Levinson Mid-Life

Growing up we always hear people around us or in movies talk about a “mid-life crises,” and we’ve never really understood what they talk about because we hadn’t experienced it ourselves. In Gail Sheehy’s essay “Predictable Crises of Adulthood,” she writes about each a crisis that can occur in each stage of a human’s life. She break’s our lives into six stages. “Pulling Up Roots”, “Trying Twenties”, “Catch-30,” “Rooting and Extending”, “The Deadline Decade”, and “Renewal or Resignation”. I can’t relate to all but one of these topics because I have not lived them. The only stage I can relate to is Pulling Up Roots, because I just turned 18 and still learning about life. From my experience, Sheehy’s crises claim in the Pulling Up Roots stage is accurate for me.

It is, however, very common and seen by people who can recognize others make drastic changes. It is common to see a man buy a sports car or a woman go on a shopping spree to improve their looks. For whatever reason, adults who undergo such a change do so in ways that are concerning. Counseling could help, but some are not fond of telling their feelings to a random person, so they rather help themselves in the ways they know they can. The midlife crisis is common and can happen at anytime. Happiness in all aspects needs to be fulfilled to prevent radical changes. The midlife crisis is about fulfilling the unfulfilled and turning back the clock – by any

Mid-life crisis explain as a extremity in a middle ages, in people’s lives. Where middle ages may face a disappearance of identity and reduce their self-confidence. Midlife crisis has been known around the world for many years but has not always been believed by everyone because not everyone face it. Mid-life crisis is more of a normal change period that generally happen the time of a major life event that emphasizes getting older. A midlife crisis is something more person dependent rather than something everyone experiences. People go through many different experiences in their lives that happen at different time periods in their lives. Some experiences may seem worse than others and can make people feel like they will never be equal to anyone. On the other side, Some people may not experience any type of crisis during their middle age years. As we grow older we begin to put people aside and focus on new experiences in our lives such as having a career or having children. I accept that midlife crises do exist, but I am sure not everyone believe the same because some people might not happen .

Late Adulthood is a time in people’s lives when they come to terms with their lives and reevaluate what they have done or accomplished in the lieu of what they still would like to accomplish for the remainder of their lives. During this stage of life adults around the ages of 65 begin to experience a variety of changes in their physical appearance and a decline in their health. The process of aging in an individual occurs at different speeds and during this stage older adults are being treated as second-class citizens especially by younger adults. The skin begins to wrinkle at an

The area of greatest disagreement was the area of midlife crisis. “Levinson (1978) views midlife as a crisis, arguing that the middle-aged adult is suspended between the past and the future, trying to cope with this gap that threatens life’s continuity (Santrock, 2013 p. 512). This is particularly interesting because the female responded that she was experiencing a midlife crisis and the male did not. However, in this instance, the female is still in the workforce and the male is retired. The experiences that the female related closely resemble the conditions of the male during the time of Levinson’s study. In addition to still working, the female had recently changed her place of employment, and within the past five years lost both of her parents. While the male was retired and took care of the house and children, his stress level had been reduced as he became the primary care giver to this in-laws and their passing reduced his overall daily responsibilities. Both maintain close relationships with their siblings and frequently get together with them.

The world around us has many current issues that relate one way or another to family and consumer science. I recently read an article written by Joan R. McFadden and Kay T. Rawson Swan, entitled “Women During Midlife: Is It Transition or Crisis?”. The article talked about how women go through the different stages of menopause also known as mid-life crisis to some. With a mid-life crisis it is stated to involve a feeling of loneliness, a period of wanting to find one’s self in the world, a time to reinvent yourself, to live outside of a woman’s everyday life style, and to experience changes in health and family roles. For many women these statements are said to be true, but not all women are the same.

