6 to 12 months, our neural development is as yet incomplete.& As
learn, we actually create
certain neural paths, rather than just
tightening
synapses as we do later in life.& It’s as if we were actually
instincts!
Adolescence also qualifies, I believe, as a stage.& The
transition
from child to adult involves rather massive hormonal changes
accompanied
by a growth spurt like you hadn’t seen since you were two!& It is
hard for me to conceive of these changes not having some direct effect
psychologically.
Senescence is, strictly speaking, the last year or so of a
life, during which time the organs begin to deteriorate and shut
We don't usually see this as a stage, and in fact most people never
it, as accidents and diseases usually beat senescence to the
But socially speaking, in our culture we certainly prepare ourselves
this inevitability, and that might constitute a social stage, if not a
biological one.
As this last point suggests, there are certainly cultural additions we
can make.& In our
culture, there is a sharp transition from
child to school child, and another sharp transition from single adult
married adult. For all the power of biology, these social stages can be
every bit as powerful.
To venture a guess as to the psychological side of these biological
stages:& The fetus focuses on biological development,
transformed by the presence of others in the infant into ego
development
in the child.& In turn, the ego development of the child is
transformed by the
of sexuality in adolescence into the “trans-ego” or social
development
of the adult.
As I mentioned, there are three people closely associated with the idea
of stages, Freud, Erikson, and Piaget.& We will start with Freud.
noticed that there are areas of our
bodies that are more
sensitive to touch and pleasure, and that these areas are places where
the inner mucous skin meets the outer world: mouth, anus,
genitalia.& Nowadays, we call these erogenous zones. One might
note that the ear canal, the conjunctiva of the eye, the tissue just
inside the nose, and the nipples also qualify.& Freud strongly
believed in the significance of sex in our lives (an idea supported by
Darwin and modern sociobiology), and he noticed that, at different
points in a child's
development, different erogenous zones seem to come to the
forefront.& In infancy, the mouth seems to be a focus of interest,
obviously.& It is not only the organ of nutrition, but the organ
of exploration.& So Freud called the first 18 months of life the
oral stage.
The next stage, Freud believed, involved an inordinate focus on the
anus.& Few psychologists agree with this assessment, but the whole
issue of potty training may be thought of as causing the child to focus
there.& Catching on to the trick of holding stuff in and letting
it go, and the accompanying pain and pleasure (and parental approval
and disapproval!), are not easy for all kids, especially when parents
(reflecting societies standards) make it an issue.& So, the period
months to 3 years old, Freud labelled the anal stage.
Then, from 3 to 6 (adjusted, of course, to the individual's unique
pace), he called the phallic stage.& By phallic, he meant the
penis and the clitoris.& He should be commended for even realizing
the clitoris existed, considering his times!& A fair number of
children (he believed all of them) do find pleasure in rubbing these
delightful body parts.& Some even have orgasms, since you are
actually capable of
orgasm at birth.
From 6 to 12, he believed, was the latent stage, wherein your
"sexuality" (loosely defined) goes underground.& In fact, a
considerable number of grade school children masturbate during this age
range.& And I myself recall some interesting exercises in "playing
doctor" with a similarly inclined girl down the street.
Finally, beginning at 12 or so, there is the genital stage, where
(assuming you made it through the other stages in one piece) you now
are capable of intercourse.& Note that Freud believed that
hetersexual intercourse was the only truly adult sexuality.&
Masturbation, oral sex, and homosexuality should have been left
behind.& Of course, we quite disagree nowadays.& All three
are perfectly normal adult behaviors.
Erik Erikson
is most famous for his work in
refining and expanding
of stages. Development, he says, functions by the epigenetic
principle.
This principle says that we develop through a predetermined unfolding
our personalities in eight stages. Our progress through each stage is
part determined by our success, or lack of success, in all the previous
stages. A little like the unfolding of a rose bud, each petal opens up
at a certain time, in a certain order, which nature, through genetics,
has determined. If we interfere in the natural order of development by
pulling a petal forward prematurely or out of order, we ruin the
development
of the entire flower.
Each stage involves certain developmental tasks that are
psychosocial
in nature. Although he follows Freudian tradition by calling them
they are more drawn out and less specific than that term implies. The
in grammar school, for example, has to learn to be industrious during
period of his or her life, and that industriousness is learned through
the complex social interactions of school and family.
The various tasks are referred to by two terms. The infant's task,
example, is called "trust-mistrust." At first, it might seem obvious
the infant must learn trust and not mistrust. But Erikson made it clear
that there it is a balance we must learn: Certainly, we need to learn
but we also need to learn a little mistrust, so as not to grow
to become gullible fools!
Each stage has a certain optimal time as well. It is no use
to rush children into adulthood, as is so common among people who are
with success. Neither is it possible to slow the pace or to try to
our children from the demands of life. There is a proper time for each
If a stage is managed well, we carry away a certain virtue
psychosocial strength which will help us through the rest of the stages
of our lives. On the other hand, if we don't do so well, we may develop
maladaptations and malignancies, as well as endanger all our future
development.
A malignancy is the worse of the two, and involves too little of the
and too much of the negative aspect of the task, such as a person who
trust others. A maladaptation is not quite as bad and involves too much
of the positive and too little of the negative, such as a person who
Jean Piaget
the most scientific of the
three, and focusses on what we now
call cognitive development, that is, the development of perception,
memory, and& problem solving (which he referred to as
intelligence).& His work is based on thousands of careful studies
by him and his students, and by many others afterwards.
He postulates two synergistic aspects of cognitive development:
assimilation and accomodation.& Assimilation is
where the child
takes a new object into a previously developed skill or schema.&
For example, a baby learns how to hammer, but then adds an ever
increasing number of "hammers" (rattles, spoons, teddy bears, the
cat...) to the hammering schema.& Accommodation is where the child
needs to adjust his schema to an object which does not fit into the
original schema.& The cat, for example, is likely to resist the
idea of his leg being used as a hammer.& The child may accommodate
by altering the hammer schema and creating the pounding schema:&
Use your little fist as a hammer and bring it down forcefully on kitty.
Assimilation and accommodation work like pendulum swings at
our understanding of the world and our competency in it.&
to Piaget, they are directed at a balance between the structure of the
mind and the environment, at a certain congruency between the two, that
would indicate that you have a good (or at least good-enough) model of
the universe.& This ideal state he calls equilibrium.
