June 18, 2005
Fathers and the lessons they teach...
Yesterday I was cleaning up some papers in my office and came across a piece I wrote exactly a year ago. It seems fitting to post it on Father's Day Eve...
In the early 1980s, I started thinking that my father had “gone soft.” He wasn’t as achievement oriented or hard-driving as I knew him to be, and I was wondering what had happened. I didn’t have the courage, gumption, or wherewithal to ask Dad what had changed before he died in 1985 at age 55, and I have often wondered what he would have said had I asked.So, I had a field day reading “Aging Well—Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life.” The author, George Vaillant, describes in great detail the adult development process. The data and anecdotes are drawn from the Harvard Study of Adult Development—the longest running longitudinal study in the world. Comprising three different cohorts, the ongoing study includes members of the study were born in 1910, 1920, and in the 1930s.
Many findings in the book are surprising—for example, the results suggest that what goes right in childhood predicts the future far better than what goes wrong. Wow. Imagine the effect this idea could have in the courtrooms of the U.S. Another finding, by the time you are 50, the factors that predict successful aging (aside from your genes…) are within your control. The early life factors are no longer relevant. It seems that those who age successfully are masters at re-inventing themselves and at different times in life different adjustments and adaptations are appropriate.
Particularly interesting, I thought, was the detailed description of adult development. Vaillant expands Erik Erikson’s model and suggests that unlike child development,
which is for the most part sequential and predictable, where stage 1 must occur and be completed before stage 2, adult development is a set of six tasks that can be worked on in any order and concurrently. During early adulthood, the three primary tasks are:
- Identity—developing a sense of one’s self
- Intimacy—developing an interdependent reciprocal committed relationship that lasts for a decade or more
- Career consolidation—establishing a social identity
In later adulthood the tasks are:
- Generativity—Guiding and caring for specific individuals in the next generation, while respecting their autonomy
- Keeping the meaning—Conserving the principles of the past
- Integrity—Accepting one’s life as it is and as it was even in the face of death
I think what I observed in my father was his working on those last three tasks. And I think I’m observing myself working on those same tasks now. And I wouldn't have understood any of this twenty years ago.
Posted by Kerry at 07:11 PM | Comments (0)