Someone who would be going through a “Mid-life crisis” is that of the age between 40 and 60("Development in midlife," 2004). It is the point during our lives where we go through periods of self-doubt, this is a natural and normal process ("Development in midlife," 2004). A mid-life crisis can be triggered by different experiences, for instance, children leaving the home, death of a parent or someone close, mid-life transition to

According to Levinson’s Eras of life, Tina (42) is in the early adulthood era, where are often made the major life decision, critical choices and she is also going through the midlife transition (Levinson, 1986, p. 8). “The Midlife Transition, from roughly age 40 to 45, brings about the termination of early adulthood and the start of middle adulthood (Levinson, 1986, p. 5).” As she was disclosing, the reflective component (Levinson, 1986, p. 5) of the mid-life transition was prominent. When she would mention a memory from her childhood or adolescent years, she would pause and after stating the facts she would interpret how she viewed it then and how she views it now and how she might have reacted if it would have happened in the here and now.

Sheehy goes on to tell us more about the crisis of life. The next three crises I cannot relate to since I’m in the trying twenties. Catch-30 emphasizes major growth towards becoming a mature adult. We tend to outgrow our current career and our trying twenty tendencies. Everything takes a turn in your thirties. I think this is where you really start to mature as an adult. I know a lot of factors can force responsibility on you to reach this peak earlier such as having a baby or getting married young. Sheehy states “One of the common responses is tearing up of the life we spent most of twenties putting together” (7). We turn our goals into more realistic ones and we yearn for change. Whether it’s changing jobs or creating a family. In our thirties men and women feel as if they are restricted and have a need to go above and beyond. Couples mutuality and grow in separate directions.

Late adulthood is a time many people tend to suppress in their minds. Late adulthood is often considered a time of physical and mental decline, but in reality for many older adults it is a time of mental and spiritual growth. During late adulthood, people tend to start reflecting on their lives and what is really important. During younger ages, people tend to focus on things that may not matter in the future, and spend time worrying about things that are unimportant. Through interviewing older adults, younger people can learn several important life lessons and begin to appreciate the things that really matter in life.

     During this time, there may be turmoil in the family, marital distress, and general dissatisfaction with our lives. Many people during this time go through what we call the "mid-life crisis". A mid-life crisis may be caused by many different issues. During the early 30’s, the woman’s primary duty is child rearing and may also be pursuing a career. Most men focus on

A mid-life crisis is something a person will experience between the ages of 40 and 60. Some of the causes of a mid-life crisis are the loss of someone close to you, debt, or someone that has an avoidant personality in which they avoid feelings and conflicts in their relationships. When experiencing the death of a family member or close friend it causes grief which is difficult to handle and on top of that they are trying to cope with a mid-life transition. When you combine your mid-life feelings with the loss of a close one, the process and the feelings become overwhelming. Debt is something that a person can easily fall into with things such as credit cards and loans because credit card companies are always trying to get people to get

The stage that follows early adulthood is known as middle adulthood where people are generally caught between being productive and being stagnant. This stage reflects the need to create a living legacy: they would either need to feel they have become an important figure for the next generation to follow or they would develop a sense of purposelessness which is generally known as a “mid-life crisis”. This crisis can be solved by having the adults care and nurture children or help the fore-coming generation in other ways or means, however if the crisis remains the person would persist in random non-age-appropriate behavior as well as a continued feeling in stagnation. During this stage adults lose some of their physical aspects as their muscular strength, ability and agility weakens. Women will go through a menopausal

Middle-aged adults experience change in many different areas of their life at this time, they will find that not only their health is changing, but their appearance, their family, their thinking, and their emotions are changes as well. When discussing people that fall into the middle adulthood age of life, the term “midlife crisis” is often used, but according to an article titled Middle Adulthood Developmental Psychology, “most people during middle adulthood are satisfied and pleased with their lives”, ("Physical Changes," 2008-2013, expression 1). This article also states that the age range for middle adulthood is approximately age thirty-five to sixty-four. Midlife crisis is a when an individual views themselves and are unhappy with

From adolescence to late adulthood, our lives change drastically. Our goals, achievements and conceptions of life differentiate as we mature. As we grow older, we no longer concern ourselves with self-identity or the opinions of others, but instead we focus on our accomplishments and evaluate our life (if we lived a meaningful life). From adolescence to late adulthood, we experience different developmental tasks at a particular place in our life span.