As he continued his investigation of children, he noted that there
periods where assimilation dominated, periods where accommodation
dominated,
and periods of relative equilibrium, and that these periods were
among all the children he looked at in their nature and their
And so he developed the idea of stages of cognitive
development.&
These constitute a lasting contribution to psychology.
Freud's biggest contribution to our understanding of personality is
in exploring the effects of parenting on the child's development.&
Rather than dwell on Freud's numerous errors in this aspect of his
theorizing, I will provide you with a version which I call "Freud lite."
So, in the oral stage, there comes the task of weaning.& At
some point, Mom gets tired of the chore (or gets viciously bitten on
her nipples - ouch!), and the child is encouraged to take solid
foods.& Babies are perfectly happy with the original situation,
and resist this change of menu.& Some mothers will accept baby's
demands and continue to nurse for months more.& Others will demand
right back and force the issue.& Freud saw this as a
"crisis."& Freud always did have a penchant for drama!& But
this step, plus all the other contests of will between parents and
child at this stage, could certainly be considered a task.& I
personally doubt that this task will leave any major scars on the
child's psyche, but Freud (and Freudians) do.
Mom and dad, as fully socialized adults, reflect their society, of
course. And society says that one is not permitted to excrete anywhere
at anytime, and must where clothing when in public, and similar
unreasonable demands.& So the child needs to be potty
trained.& This is not particularly natural (although children will
eventually learn to control these things themselves - just much later
than society prefers), so it can involve some stress on both the
child's and parents' part.& Freud focussed on the potty training
issue, but if you generalize a little, you begin to realize that there
are a whole mess of other things as well:& washing one's own face,
brushing one's own teeth, getting dressed by oneself, eating neatly on
one's own, picking up one's toys, etc.& Call it hygiene
training.& The child actually does begin to want to do everything
by themselves, but it often doesn't go as smoothly as desired.
Then there's sex.& Of course we aren't talking about adult
ideas of sex (one sincerely hopes).& But the distinction between
boys and girls looms large in children's minds around four or five,
most especially in any society where the roles are strongly
marked.& Plus,
many children develop that interesting habit of rubbing one's "special
spot," a habit frowned upon by a society like Freud's - or ours.&
If you want to know about the Oedipal complex, penis envy, and
castration anxiety, Google them.& They are old ideas that are
truly no longer relevant.
Instead, notice that there is a dynamic in the family involving mom,
dad, and child. Once the child learns that girl-boy construct, he or
she will look to mom and dad for the details.& Freud's ideas are
rather complicated, but we can simplify easily: boys tend to identify
with dad, and mom serves as a role-reactor, that is, she plays the
"girl" part in the play.& Likewise, girls tend to identify with
mom and use dad as a role-reactor.& Over time, boys and girls
redirect their affections appropriately.& Rather than fear of the
same sex parent (Freud's explanation), we suspect it is simply a matter
of children not being attracted in a physical sense to the people they
are most familiar with.& It would be like sleeping with your
brother or sister, and we appear to instinctively find the idea less
than appealing by the time we reach sexual maturity.
Brothers and sisters
Alfred Adler must be credited as the first theorist to include not
mother and father and other adults as early influences on the child,
the child's brothers and sisters as well. His consideration of the
of siblings and the order in which they were born is probably what
is best-known for. I have to warn you, though, that Adler considered
birth-order
another one of those heuristic ideas-- useful fictions - that
contribute
to understanding people, but should be not be taken too seriously.
The only child is more likely than others to be pampered, which
often leads to being a bit self-centered. After all, the parents of the
child have put all their eggs in one basket, so to speak, and are more
likely to take special care - sometimes anxiety-filled care - of
pride and joy. If the parents are abusive, on the other hand, the only
child will have to bear that abuse alone.
The first child begins life as an only child, with all the
to him- or herself. Sadly, just as things are getting comfortable, the
second child arrives and "dethrones" the first. At first, the
may battle for his or her lost position. He or she might try acting
the baby - after all, it seems to work for the baby! - only to be
and told to grow up. Some become disobedient and rebellious, others
and withdrawn. Adler believes that first children are more likely than
any other to become problem children. More positively, first children
often precocious and more intelligent and tend to be relatively
solitary and more
conservative
than the other children in the family.
The second child is in a very different situation: He or she
has the first child as a sort of "pace-setter," and tends to become
competitive, constantly trying to surpass the older child. They often
but many feel as if the race is never done, and they tend to dream of
running without getting anywhere. Other "middle" children will tend to
be similar to the second child, although each may focus on a different
"competitor."
The youngest child is likely to be the most pampered in a
with more than one child. After all, he or she is the only one who is
dethroned! And so youngest children are the second most likely source
problem children, just behind first children. On the other hand, the
may also feel incredible inferiority, with everyone older and
"therefore"
superior. But, with all those "pace-setters" ahead, the youngest can
be driven to exceed all of them.
Who is a first, second, or youngest child isn't as obvious as it
seem. If there is a long stretch between children, they may not see
themselves
and each other the same way as if they were closer together. There are
eight years between my first and second daughter and three between the
second and the third: That would make my first daughter an only child,
my second a first child, and my third the second and youngest! And if
of the children are boys and some girls, it makes a difference as well.
A second child who is a girl might not take her older brother as
A boy in a family of girls may feel more like the only
And so on. As with everything in Adler's system, birth order is
to be understood in the context of the individual's own special
circumstances.
The extended family
Erikson also had some things to say about the interaction of
generations,
which he called mutuality. Freud had made it abundantly clear
a child's parents influence his or her development dramatically.
pointed out that children influence their parents' development as well.
The arrival of children, for example, into a couple's life, changes
life considerably, and moves the new parents along their developmental
paths. It is even appropriate to add a third (and in some cases, a
generation to the picture: Many of us have been influenced by our
grandparents,
and they by us.
A particularly clear example of mutuality can be seen in the
of the teenage mother. Although the mother and her child may have a
life together, often the mother is still involved in the tasks of
adolescence,
that is, in finding out who she is and how she fits into the larger
The relationship she has or had with the child's father may have been
on one or both sides, and if they don't marry, she will have to deal
the problems of finding and developing a future relationship as well.
on the other hand, has the simple, straight-forward needs that infants
have, and the most important of these is a mother with the mature
and social support a mother should have. If the mother's parents step
to help, as one would expect, then they, too, are thrown off of their
developmental
tracks, back into a life-style they thought they had passed, and which
they might find terribly demanding. And so on....
The ways in which our lives intermesh are terribly complex and very
frustrating to the theorist. But ignoring them is to ignore something
important about our development and our personalities.
Family and society
Our families mostly just reflect our society and culture. Erich
emphasizes that we soak up our society with our mother's milk. It is so
close to us that we usually forget that our society is just one of an
number of ways of dealing with the issues of life. We often think that
our way of doing things is the only way, the natural way. We have
so well that it has all become unconscious - the social unconscious,
be precise. So, many times we believe that we are acting according to
own free will, but we are only following orders we are so used to we no
longer notice them. Fromm outlines two kinds of
unproductive families.
1. Symbiotic families.
Symbiosis is the relationship two
have who cannot live without each
other. In a symbiotic family, some
of the family are "swallowed up" by other members, so that they do not
fully develop personalities of their own. The more obvious example is
case where the parent "swallows" the child, so that the child's
personality
is merely a reflection of the parent's wishes. In many traditional
societies,
this is the case with many children, especially girls.
The other example is the case where the child "swallows" the parent.
In this case, the child dominates or manipulates the parent, who exists
essentially to serve the child. If this sounds odd, let me assure you
is common, especially in traditional societies, especially in the
relationship
between a boy and his mother. Within the context of the particular
it is even necessary: How else does a boy learn the art of authority he
will need to survive as an adult?
In reality, nearly everyone in a traditional society learns both how
to dominate and how to be submissive, since nearly everyone has someone
above them and below them in the social hierarchy. But note that, for
that it may offend our modern standards of equality, this is the way
lived for thousands of years. It is a very stable social system, it
for a great deal of love and friendship, and billions of people live in
2. Withdrawing families.
In fact, the main alternative is
notable for its cool indifference, if not cold hatefulness. Although
withdrawal
as a family style has always been around, it has come to dominate some
societies only in the last few hundred years, that is, since the
bourgeoisie - the merchant class - arrive on the scene in force.
The "cold" version is the older of the two, found in northern and
central Europe
and parts of Asia, and wherever merchants are a formidable class.
are very demanding of their children, who are expected to live up to
well-defined standards. Punishment is not a matter of a slap upside the
head in full anger and in
it is instead a formal
affair, a full-fledged ritual, possibly involving cutting switches and
meeting in the woodshed. Punishment is cold-blooded, done "for your own
good." Alternatively, a culture may use guilt and withdrawal of
as punishment. Either way, children in these cultures become rather
driven to succeed in whatever their culture defines as success.
All of the preceding families function by what is usually called the
authoritarian parenting style,
which is, in fact,
traditional style of parenting we find all over the world and back as
as we can see in history.& Parents are the bosses in the family,
what they say, goes.& The consequences can be harsh - physical
punishment,
verbal browbeating, social ostracism - although this does not mean
is not also plenty of love as well.
The other style of withdrawing family is called the permissive
(or laissez-faire)
style.& In this case, the child is pretty much allowed to
whatever they like, and the parent interferes only in emergency
situations.&
While we do see this style in some primitive societies with relatively
peaceful and safe environments, it is more often seen in modern
such as our own.
Changes in
attitudes about child rearing have led many people to shudder at the
of physical punishment and guilt in raising children. The newer idea is
to raise your children as your equals. A father should be a boy's best
a mother should be a daughter's soul mate. But, in the process
controlling their emotions, the parents become coolly indifferent. They
are, in fact, no longer really parents, just cohabitants with their
The children, now without any real adult guidance, turn to their peers
and to the media for their values. This is the modern, shallow,
television
Two new influences are particularly notable in regards to this new
kind of family structure:
First, school (and other educational systems, such as
apprenticeship,
in other cultures) takes up a considerable part of a child's day.&
It is, in a very real sense, a child's job.& It also seems that
is, in fact, an appropriate time for education, in that children learn
easily (relatively speaking).
And second, television - and all the various media we surround
with today - has a powerful influence on children that we are only now
starting to understand a little.& With children spending hours
day in front of one kind of screen or another, they are absorbing
cultural values at a
Unfortunately, these values may be considerably different from the
parents would like their children to have:& Constant exposure to
commercials
teaches our kids that having things is & The
violence they see, even in cartoons, teaches them that you get what you
want by taking it, and that the pain of o&
emphasis on appearance and sexuality teaches them that looks are
everything
and anything is all right if it feels good.
Between TV, movies, magazines, music, and now the internet, parents
have their job cut out for them.& This may be the first generation
of parents who have the odd task of teaching their children one thing,
while other powerful social forces are teaching them something
Sadly, many parents have completely abdicated this responsibility, and
allow their kids to see and do whatever they want.
What makes up a good, healthy, productive family? Fromm suggests it
is a family where parents take the responsibility to teach their
reason in an atmosphere of love. Growing up in this sort of family,
learn to acknowledge their freedom and to take responsibility for
themselves,
and ultimately for society as a whole.
This last style is called authoritative, which means that,
the child is given considerable freedom and input into family
decision-making,
the parent is still clearly the parent.& Rules are clearly spelled
out and never arbitrary, and punishments "fit the crime" but are not
physically
or psychological abusive.& Psychologists believe that this style
most likely to lead to good development, of course.
Of course, parents are not the only influence.& In early
childhood, and even in infancy, peers - in the
of siblings and play friends - are quite influential.& As we get
closer to adolescence, though, they begin to dominate.& As most
can see in their own children, much of childhood seems to involve you
paying less and less attention to what you think and more and more
to what their friends think.& This is, of course, a natural thing
for the child to do as they move towards independence.
Although science generally avoids making value statements, in the
of psychology, one value is comfortably accepted by everyone:& We
would like to know how best to raise children to become healthy, happy,
and productive people.& This is what the field of developmental
psychology is all about.
Infancy is usually considered the first 2 1/2 years of life.&
The first two months of infancy is called the neonatal
At this point, life is mostly a matter of satisfying one's basic
Enough milk (preferably mom's), staying warm and dry, and, of course,
Lots and lots of pooping.& More seriously, the infant needs to be
protected from harm and infection, the latter being the greatest threat
at this time of life.
In a way, the neonate is a fetus out of his or her
element.& A great deal of neurological development especially is
going on.& Since the neurons are still reproducing and growing
axons, the neonate's nervous system retains a considerable amount of
plasticity,
meaning that there is relatively little specialization of
function.&
If damage were to occur to a part of the brain, for example, another
of the brain could still take over.
Infancts can see at birth, but they are very nearsighted and can't
coordinate their eye movements.& Hearing, on the other hand, is
already at work in the womb, by about the 20th week.& Smell and
taste are sharp at birth, and babies have a preference for sweets,
which, not coincidentally, includes breast milk.
In the neonate, we can clearly see the presence of some basic
such as rooting (searching for mom's nipple) and the startle
reflex.& We can also see certain instinctual patterns:&
seem to orient towards faces and voices, especially female ones, and
to recognize their mother's voice and smell.
There have been many interesting experiments in this regard.&
use some interesting special techniques:& Some videotape the
face to keep track of where they are looking and how they are
others use a special pacifier that keeps track of the rate of sucking,
as babies suck more rapidly when they are experiencing something
interesting.
One example of an experiment looked at babies responses to various
as represented by masks, similar to the ones pictured here:
The surprising finding was that the babies seemed interested in
all the faces - even the "scary" one - except the one consisting of
eye.& It would seem that the presence of two eyes is a key feature
for infants!
The most important psychological task for the infant is called
attachment,
meaning the establishment of a tight bond with mom, dad, and other
significant
people.& This is our human version of the imprinting process we
in animals, where a baby animal learns to follow its mother.&
our infants can't walk, they make effective use of their parents'
to be attracted to babies, by cooing, gurgling, smiling, and generally
acting cute.
Physical touch seems to be crucial to attachment.& In
orphanages
in troubled countries, where there may be a significant shortage of
caregivers,
the infants are often deprived of much physical contact with the
Even when all their other needs are being met, the infants tend to
withdrawn and sickly and even die.& As the baby book says, babies
need to be held and cuddled and loved.
Attachment is normally established by 8 months or so.& Signs of
attachment include separation anxiety,
which is common between 6 and 18 months old, and stranger anxiety,
which is common
between 8 months and 24 months.
Middle infancy (about 2 to 15 months) is a period of rapid
and weight gain.& The nervous system is clearly pulling its act
and the infant has a strong drive to move and make noise.& Among
needs now are not only the presence of a loving adult, but
opportunities
to experience the environment and to explore it.& And the inborn
personality differences called temperaments become very clear.
Gordon Allport says that the infant is working on two tasks:&
developing a sense of body
and self-identity.& We
all have a body,
we feel its closeness, its warmth.& It has boundaries
that pain and injury, touch and movement, make us aware of.&
had a favorite demonstration of this aspect of self:& Imagine
saliva into a cup - and then drinking it down!& What’s the
It’s the same stuff you swallow all day long!& But, of course, it
has gone out from your bodily self and become, thereby, foreign to you.
Self-identity also develops in infancy.&
comes a point were we recognize ourselves as continuing, as having a
present, and future.& We see ourselves as individual entities,
and different from others.& We even have a name!& Will you be
the same person when you wake up tomorrow?& Of course - we take
continuity for granted.
The sensorimotor stage
Piaget's first stage is the
sensorimotor
stage.& It lasts from birth to about two years old.&
implies, the infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the
beginning with reflexes and ending with complex combinations of
sensorimotor
Between one and four months, the child works on primary circular
reactions, where an action of his own which serves as a
which it responds with the more of the same action, and around and
For example, the baby may suck her thumb.& That feels good, so she
sucks some more...& Or she may blow a bubble.& That’s
interesting
so I’ll do it again....
Between four and 12 months, the infant turns to secondary
reactions, which involve an act that extends out to the
environment:&
She may squeeze a rubber duckie.& It goes “quack.”& That’s
so do it again, and again, and again.& She is learning what Piaget
called& “procedures
that make interesting things last.”
At this point, other things begin to show up as well.& For
babies become ticklish, although they must be aware that someone else
tickling them or it won’t work.& And they begin to develop object
permanence.& This is the ability to recognize that, just
can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s gone!& Younger infants seem
to function by an “out of sight, out of mind” schema.& Older
remember, and may even try to find things they can no longer see.
Between 12 months and 24 months, the child works on tertiary
reactions.& They consist of the same “making interesting
last” cycle, except with constant variation.& I hit the drum with
the stick -- rat-tat-tat-tat.& I hit the block with the stick --
thump-thump.&
I hit the table with the stick -- clunk-clunk.& I hit daddy with
stick -- ouch-ouch.& This kind of active experimentation is best
during feeding time, when discovering new and interesting ways of
your spoon, dish, and food.
Around one and a half, the child is clearly developing mental
representation,
that is, the ability to hold an image in their mind for a period beyond
the immediate experience.& For example, they can engage in
imitation, such as throwing a tantrum after seeing another child throw
one an hour
They can use mental combinations to solve simple problems, such
as putting down a toy in order to open a door.& And they get good
at pretending.& Instead of using a doll as something
to sit on, suck on, or throw, now the child will sing to it, tuck it
bed, and so on.
Erikson's first stage
Erikson's first stage, infancy or the oral-sensory stage, is
also approximately
the first year or year and a half of life. The task is to develop trust
without completely eliminating the capacity for mistrust.
If mom and dad can give the newborn a degree of familiarity,
consistency,
and continuity, then the child will develop the feeling that the world
- especially the social world - is a safe place to be, that people
reliable and loving. Through the parents' responses, the child also
to trust his or her own body and the biological urges that go with it.
If the parents are unreliable and inadequate, if they reject the
or harm it, if other interests cause both parents to turn away from the
infants needs to satisfy their own instead, then the infant will
mistrust. He or she will be apprehensive and suspicious around people.
Please understand that this doesn't mean that the parents have to be
perfect. In fact, parents who are overly protective of the child, are
the minute the first cry comes out, will lead that child into the
maladaptive
tendency Erikson calls sensory
maladjustment: Overly
even gullible, this person cannot believe anyone would mean them harm,
and will use all the defenses at their command to retain their
perspective.
Worse, of course, is the child whose balance is tipped way over on
mistrust side: They will develop the malignant tendency of withdrawal,
characterized by depression, paranoia, and possibly psychosis.
If the proper balance is achieved, the child will develop the virtue
the strong belief that, even when things are not going well, they will
work out well in the end. One of the signs that a child is doing well
the first stage is when the child isn't overly upset by the need to
a moment for the satisfaction of his or her needs: Mom or dad don't
I trust them enough to believe that, if they can't be
immediately, th Things may be tough now, but they
will work out. This is the same ability that, in later life, gets us
disappointments in love, our careers, and many other domains of life.
young child
From 15 to 30 months, we call the baby a toddler, from the
they walk.& They are getting control over both their fine and
muscles, learning to speak, and learning& to use the potty.&
At the same time, they are developing a serious sense of independence,
strong likes and dislikes, and the ability to say no to their
This is where we get the notion of the "terrible twos."& The
aren't so easy either.
Rollo May points out that this is the first point at which we engage
in rebellion (the other
adolescence). The child develops his or
her sense of self by means of contrast with adults, from
the “no” of the two year old to the “no way” of the teenager.& The
rebellious person wants freedom, but has as yet no full understanding
the responsibility that goes with it.& The teenager may want to
their allowance in any way they choose - yet may still expect the
to provide the money, and will complain about unfairness if they don't
Allport suggest that this is the age at which we develop a sense of
self-esteem.&
also comes a time when we recognize that we have value, to others and
ourselves.& This is especially tied to a continuing development of
our competencies.
The toddler
Erikson's second stage is the anal-muscular
stage of early
childhood,
from about eighteen months to three or four years old. The task is to
a degree of autonomy while
minimizing shame and doubt.
If mom and dad (and the other care-takers that often come into the
at this point) permit the child, now a toddler, to explore and
manipulate
his or her environment, the child will develop a sense of autonomy or
independence.
The parents should not discourage the child, but neither should they
A balance is required. People often advise new parents to be "firm but
tolerant" at this stage, and the advice is good. This way, the child
develop both self-control and self-esteem.
On the other hand, it is rather easy for the child to develop
a sense of shame and doubt. If the parents come down hard on any
to explore and be independent, the child will soon give up and assume
that they cannot and should not act on their own. We should keep in
even something as innocent as laughting at the toddler's efforts can
the child to feel deeply ashamed, and to doubt his or her abilities.
And there are other ways to lead children to shame and doubt: If you
give children unrestricted freedom and no sense of limits, or if you
to help children do what they should learn to do for themselves, you
also give them the impression that they are not good for much. If you
patient enough to wait for your child to tie his or her shoe-laces,
child will never learn to tie them, and will assume that this is too
Nevertheless, a little "shame and doubt" is not only inevitable, but
beneficial. Without it, you will develop the maladaptive tendency
calls impulsiveness, a sort
of shameless willfulness that leads
you, in later childhood and even adulthood, to jump into things without
proper consideration of your abilities.
Worse, of course, is too much shame and doubt, which leads to the
malignancy
Erikson calls compulsiveness.
The compulsive person feels as if
their entire being rides on everything they do, and so everything must
be done perfectly. Following all the rules precisely keeps you from
and mistakes must be avoided at all costs. Many of you know how it
to always be ashamed and always doubt yourself. A little more patience
and tolerance with your own children may help them avoid your path. And
give yourself a little slack, too!
If you get the proper, positive balance of autonomy and shame and
you will develop the virtue of willpower
or determination. One
the most admirable - and frustrating - thing about two- and
three-year-olds
is their determination. "Can do" is their motto. If we can preserve
"can do" attitude (with appropriate modesty to balance it) we are much
better off as adults.
The preschooler
Stage three is the genital-locomotor
stage or play age. From
three or four to five or six, the task confronting every child is to
initiative
without too much guilt.
Initiative means a positive response to the world's challenges,
on responsibilities, learning new skills, feeling purposeful. Parents
encourage initiative by encouraging children to try out their ideas. We
should accept and encourage fantasy and curiosity and imagination. This
is a time for play, not for formal education. The child is now capable,
as never before, of imagining a future situation, one that isn't a
right now. Initiative is the attempt to make that non-reality a
But if children can imagine the future, if they can plan, then they
can be responsible as well, and guilty. If my two-year-old flushes my
down the toilet, I can safely assume that there were no "evil
intentions."
It was just a matter of a shiny object going round and round and down.
What fun! But if my five year old does the same thing... well, she
know what's going to happen to the watch, what's going to happen to
temper, and what's going to happen to her! She can be guilty of the
and she can begin to feel guilty as well. The capacity for moral
has arrived.
Erikson is, of course, a Freudian, and as such, he includes the
experience in this stage. From his perspective, the Oedipal crisis
the reluctance a child feels in relinquishing his or her closeness to
opposite sex parent. A parent has the responsibility, socially, to
the child to "grow up - you're not a baby anymore!" But if this
is done too harshly and too abruptly, the child learns to feel guilty
his or her feelings.
Too much initiative and too little guilt means a maladaptive
Erikson calls ruthlessness.
The ruthless person takes the
initiative
They have their plans, whether it's a matter of school or
or politics or career. It's just that they don't care who they step on
to achieve their goals. The goals are everything, and guilty feelings
for the weak. The extreme form of ruthlessess is the antisocial
personality (better known as the psychopath).
Ruthlessness is bad for others, but is actually relatively easy on
ruthless person. Harder on the person is the malignancy of too much
which Erikson calls inhibition.
The inhibited person will not
things because "nothing ventured, nothing lost" and, particularly,
to feel guilty about. On the sexual, Oedipal, side, the inhibited
may be impotent or frigid.
A good balance leads to the psychosocial strength of purpose.
A sense of purpose is something many people crave in their lives, yet
do not realize that they themselves make their own purposes, through
imagination
and initiative. I think an even better word for this virtue would have
been courage, the capacity for action despite a clear understanding of
your limitations and past failings.
Allport theorizes two aspects of the self that develop during this
age: self-extension and self-image.& Self-extension
between four and six.& Certain
people, and events around us also come to be thought of as central and
warm, essential to my existence.& “My” is very close to
“me!”&
Some people define themselves in terms of their parents, spouse, or
their clan, gang, community, college, or nation.& Some find their
identity in activities:& I’m a psychologist, a student, a
bricklayer.&
Some find identity in a place:& my house, my hometown.& When
my child does something wrong, why do I feel guilty?& If someone
my car, why do I feel like they just punched me in the stomach?
Self-image also develops between four and six.& This is
the “looking-glass self,” the me as others see me.& This is the
impression
I make on others, my “look,” my social esteem or status, including my
identity.& It is the beginning of what others call conscience,
ideal self, or
Preoperational stage
Piaget's preoperational
stage lasts from about two to about seven
old, covering both the toddler and preschool stages.&
Now that the child has mental representations and is able to
is a short step to the use of symbols.
A symbol is a thing that represents something else.& A drawing,
a written word, or a spoken word comes to be understood as representing
a real dog.& The use of language is, of course, the prime example,
but another good example of symbol use is creative play,
checkers are cookies, papers are dishes, a box is the table, and so
By manipulating symbols, we are essentially thinking in a way the
could not:& in the absence of the actual objects involved!
Along with symbolization, there is a clear understanding of past and
future.& for example, if a child is crying for its mother, and you
say “Mommy will be home soon,” it will now tend to stop crying.&
if you ask him, “Remember when you fell down?” he will respond by
a sad face.
On the other hand, the child is quite egocentric during this
stage, that is, he sees things pretty much from one point of
his own!& She may hold up a picture so only she can see it and
you to see it too. Or she may explain that grass grows so she won’t get
hurt when she falls.
Piaget did a study to investigate this phenomenon:& He would
put children in front of a simple plaster
range and seat himself to the side, then ask them to pick from four
the view that he, Piaget, would see.& Younger children would pick
the picture of the view older kids picked
correctly.
Similarly, younger children center on one aspect of any
or communication at a time.& For example, they may not understand
you when you tell them “Your father is my husband.”& Or they may
things like “I don’t live in the USA; I live in Pennsylvania!”&
if you show them five black and three white marbles and ask them “Are
more marbles or more black marbles?” they will respond “More black
ones!”
Perhaps the most famous example of the preoperational child’s
is what Piaget refers to as their inability to conserve liquid
If I give a three year old some chocolate milk in a tall skinny glass,
and I give myself a whole lot more in a short fat glass, she will tend
to focus on only one of the dimensions of the glass.& Since the
in the tall skinny glass goes up much higher, she is likely to assume
there is more milk in that one than in the short fat glass, even though
there is far more in the latter.& It is the development of the
ability to decenter that marks him as having moved to the next
Erikson's fourth stage is called the latency stage, and it
about six to twelve. The task is to develop a capacity for industry
while avoiding an excessive sense of inferiority.
Children must
"tame the imagination" and dedicate themselves to education and to
the social skills their society requires of them.& Gordon Allport
has a very similar idea of this age.& He calles it "rational
coping," and involves the child developing his or her abilities to deal
with life's problems rationally and effectively.
There is a much broader social sphere at work now: The parents and
family members are joined by teachers and peers and other members of he
community at large. They all contribute: Parents must encourage,
must care, peers must accept. Children must learn that there is
not only in conceiving a plan, but in carrying it out. They must learn
the feeling of success, whether it is in school or on the playground,
or social.
A good way to tell the difference between a child in the third stage
and one in the fourth stage is to look at the way they play games.
Four-year-olds
may love games, but they will have only a vague understanding of the
may change them several times during the course of the game, and be
unlikely to actually finish the game, unless it is by throwing the
at their opponents. A seven-year-old, on the other hand, is dedicated
the rules, considers them pretty much sacred, and is more likely to get
upset if the game is not
allowed to come to its required conclusion.
If the child is allowed too little success, because of harsh
or rejecting peers, for example, then he or she will develop instead a
sense of inferiority or incompetence. An additional source of
inferiority
Erikson mentions is racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination:
If a child believes that success is related to who you are rather than
to how hard you try, then why try?
Too much industry leads to the maladaptive tendency called narrow
virtuosity. We see this in children who aren't allowed to "be
children,"
the ones that parents or teachers push into one area of competence,
allowing the development of broader interests. These are the kids
a life: child actors, child athletes, child musicians, child prodigies
of all sorts. We all admire their industry, but if we look a little
it's all that stands between them and an empty life.
Much more common is the malignancy called inertia. This
all of us who suffer from the "inferiority complexes" Alfred Adler
about. If at first you don't succeed, don't ever try again! Many of us
didn't do well in mathematics, for example, so we'd rather die than we
another math class. Others were humiliated instead in the gym class, so
we never try out for a sport or play a game of raquetball. Others never
developed social skills - the most important skills of all - and so
never go out in public. We become inert.
A happier thing is to develop the right balance of industry and
inferiority
-- that is, mostly industry with just a touch of inferiority to keep us
sensibly humble. Then we have the virtue called competency.
Concrete operations
The concrete operations
stage lasts from about seven to about
The word operations refers to logical operations or principles
use when solving problems.& In this stage, the child not only uses
symbols representationally, but can manipulate those symbols
logically.&
Quite an accomplishment! But, at this point, they must still perform
operations within the context of concrete situations.
The stage begins with progressive decentering.&
most children develop the ability to conserve number, length,
liquid volume.& Conservation
refers to the idea that a
remains the same despite changes in appearance.& If you show a
four marbles in a row, then spread them out, the preoperational child
focus on the spread, and tend to believe that there are now more
than before.
Or if you have two five inch sticks laid parallel to each other,
move one of them a little, she may believe that the moved stick is now
longer than the other.
The concrete operations child, on the other hand, will know that
are still four marbles, and that the stick doesn’t change length even
it now extends beyond the other.& And he will know that you have
look at more than just the height of the milk in the glass:& If
pour the milk from the short, fat glass into the tall, skinny glass, he
will tell you that there is the same amount of milk as before, despite
the dramatic increase in milk-level!
By seven or eight years old, children develop conservation of
substance:&
If I take a ball of clay and roll it into a long thin rod, or even
it into ten little pieces, the child knows that there is still the same
amount of clay.& And he will know that, if you rolled it all back
into a single ball, it would look quite the same as it did - a feature
known as reversibility.
By nine or ten, the last of the conservation tests is
mastered:&
conservation of area.& If you take four one-inch square blocks,
and lay them on a six-by-six cloth together in the center, the
who conserves will know that they take up just as much room as the same
squares spread out in the corners, or, for that matter, anywhere at
all.& Actually, many adults have trouble with this.
If all this sounds too easy to be such a big deal, test your friends
on conservation of mass:& Which is heavier:& a million tons
lead, or a million tons of feathers?& Some of them will "center"
on the words "lead" and "feathers", and not even notice that you
actually said that they each weigh a ton.
In addition, a child learns classification
and seriation
during this stage.& Classification refers back to the question of
whether there are more marbles or more black marbles?& Now the
begins to get the idea that one set can include another.&
is putting things in order.& The younger child may start putting
in order by, say size, but will quickly lose track.& Now the child
has no problem with such a task.& Since arithmetic is essentially
nothing more than classification and seriation, the child is now ready
for some formal education!
Adolescence
Puberty is the beginning of adolescence.& But when is
exactly?& The hormonal changes begin as early as 8 years
But the physical changes don't usually make themselves known for
years later.
In modern western societies, we usually say that puberty starts
11 and 12 years old for girls, and between 12 and 13 for boys.&
of all girls will start somewhere between 8 1/2 and 13, and boys a year
or more later, between 9 1/2 and 15.
The first clear sign of puberty for girls is the beginnings of
development, around the age of 12. There is also an overall growth
that begins around 10 1/2, peaks at 12, and begins to slow around
But the main mark of puberty is menarche (pronounced MEN-ark-ee),
the first period.&& In modern western societies, it tends to
happen between 12 and 13.
Curiously, in 1890, a girl's first period tended to occur at 14 or
In 1840, it often began as late as 17!& It is thought that this
due to differences in nutrition.& Also notice that the average age
which a woman marries today is around 25.& In 1890, it was around
22.& In the Middle Ages, it could be as young as 12 or 14.&
that Romeo and Juliet were only 16!)
The first mark of puberty in boys is the start of testes growth
the age of 13, and penis growth around 14.& The growth spurt for
tends to begin at 12 1/2, peak at 14, and slow by 16 -- hence the
sight of girls towering over their partners at school dances!
The growth spurt we mentioned is about 8 to 10 cm (3 to& 4
of height a year for both girls and boys -- similar to the rate of
back when they were only 2 years old!& With this spurt, there is a
significant loss of fat in boys, especially in the limbs, which
for the common "beanpole" look among adolescents.& Girls may also
lose fat, but not as dramatically as boys.& An unfortunate
today, however, is the onset of obesity in adolescence due to the high
fat, high sugar diet many teens adopt.
Adolescence is definitely a time of increasing strength:& A 14
year old boy has 14 times the number of muscle cells of a 5 year old
14 year old girl has 10 times the muscle cells of a 5 year old girl.
Psychologically, adolescence is a pretty busy time.& Becoming a
sexual adult involves a number of things that may very well have
instinctual
roots:& Boys compete with each other for attention with shows of
ability and acts of daring, often bor girls
for the attention of boys, most commonly by attempting to enhance their
appearance.& Different cultures have different details, but the
is pretty universal.
The single most important thing seems to be social acceptance.&
If you do not have a circle of friends, in the teenage world you are
For many teenagers, whether their isolation is due to a family move or
social inhibition, physical abnormalities or not meeting local
of attractiveness, not being accepted is a cause of depression and
suicide.& I believe this response is very likely one we have
from our very social pre-human ancestors:& If you don't have your
group, you might
as well be dead.
In later adolescence, two things dominate a teenager's mind:&
a boyfriend or girlfriend and finding a way to make a living.& The
way these needs are expressed can range from trying to have sex with
will have you and making, borrowing, or stealing enough money to make a
good showing, to a serious effort at creating the foundation for a
partnership and family based in love and training for a financially and
personally rewarding career.
The end of adolescence is as much a social
as a physiological thing, so it is very hard to say when that is, but
western cultures, we usually think of 18 as a convenient mark.&
But, with work and family delayed as long as we do, a lot of the
traditional tasks of adolescents continue well into the 20's.&
Think about it: Why is it (in the US anyway) you can drive, go to
college, vote for the president, and die in foreign wars when you are
18 - but you can't have a beer till you're 21?& You are not
considered mature enough!
Because the adolescent is in the process of breaking away from his
her parents, there is often conflict between them.& Ideally,
adolescents
acknowledge their parents wisdom and politely leave the house, while
trust their children to make their own decisions and let them go.&
Unfortunately, it often doesn't work that way.& It is almost as if
nature is making us so repugnant to each other that we are absolutely
to go our separate ways.
These conflicts between parents and their adolescent children go
many generations.& Socrates and other Greek philosophers
complained
about this upcoming generation of spoiled slackers, as did writers in
renaissance and all the centuries.& Here's a paraphrase of one
complaint:
"Where did you go?"
"I did not go anywhere."
"If you did not go anywhere, why do you idle about?& Go to
school...&
Do not wander about in the street....& Don't stand about in the
square or wander about the boulevard....& You who wander about in
the public square, would you achieve success?...& Because my heart
had been sated with weariness of you, I kept away from you and heeded
your fears and grumblings....& Because of your clamorings... I was
angry with you....& Because you do not look to your humanity, my
was carried off as if by an evil wind.& Your grumblings have put
end to me, you have brought me to the point of death."
This is a piece of a conversation between a Sumerian youth and his
recorded in cuneiform some 3 or 4 thousand years ago.& (From S. N.
Kramer, The Sumerians, University of Chicago Press,
Funny, I could have sworn I heard this conversation just the other day!
Ego identity
According to Erikson, the task during adolescence is to achieve ego
identity and avoid role
confusion. It was adolescence that
interested
Erikson first and most, and the patterns he saw here were the bases for
his thinking about all the other stages.
Ego identity means knowing who you are and how you fit in to the
of society. It requires that you take all you've learned about life and
yourself and mold it into a unified self-image, one that your community
finds meaningful.
Gordon Allport has a similar view of adolescence:& He calls it
propriate stiving.& This
is my self as goals, ideals, plans,
vocations, callings,
a sense of direction, a sense of purpose.& The culmination of
striving, according to Allport, is the ability to say that I am the
proprietor
of my life -- i.e. the owner and operator!
There are a number of things that make things easier: First, we
have a mainstream adult culture that is worthy of the adolescent's
one with good adult role models and open lines of communication.
Further, society should provide clear rites of passage,
accomplishments and rituals that help to distinguish the adult from the
child. In primitive and traditional societies, an adolescent boy may be
asked to leave the village for a period of time to live on his own,
some symbolic animal, or seek an inspirational vision. Boys and girls
be required to go through certain tests of endurance, symbolic
ceremonies,
or educational events. In one way or another, the distinction between
powerless, but carefree, time of childhood and the powerful and
responsible
time of adulthood, is made clear.
Without these things, we are likely to see role confusion, meaning
uncertainty about one's place in society and the world. When an
adolescent
is confronted by role confusion, Erikson says he or she is suffering
an identity crisis. In fact, a common question adolescents in our
ask is a straight-forward question of identity: "Who am I?"
One of Erikson's suggestions for adolescence in our society is the
psychosocial
moratorium. He suggests you take a little "time out." If you
go to Europe. If you don't, bum around the U.S. Quit school and get a
Quit your job and go to school. Take a break, smell the roses, get to
yourself. We tend to want to get to "success" as fast as possible, and
yet few of us have ever taken the time to figure out what success means
to us. A little like the young man from an aboriginal tribe, perhaps we
need to dream
There is such a thing as too much "ego identity," where a person is
so involved in a particular role in a particular society or subculture
that there is no room left for tolerance. Erikson calls this
maladaptive
tendency fanaticism. A
fanatic believes that his way is the
way. (Adolescents are, of course, known for their idealism, and for
tendency to see things in black-and-white.) Fanatics will gather
around them and promote their beliefs and life-styles without regard to
others' rights to disagree.
The lack of identity is perhaps more difficult still, and Erikson
to the malignant tendency here as repudiation.
They repudiate
membership in the world of adults and, even more, they repudiate their
need for an identity. Some adolescents allow themselves to "fuse" with
a group, especially the kind of group that is particularly eager to
the details of your identity: religious cults, militaristic
organizations,
groups founded on hatred, groups that have divorced themselves from the
painful demands of mainstream society. They may become involved in
destructive
activities, drugs, or alcohol, or you may withdraw into their own
fantasies. After all, being "bad" or being "nobody" is better than not
knowing who you are!
If you successfully negotiate this stage, you will have the virtue
called fidelity. Fidelity
means loyalty, the ability to live by
societies standards despite their imperfections and incompleteness and
inconsistencies. We are not talking about blind loyalty, and we are not
talking about accepting the imperfections. After all, if you love your
community, you will want to see it become the best it can be. But
means that you have found a place in that community, a place that will
allow you to contribute.
Formal operations
The concrete operations child has a hard time applying his
logical abilities to non-concrete - i.e. abstract - events.& If
mom says to junior “You shouldn’t make fun of that boy’s nose.&
would you feel if someone did that to you?” he is likely to respond “I
don’t have a big nose!”& Even this simple lesson may well be too
too hypothetical, for his kind of thinking.
Don’t judge the concrete operations child too harshly, though.&
Even adults are often taken-aback when we present them with something
hypothetical:&
“If Edith has a lighter complexion than Susan, and Edith is darker than
Lily, who is the darkest?”& Most people need a moment or two
before they can answer.
From around 12 on, we enter the formal
operations stage.& Here
we become increasingly competent at adult-style thinking.& This
using logical operations, and using them in the abstract, rather than
concrete.& We often call this hypothetical
It is the formal operations stage that allows one to investigate a
in a careful and systematic fashion.& Ask a 16 year old to tell
the rules for making pendulums swing quickly or slowly, and he may
like this:
A long string with a light weight - let’s see how fast
A long string with a heavy weight - let’s try that.
Now, a short string with a light weight.
And finally, a short string with a heavy weight.
His experiment - and it is an experiment - would tell him that a
string leads to a fast swing, and a long string to a slow swing, and
the weight of the pendulum means nothing at all!
The teenager has learned to group possibilities in four different
By conjunction:& “Both A and B make a
difference”
(e.g. both the string’s length and the pendulum’s weight).
By disjunction:& “It’s either this or that” (e.g.
it’s either
the length or the weight).
By implication:& “If it’s this, then that will
happen” (the
formation of a hypothesis).
By incompatibility:& “When this happens, that
doesn’t” (the
elimination of a hypothesis).
On top of that, he can operate on the operations - a higher level of
grouping.&
If you have a proposition, such as “it could be the string or the
weight,”
you can do four things with it:
Identity:& Leave it alone. “It could be the
or the weight.”
Negation:& Negate the components and replace or’s with
and’s
(and vice versa). “It might not be the string and not the weight,
either.”
Reciprocity:& Negate the components but keep the and’s
or’s as they are.& “Either it is not the weight or it is not the
string.”
Correlativity:& Keep the components as they are, but
or’s with and’s, etc.& “It’s the weight and the string.”
Someone who has developed his or her formal operations will understand
that the correlate of a reciprocal is a negation, that a reciprocal of
a negation is a correlate, that the negation of a correlate is a
reciprocal,
and that the negation of a reciprocal of a correlate is an identity
(phew!!!).
Maybe it has already occured to you:& It doesn’t seem that the
formal operations stage is something everyone actually gets to.&
those of us who do don’t operate in it at all times.& Even some
it seems, don’t develop it or value it like ours does.& Abstract
is simply not universal.
If you have made it this far, you are in stage six, the stage of young
adulthood,
which lasts from about 18 to about 30. The ages in the adult stages are
much fuzzier than in the childhood stages, and people may differ
dramatically.
The task of young adulthood is to achieve some degree of intimacy,
as opposed to
in isolation.
Intimacy is the ability to be close to others, as a lover, a friend,
and as a participant in society. Because you have a clear sense of who
you are, you no longer need to fear "losing" yourself, as many
adolescents
do. The "fear of commitment" some people seem to exhibit is an example
of immaturity in this stage. This fear isn't always so obvious. Many
today are always putting off the progress of their relationships: I'll
get married (or have a family, or get involved in important social
as soon as I finish school, as soon as I have a job, as soon as I have
a house, as soon as.... If you've been engaged for the last ten years,
what's holding you back?
Neither should the young adult need to prove him- or herself
A teenage relationship is often a matter of trying to establish
through "couple-hood": Who am I? I'm her boy-friend. The young adult
relationship
should be a matter of two independent egos wanting to create something
larger than themselves.
Our society hasn't done much for young adults, either. The emphasis
on careers, the isolation of urban living, the splitting apart of
relationships
because of our need for mobility, and the general impersonal nature of
modern life prevent people from naturally developing their intimate
relationships.
I am typical of many people in having moved dozens of times in my life.
I haven't the faintest idea what has happened to the kids I grew up
or even my college buddies. My oldest friend lives a thousand miles
I live where I do out of career necessity and, until recently, ha}